Should You Sell Your Home Yourself ? : NO : You’ll Get a Higher Price in Less Time, Have Fewer Headaches With a Broker

Why is it important to use a professional real estate broker to sell your house? Because you’ll get more money in less time and avoid the problems that can result from trying to do it yourself.

Perhaps the most important reason to use a broker is that he or she knows the market, knows the rules and knows the value of your property. Factors such as market conditions, financial indicators and competing properties all have an effect on the value, and brokers have access to information on these factors that is available only to insiders.

Brokers are also better able to make evaluations based on these factors than the average buyer or seller. Most sellers tend to price their homes either too low or too high because they do not know the market.

A second valuable aspect of a broker’s experience is in marketing the property. A broker knows how to reach the right market, and how to expose the property to the right buyers through advertising, multiple listing services, open houses, caravans, relocation networks and other internal sources. Most buyers are represented by agents whose sources for houses are traditionally listed only with brokers.

Owners who represent their own homes are without many of the most vital marketing tools, which causes them to rely solely on local advertising, reaching only a fraction of potential buyers.

A professional broker also knows how to show a property to its best advantage. This involves giving guidance to the homeowner on ways in which the property’s appeal can be enhanced. It also encompasses the agent’s pre-screening of buyers and accompanying them on showings, which offers security to a seller for the safety of family members, belongings or pets.

Another valuable function of the broker is in preparing the property disclosure. Geological and structural considerations, boundary lines, rent control, sewer connections, building codes and zoning factors are often difficult and frustrating for buyers and sellers to deal with.

All prudent buyers insist on full disclosure of these conditions, while sellers tend to be subjective and minimize their importance. Using the phrase “as is” does not relieve property owners of their responsibility in this area, and often misinformation brings legal entanglements well beyond the close of escrow.

Finally, negotiating the price and terms of the sale, and all the paper work that accompanies this phase, is something almost always better handled by a broker.

Buyers and sellers bring to the bargaining table a wide array of emotions--excitement, anxiety, anger and impatience to name a few--that can get in the way of effective negotiating. Trained agents objectively present the needs of their clients in a way that can remove these emotions from the picture.

We all have the personal freedom to eliminate the professional middle man. We can sell our own houses, do our own taxes, represent our own legal interests and make our own stock investments. But most of us today are not only too busy to take on such tasks, we also have enough experience to know that providers of professional services can act in our best interests in situations where we may not be knowledgeable enough to represent ourselves.

The buying and selling of a home is often the largest financial transaction we make in our lives, and it certainly is an area in which most of us cannot afford to make a mistake.