Thinking of Selling Your Home Yourself? Think Again…

Surveys show that many homeowners and homebuyers are not aware of the true value a REALTOR® provides during the course of a real estate transaction.

The National Association of Realtors found that homes sold through the Multi-Listing Service sold 20 days faster on average, and 20% of FSBO listings had to renew their listing on the MLS because they didn’t sell. … There’s a reason a real estate agent is a full-time job.

Most people hire a real estate agent to sell their home. In fact, 91% of Texans did so in 2020, according to research by the National Association of REALTORS®. If you are considering selling your home on your own, make sure you know what you are in for. The process can be complicated and the stakes high.

Here are just a few of the many reasons a REALTOR® is the best choice to help you sell your home:

Nobody Knows the Market Better Than a REALTOR®
REALTORS® are engaged every day in buying and selling real estate. They know what factors help a property sell quickly and for the highest price. They also understand what causes homes to languish on the market. A REALTOR® will help you make the best decisions to realize your goals.

A REALTOR® Can Help You Get Ready to Sell
Wondering what updates to tackle before putting your home on the market? Unsure how to price your property? What you decide could lead to tens of thousands of dollars in gains or losses. A REALTOR® brings a wealth of experience to help you optimize your sale in these and many other areas. You won’t have to figure out on your own what disclosures are required, which forms to use, and other important considerations.

REALTORS® Make the Whole Process Smoother
It’s exciting when your home goes under contract. But there’s a long road from accepting an offer to successfully closing a sale. A REALTOR® is your trusted resource to guide you the rest of way. A REALTOR® can also help you deal with surprises that pop up with appraisals, inspections, insurance, your loan, and dozens of other steps required to successfully sell your home.

Not All Agents are REALTORS®
Only REALTORS® pledge to follow a strict code of ethics and are expected to maintain a high level of real estate knowledge. When you are thinking of selling your home, talk to a REALTOR®.

February 3, 2021, By FastExpert

Here is a great article why selling your home on your own (For Sale by Owner – FSBO) might not be the best option:

Reasons FSBO Home Sellers Fail

Not Understanding the Process
Selling a house is not as easy as selling a car. It’s an extensive process that demands a lot of knowledge, patience and time. You have to understand everything that goes on between deciding to sell your house and its payment finally arriving in your account.

First, you have to familiarize yourself with all the relevant legalities that go into preparing the contract for the sale of your house. This is crucial for home sellers without an agent. You will have to hire a real estate attorney for that or else you could get yourself into legal trouble quickly. If you choose to list your home FSBO, you should consult a real estate attorney before listing your house for sale.

If you are listing your home on your own, you are effectively the agent of your own house. Make sure to be sure to become a good one. There are plenty of acronyms and other terms to be aware of in the real estate industry.

Research everything, from the FSBO listing websites to the cost or repairs demanded by potential home buyers. Try to reach as many potential home buyers as you can using social media and your personal contacts. Figure out what makes a house desirable for a buyer and what are the deal-killers, and finally, be a patient negotiator.

Even the most savvy FSBO sellers won’t be experts in all things real estate. With all the research you can do on your own, you will still get your home sold faster and at a higher price with a quality real estate agent. The process will be easy for you and you can confidently avoid legal trouble from doing your own legal work incorrectly. 

Not Knowing the Value of Your Property
People who list their home on their own often make a huge mistake before they even get to show their home to potential buyers. 

Everyone is emotionally attached to their home. This makes it harder to objectively price the property and understand its value from the buyer’s point of view. Buyers will point out problems in your home that you don’t even consider noteworthy. And they will negotiate for a lower price. 

Pricing the house accurately is crucial. When an agent helps you price a house, they do it with a wealth of experience backing their numbers. They’ll account for the state of the real estate market and a variety of factors that will influence the value of your home and the time it takes to sell. 

If you are doing it yourself, you must research the current housing market trends. It helps to find the median price of a property in your neighborhood and prepare a realistic estimate of the necessary repairs.

This is something you will have to reevaluate after every potential client’s visit. It is also important to stay objective and not get emotional when buyers seem to undervalue your beloved home.

Know that in most cases, properties sold through a realtor sell for a much higher price than the ones sold by the owners. FSBO owners typically sell their home for less than 94% of the price they would have sold with a real estate agent, so the safer option is to hire a realtor to help you sell. 

Bad Marketing and Poor Home Showings 
Even though the FSBO sites are a great way to place your house in a listing, the number of potential buyers on those sites will be dramatically lower than an agent’s.

You can mitigate this problem by marketing to potential clients in other ways, like advertising open houses through your social media accounts. Even still, unless you have a prominent following on social media or want to pay for ads, this may not attract any people to view your home besides your friends and family. 

If you list your house on your own, you should always be ready to show your house. It would drastically shrink the list of potential home buyers if you are only available to show your house on weekends or after working hours. Because you already have a smaller list of potential buyers because of your FSBO listing, you can’t afford to miss any showings for potential buyers.

When you consider listing your house as FSBO, you will have to be positive, enthusiastic, and energetic when you show your house to strangers. It is typical that viewers will complain about the worn staircases, creaky doors, and other quirks about your house they find undesirable. 

If you work all day and must do showings right after, you must ask yourself, can you handle that after a hard day of work? 

For most people, it’s better to let a realtor field buyer’s complaints and market your home so that you can sleep easy and keep your free time free.

Bad Negotiating
The trickiest and most important part of selling a home is undoubtedly the final negotiations. 

Negotiating is a skill that many people feel they are intuitively good at, but a lot of people overestimate their ability to facilitate a good negotiation- especially when negotiating terms for a sale they aren’t well versed in…

Negotiating is a skill that takes practice and negotiating terms for a real estate sale takes practice and expertise. There are so many variables to take into account that it is nearly impossible for a lay person to have the skills or knowledge to do this well. 

Think about these examples:

How much lower than the listing price would you be willing to sell for?
Someone is willing to buy the house at your price, but is not willing to put in the earnest money (money someone puts down to show they are serious about buying), what would you do? 
If the buyer hands you a list of thousands of dollars’ worth of repairs as part of the contract, will you be able to re-negotiate the final price? 
Do you know what a rent-back agreement is and how much that is worth to you if the buyer isn’t open to the idea? 
Would you sell to someone who isn’t a pre-approved buyer? Would your price be different for a buyer who isn’t pre-approved?
If someone was willing to pay cash, how much would you be willing to sell for?
If your first buyer lowballs your offer and says, “Take it or leave it.” what would you do? 
If your home has been on the market for months and your only buyer gives you a lowball offer, what would you do? 
 

These final negotiations are the hardest part of closing the deal without an agent. Many properties for sale by owners either sit for months because the owners are unable to close the deals or end up selling the house at far too low a price because of inexperience in negotiating.

Conclusion
These are just a few problems that come with selling a house without an agent or a realtor. With diligence, patience, and proper research, you might get lucky and sell your house at the same price you would have with a realtor. 

Slapping solar panels on the roof may save homeowners some money on their electric bill, but will it also raise their home’s value when they sell it? 

Many homeowners consider adding solar panels for one (or a combination) of three reasons:

1. They’re environmentally conscious.
2. They’re looking to save money.
3. They think it will add value to their home when they sell it.

Very few people will argue against it being an earth-friendly decision to make if that’s the motivation.

And, theoretically, they should save you money on electricity. But you should do some serious math before signing on the bottom line. They may cost you more to install and upkeep than the savings they will generate, depending upon how long you plan on staying in the home.

However, if you’re doing it with the notion that it’ll add value to your home when you sell, you may want to think twice before signing on the dotted line.

First of all, it’s difficult to quantify how much, if anything, solar panels add to the bottom line when you sell your house. But more importantly, they could limit your pool of buyers considerably for a few reasons:

• Some buyers just aren’t into how they look on a house… You could argue that it’s awful for a buyer to judge them based upon aesthetics, but buyers turn their noses up at houses for even a paint color they don’t like which they could easily change.
• It might cost them… If you leased the system, they could be on the hook for the remaining term of the lease, or have to sign a new lease with the company that installed and owns the system.
• Maintaining them… It’s hard for buyers to fully know how much solar panels will cost to upkeep. Plus, they often wonder if it will have an impact on the roof and potential leaks. Even if it doesn’t, when they do have to replace a roof, they have to consider the added cost of dealing with removal and replacement of the panels.

But the reality is, there’s a good chance you’ll hear a solar salesperson tell you that it will add value to the home. Ask them for the data that backs up the claim, and make sure the data is specific to your area. In all likelihood, anything they can point to will be general and broad strokes. It would be highly unlikely that a solar salesperson would be able to accurately assess exactly how much value it would add to your home.

The Takeaway:

Perhaps someday every home will have solar power, but at this point that isn’t the case.
The demand and appeal for solar panels will vary depending upon where you live, the local market conditions overall, and the mindset of the buyers in your area.

So if you’re concerned about how much solar panels will add or detract from the value or saleability of your home, speak to your local real estate agent (ahem!) before committing to putting them on your house. Your agent can advise you on how well-received solar panels are by buyers in your area, and price range, and help you assess how much it will add to the value of your home, if anything.