With all the technology available for home buyers and sellers, do real estate professionals really matter anymore?
For buyers, the investigation that you can do online and together with your phone is amazing. Apps like Redfin and HomeSnap will let you drive down a street, pull out your smartphone, aim it a house and snap an image. Based upon your GPS coordinates, the apps will tell you all sorts of things about this property. You don’t even have to know which street you’re on!
So the information revolution is empowering those who are looking for a home. As well, an option Home Warranty survey discovered that greater than two-thirds of Americans don’t trust buy homes for sale.
Real estate agents are salespeople. They attempt to find the deal done. Sometimes a realtor has to be part shrink and part salesperson to shepherd a deal all over the finish line. Maybe times you may feel as if a realtor is just not there for yourself simply because they try to find the deal done.
So time and time again, I become the question: With all the technology out there to help you and have you listed on the MLS, should you perform a FSBO (available for purchase by owner)?
My answer depends. If you have the personality of your merchant and might embark on a highly-planned sales and marketing campaign; provided you can drop everything to offer the property; provided you can have thick skin each time a potential buyer looking at your residence disses your decorating or whatever it can be, maybe you’re OK in order to sell your home yourself.
But selling your property yourself is not only getting a ‘HOME FOR SALE’ login the yard. You should have a sales plan. And be smart regarding it: Regardless of whether you’re attempting to cut the commission out, always put ‘Agents Protected’ on the sign.
A compromise could be other options around much like the hybrid services from RedFin and YourIgloo.com (a flat-fee MLS listing service) that enable you to pay fees or much lower commissions to get a package of services or for individual services. For example, maybe you’re busy and wish the agency to complete a showing for you, then you pay a fee for your. I feel the hybrid methods beat the true FSBO route.
What’s a good time of the year to list out your property?
People often imagine listing a property sometime during April, May, or June. The thought is listing in the spring during prime selling season will give you the greatest price.
Yet syndicated financial writer Kenneth Harney says that’s actually not true. In city after city, starting a new listing in winter will actually enable you to get a better money for that sale of your house generally. Every home is different, needless to say.
The reason is that home values dexkpky60 peak at the end of winter/early spring as soon as the least amount of properties are on the market, but folks are already out looking.
So you’ll earn more income by avoiding the common wisdom.
On the other hand, older listings that have sat out there might be a real deal for buyers after they hit Nov. 1. That’s because sellers often capitulate particularly when they’re still out there round the holidays. They become ‘motivated sellers’ within the terminology of your industry.