Why You Shouldn't Sell Your Home Without an Agent

While bypassing extra fees and selling your home on your own does sound appealing, there's a considerable number of reasons as to why you shouldn’t sell your house yourself. The vast majority of those who undertake this endeavor of selling by owner will face disadvantages that ultimately outweigh and offset any advantage or benefit to selling without a realtor.

There are three main reasons people are drawn to the idea of selling their own house and doing away with getting a real estate agent: to avoid paying commissions, to have complete control of the sale, and to have a feeling of confidence in their knowledge of the property, making them capable of selling their home successfully on their own.

Seems like a pretty good deal, right? You can just do it yourself and save yourself thousands of dollars. Well, it usually doesn’t work out that way, and when it does, the trade-off for saving that money ends up being a huge time investment (not to mention the stress).

We could go on and on about why you shouldn’t sell your home without an agent, but instead we’ll simply explain why the benefits of listing as a for sale by owner actually aren’t so beneficial after all.

Avoiding Paying Realtor Commissions

These commissions are usually somewhere between 5 and 7 percent of the sale price. So on a $200,000 home, the commission would be between $10,000 and $14,000. That’s money saved in a for sale by owner. You could even subtract that from the selling price to get your house to sell more quickly.

In reality, this usually isn’t the case. Buyers are knowledgeable and often feel like homeowners will overprice their homes so that in the event they can’t sell the home on their own, the selling price will include enough to pay the broker’s commission. This results in buyers arguing and insisting on a reduction in price at least equal to what the commission would be.

You’ll likely end up selling at the same price as you would from a sale by the broker, except you lose out because of time, effort, and expenses.

Having Complete Control of the Sale

Having complete control over price, showing availability, when the house goes on the market and is taken off, and being able to screen potential purchasers, exercise total negotiating power, and set all the terms and conditions is definitely appealing. Though it surely sounds like a lot of work, it might be worth it to have such control of the sale.

It’s likely, however, that you wouldn’t have the training or experience in qualifying buyers or negotiating in real estate transactions. Failure to accurately assess a purchaser's financial abilities and qualification leads to a loss of prospects and often results in contracts being signed with buyers who can’t secure the necessary financing. Difficulties in purchase negotiations on possible concessions, price, and the like will often arise and can result in the loss of a potential qualified prospect.

Here you lose potential prospects, more time, expenses are often spent, and then you have to start all over again.

Having Superior Knowledge of the Property

When selling your home on your own, your knowledge of the property will allow you to give immediate answers to buyer questions, there won’t be any speculation on maintenance items, and you have a more invested point of view, so you can tell people why you love your home. It’d be easy and natural to highlight the attributes that appealed to you when you purchased the house.

In reality, most buyers don’t feel that sellers are objective about their homes since they are emotionally involved. This emotional involvement means that the owner views the house and it’s attributes in a more favorable light than what may be justified objectively. You’ve had time to get used to things most buyers may not like.

As a result, buyers are likely to be skeptical because they know the sellers opinions are biased, and that puts you at a disadvantage.

Of course, there are some people who can handle selling their home without an agent, like retired real estate agents or real estate lawyers. But generally, getting a real estate agent will be the best move.

Have any questions, comments, or objections? Let us know in the comments.