There are numerous advantages to working with a real estate agent when purchasing or selling your house. During hard times, like what we confront now, it becomes even more important to have an expert that you trust to help guide you through the procedure.
Your family’s safety should always come first, which is more critical than ever given the present health condition in our country. When you FSBO, it is incredibly hard to control entry into your house. A real estate professional is going to have the proper protocols in place to protect not only your belongings but your family’s health and well-being too. From controlling the amount of men and women in your house at one time to ensuring good sanitization through and after a showing, as well as easing virtual tours for buyers, real estate professionals are equipped to follow the latest industry criteria recommended by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to help protect you and your family.
Recent studies in NAR have proven that, even before COVID-19, the first step 44% of buyers obtained when looking for a home was to search online. During the process, that number jumps to 93 percent. Now, those numbers have grown exponentially. Most real estate agents have developed a strong Internet and social media strategy to market the sale of your residence. Have you?
As a part of their instruction, brokers are instructed how to negotiate every aspect of the real estate transaction and how to mediate the emotions felt by buyers seeking to make what is probably the largest purchase of their own lives.
Possessing a buyer who wants to purchase your home is the first step. Making sure they can afford to purchase it is just as important. As a FSBO, it is almost impossible to participate in the mortgage process of your purchaser.
Further complicating the situation is the way the current mortgage market is quickly evolving due to the amount of households out of work and in mortgage forbearance. A loan program which was available yesterday could be gone tomorrow. You need someone who’s working with lenders every day to ensure your buyer makes it to the final table.
The documentation included in the selling process has improved dramatically as more and more disclosures and regulations have become mandatory. In a litigious society, the agent acts as a third party to aid the seller avoid legal jeopardy. This is only one of the major reasons why the percentage of people FSBOing has dropped from 19% to 8% over the last 20+ years.
Many homeowners believe they’ll save the actual estate commission by selling on their own. Realize that the chief reason buyers look at FSBOs is since they also think they can save the real estate agent’s commission. The seller and buyer can’t both save on the commission.The more buyers who view a house, the greater the opportunity a bidding war will take place.
Listing on your own leaves you to manage the entire transaction by yourself. Why do that when you can hire an agent and still net the same amount of money? Before you decide to take on the challenge of selling your house alone, reach out to a local real estate professional to discuss your options.
Preferred Properties of Texas is here for all your real estate needs. Give us a call today.