Selling or buying a home without the help of a real estate agent is not as difficult as one might expect. Property has been bought and sold privately by property owners for as long as property ownership has existed.
Selling your property privately is definitely not brain surgery. But there are some very important aspects of the sale process you will have to get to know before you jump in with both feet. With a little research, time, effort and common sense, anyone can sell their property privately.
Make sure this is what you want. Be absolutely sure that you want to take the responsibility of selling your home on yourself. There will be no one else to blame if you should fail. So, ask yourself:
- Do I want to pay no real estate agent's commission on the sale of my property?
- Is the real estate agent's commission really such a significant amount of money that I would want to "save" it?
- Do I want to control every aspect of the sale of my property?
- Wouldn't I feel better leaving the whole selling thing to someone else?
- Am I really willing to learn about a whole lot of legal mumbo-jumbo?
- Do I have the time to invest in marketing my property?
- Do I have the discipline to follow through with my marketing plan?
- Am I strong enough to say "NO" to people many, many times?
- Am I strong enough to tell strangers what to do?
- Do I have the determination to carry on after numerous disappointments?
These are the ten questions you have to honestly answer for yourself. If you now have any doubts about continuing to sell your property privately, rather approach a good real estate agent, and grant him/her a sole and exclusive mandate to market your property.
But if you are still determined to market and sell your property privately, you better start doing some homework to get prepared for your private sale!
