Are You Good Enough to Sell Your Own Home?

Congratulations! You have decided to sell your home. Now the difficult decision comes along. Will you be using the services of a property agent or will you arrange the sale all by yourself? Needless to say, that there are many advantages and disadvantages of both ways. It all depends how comfortable you are with several crucial steps in selling a home such as marketing campaign, negotiation skills and legal documentation. The points below will help you to decide.

The main pro in selling the house yourself without the assistance of an agent is saving a huge amount of money. This is not little amount of money we are talking about. It is an average of 6% from the house price. The commission in this case is put in your own pocket, which is a definite pro.

Another pro is that you are the master of the situation and decide all the steps in the selling process. You decide when and how you want to run the open days for your home, when to arrange the viewing, how to market your home from the best angle and what marketing sources to use. The best thing is that you put 100% of your effort in the sale of your home and do it with the most dedication, while the agent has many other clients and cannot concentrate only on your home. It is a proven fact that the energy and interest in selling a home play a very important role in the success of the final outcome. The dedication can mean everything.

The disadvantage is that the agents have much more experience and qualifications than you to be able professionally sell your home. Selling home means spending lots of time and energy which are very precious. It is a notorious process that requires lots of commitment and organisational skills from you. You need to arrange viewings, open days, prepare the marketing leaflets to be distributed, review the sale and purchase agreement and many more. Agents have done it thousands of times before and know how to do it best.

Make sure that you are realistic about your skills and commitment. Are you sure that you will do everything to adjust your schedule in order to accommodate another viewing or skip a day of your holidays in order to arrange the open day? How good in negotiating are you? Can you easily persuade others and create win-win situations? Can you be professional, calm, concentrated and organised throughout the entire deal process? All of these are important questions to answer.

Selling a home is not “mission impossible”, but it is a demanding process. It will cost you lots of nerves and can be frustrating at times. If this challenges rather than scares you, then this is the way to go. Prepare lots of energy and save thousands.

Yet, before you start, the most important thing to do is to set the right price for your home. So sit down and do a thorough evaluation to start with.