Selling your home without a real estate agent can be exciting, but the process can also be stressful and time consuming. A For Sale By Owner (FSBO) seller must commit to not only getting their home ready to sell but also marketing their home until they find a qualified buyer.
Selling Your Home Without a Real Estate Agent
When preparing to sell your home, whether with or without a real estate agent you’ll want to start by cleaning and putting away personal items. Then, it’s important to look through your home and note any minor or major repairs that are needed. After you’ve made any necessary repairs, consult a professional photographer to photograph your home. Many sellers take photos themselves. However, professionally photographed homes have been proven to sell faster, and typically for $10,000 relative to their list price. After you’re happy with your home’s photos, it’s time to get serious about listing your home online. This is where a real estate agent typically becomes a valued part of selling your home.
When considering selling your home without a real estate agent, there are a few key time consuming responsibilities to consider:
- Market research to determine the right listing price
- Finding the correct contracts and understanding the legal requirements to sell your home
- Home staging
Showing Your Home Without a Real Estate Agent
Often, sellers decide not to work with a real estate agent. Typically this in order to protect their home equity and avoid paying high commission rates. Alternatively, others have had a bad experience with a realtor due to lack of transparency or communication. But, many people don’t realize how time consuming showing your home can be, and how much flexibility is required. As you think about whether or not to sell your house with a real estate agent, think about these factors:
- Being available for last minute showings and being flexible with with buyers that do not show up on time
- Answering every call, because every caller could be a potential buyer
- Handling your own open houses
- Answering calls from agents that won’t bring a buyer unless they can turn you into a client or feel confident you will pay them a commission.
Why Work With a Real Estate Agent?
After you’ve put time and effort into marketing your home yourself, choosing to hire an agent is no small matter. But, whether in a buyer or sellers market, data shows your home is going to sell faster with a realtor. With that, you’re likely to net more money selling as well, and you’ll have less paperwork to do by yourself.
Your listing with an agent will refresh your home to buyers that have already been looking online. They also provide a larger buyer base with have access to your listing. Often, buyers’ agents won’t show a home to their clients that isn’t properly represented by a sellers’ agent as well.
Things to consider when choosing the right agent
Your agent helps you protect your equity in your home for sale by ensuring you get the best price. They abide by a transparent process, so that you know what they’re doing for you. You can work with your agent to determine the best communications methods for you, and ensure you understand their commission structure before committing to work with them. A good agent follows up promptly after showings and communicates feedback. They should be available to you when you have questions and for any showings, even the last minute ones.
Many people don’t realize the a real estate agent’s commission is negotiable and you do not have to pay 6%. For example, Trelora Real Estate is a modern brokerage that charges a low, fair fee and still provides full service agency duties. So that you don’t need to sacrifice anything in the sale, and can keep your hard earned equity in your pocket where it belongs.
For example, if you sell your home with a traditional agent for $300,000 you would be paying 3% to them and that commission would equate to about $9,000. On the other hand, selling a $300,000 home for a fee of 1%, or $3,000 with Trelora would potentially save $6,000 in real estate commissions.
What if you could partner with a full service agent without sacrificing your equity?
Trelora was created to support sellers like yourself, and to protect the equity of your home, while giving you the confidence and capable support of a full service agent. This modern brokerage partners with sellers to maximize their home equity, ensuring transparency all the way through closing.
Trelora agents handle all of the photography, marketing and more without any additional charges. The team at Trelora takes care of the time consuming responsibilities of selling your home so you don’t have too. Plus, with our flexible listing contract there is no “hold over period”, and you decide the terms of working with your Trelora agent.
Zack Sulsky is Trelora’s Chief Product Officer. Zack joined Trelora in 2017 and has helped lead the company from its roots as a local real estate disruptor to a growing national brand. In his role as CPO, Zack is responsible for customer experience, product, and technology. Prior to joining Trelora, Zack was cofounder and COO at Edify, a Techstars- and NSF-backed startup in educational technology.