Selling home privately or using a part timer?
You may be losing more than you gain!
There are three ways to prepare your Mississauga home or condo for sale. One is through a full time professional real estate salesperson or a broker. The second is by selling through a part timer and third is to sell home privately yourself. At first, it may sound tempting to prepare for sale your way. No one knows your home or condo better than you do. You would also be saving that extra commission fee that comes with a full time realtor.
To save on commission fee, it is easy to fall into the trap of employing private for sale companies who are eager to put your home on the market for a small fee that includes posting it on Realtor’s public MLS Listing Service. Sometime you may even end up with part-timers.
Before you take a decision on selling home, take time to answer these 3 key questions:
- Are you prepared to gamble on your life’s savings by taking matters in your own hands, thrusting it on salespeople who are not fully committed or relying on your own inexperience?
- Do you have the tools to drive buyers to your doorstep from all over the world, 24 hours, 7 days a week?
- Are you aware of all legal issues that surround real estate trade?
We live in a competitive, global world these days. Buyers are not just local but International as well.
Selling your home privately can take up too much time, effort and your patience
In such a situation, selling privately make sense only in certain cases. Unless you’ve sold property before, selling your home privately can take up too much time, effort and your patience with it, with little result at the end of it all.
Not everyone is comfortable taking random strangers around their property numerous times a day, at all odd hours. Not everyone has the time and patience to answer countless questions from diverse buyers, or can tactfully handle difficult buyers the way trained professional Realtors can. Not everyone is well versed with home listing or marketing either, mandatory in today’s world.
Just a silent sign post sitting in your garden saying “For Sale” is not enough to bring in prospective buyers for your home now. Local and global buyers search, enquire and communicate from different time zones.
You need smart marketing skills to drive in these prospective buyers to your virtual door first, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, before they knock on your actual door in Mississauga.
I would suggest selling privately only when you have ample time and adequate experience on your hands.
Most sales by owner companies (or FSBO as they are called – For Sale By Owners) finish off the task of public MLS website listing simply through a mere posting. Under an FSBO model, the bulk of selling techniques rests on the shoulders of the home sellers themselves. Are you prepared to shoulder such a huge responsibility? Do you have the time or expertise to carry it through?
When things get tough, sellers hunt for co-operative buyer agents (usually salespeople representing the buyer) and offer them commission fee that amount to roughly 2.5% of the selling price or $12,500 on a $500,000 home. So a private home seller mostly ends up saving the listing end of commission, i.e. about 2.5% (negotiable).
If you look at the NAR statistics, does that make sense? Most salespeople often discount their commission when they double end or help their seller buy his or her next home, so savings do fold in. Then why sell privately?
By venturing out solo, it is not just the question of saving on commission fee. It is also a matter of handling complicated legal issues. Realtors are bound by a strict code of ethics and are governed by the REBBA (Real Estate Business and Brokers Act). Realtors also carry mandatory insurance programs to protect consumers from losing their deposit amount, in case the brokerage runs into a financial crisis.
Real estate is a serious business that involves your life’s savings and a huge amount of time for sales preparation, pre-sales steps, sales process, home staging, legalities, post-sales steps and execution.
Selling privately is not easy considering the amount of work required.
Another common query is, what about hiring a part time salesperson, friend or a relative in business?
Let me ask you this. Are you seriously considering selling your home or you are looking to extend a favour to your friend (enjoy the humorous take in the video) or relative?
If you employ a part time salesperson (another humorous video), remember that there is always the danger of them disappearing soon after home listing and not being there just when you need them to follow up.
About your friend or relative, are they full time professionals? Is he or she knowledgeable about your area?
Many of them won’t know the importance of posting professional quality photos. Others won’t have the expertise of preparing your home for sale.
Yet others may not have adequate knowledge of accurate home pricing, home listing, or worst, won’t answer your phone calls when you want them to, simply because they are preoccupied with other jobs elsewhere.
If there are further questions on your mind, call me at 905-339-5111, I’m here to hear you out. With over 10 years of professional experience in Mississauga homes and real estate, the biggest, most important decision you will be making with me is to pick up the phone and call.
And what is my real estate commission?
Let me add that no seller has ever hired me at a commission or on terms that they were not happy with. Rest assured that this puts you in 100 percent control when appointing me.
I will be happy to show you on paper how I sold several properties at a higher percentage than the competition and put you at ease. Here are more reasons to hire me to sell condo or home in Mississauga.
