To List Or NOT To List With a Realtor

I have come accross many home sellers since 1996 that for one reason or another decided to try and go it alone when it came to advertising their home for sale. There are many that were successful and many that were not.

I have to say that the number one reason that a home owner selected to go it alone was commission. Can a home be sold privately and without being listed with an agent? (While the answer is a resounding yes, I have to point out that the National Association of Realtors did a study last year of homes sold privately and homes sold (while represented with an agent) and those home owners that selected professional advice were able to obtain more than 11% more for their homes than those home sellers that were unrepresented.

I have personally watched home sellers go into a home sale attempt and seen the amount of time that they spend each Saturday and or Sunday hosting open houses where one prospect showed up. I have watched them spend hundreds of dollars on newspaper advertising that brought calls to a phone number that they could not answer or get back to for hours and hours (where the prospective buyer moved on to another property because they became impatient) *As todays buyers do.

I have personally watched home owners fend off dozens of real estate agents calling and subjecting them to sales pitches each week. (Yet, they only had a few prospective buyers interested.)

I have watched home sellers be offered the most ridiculous offers by agents that couldn't possibly work (because the agent simply wanted their sign in the front yard) in order to milk the calls from buyers to sell them something else.

I have watched home owners be made offers by buyers to buy their home that could have costed the seller a tremenous amount of watsed time if accepted.

Ultimatley, experienced investors are the main buyers interested in making offers on homes offered by private home sellers. This is the main reason that I believe the NAR's research showed that private home sellers negotiated more than 10% less for their homes. They began offering their homes privately to save the typical 6% charged by agents and brokerage firms. All they did was pass a savings along to the buyer.

Buyers shopping a private home sellers offering is looking for a savings that will more than payoff their need to bring an attorney into the mix to write up a deal as well as put all the time and effort into the search and negotiating process.

Can you do it yourself? Again... the answer is YES. Do you want to do it yourself? You may think things through just a little better before answering that question.