The one piece of advice that we, as real estate professionals, always hear is I am going to try to sell it myself and save the realtor commission and sometimes, wouldn’t you know it, such a tactic actually works. But other times, it doesn’t, and the homeowner is left watching the value of their home drop, while the mortgage ticks up.
So what is the inside scoop should you try to sell by owner? Is it worth it to save a 6% commission? The honest truth is, sometimes but there is very little chance of actually figuring out when that sometimes is going to happen.
Real estate agents do provide a valuable service for all the money they take off you. They will guide you through the sales process, tell you what the weaknesses in your property are, they will run ads for you online and in print, they will handle the paperwork, negotiate a price there is a reason they take as much cash for their time, and that is that they are good at what you are not and provide you with the inside info.
Added to that, more than a few property owners who have tried to sell their homes on their own have found their sale harpooned at the last moment because they didn’t have all the paperwork done, or the buyer hadn’t been properly checked out and backed out late, or the property inspection revealed something was wrong that would require big money to fix. At the same time, there are plenty of happy sale by owner sellers for whom everything went great.
What it all boils down to, in this case would have to be: Do you really want to take the chance on something going wrong when it comes to making a profit from your original investment?
