Add a comment | Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Your neighbor Harry, the one that never shaves and causes you to wonder if he knows that there are still department stores that sell pants that fit, you know who I am talking about. Harry will be the first one at your door telling you how much he is going to miss you when you move away.
Away. From Harry.
Maybe you should buy a home in Los Gatos or West San jose. is that far enough? Cambrian sounds pretty good. You need to sell your house first though.
You have decided you are going to save money and do it yourself. More money for you will help you get further from Harry. So, where do you start?
Figuring out what your house is worth is probably what you are thinking. Not exactly… and…. yes, it is. Better be quick. Harry is getting really Buddy-Buddy since he learned you are selling your house. Saving that 6% Realtor fee should help get it done faster.
Think about it. You have more room to negotiate!
Do you have experience selecting the prospect pool or knowledge of tested marketing techniques? How about relationships with hundreds of Realtors who have buyers that are best suited, qualified and ready to buy your home? Probably not. But…Harry would love to give you his 2 cents. 2 cents you don’t need.
Selling a house is more of an art than a science.
You are smart though. You can learn, right? You are smart enough to read marketing flyers, read other listing comments, you can get tips from a Real Estate forums about how to negotiate sales price and terms etc. Great. Except half of what you learn will be wrong. About as wrong as Harry’s 2 cents.
I would bet only 1% of what you read will be usable. The fact is, 80% of homes sold are sold by less than 2% of all the real estate agents. That means most of what you read will be sourced from 98% of Realtors who are listing homes that will eventually be sold by, you guessed it, the other 2%.
Can you compete with professionals of that caliber?
To be frank, yes, many homes do sell when listed for sale by owner.
The statistics for those sales are very poor though. If a ‘Realtor Listed’ home will sell faster for more $$$, even after all Realtor costs are deducted, why wouldn’t you hire a full time professional?
In the coming days I am going to present a series of articles to help guide you through the morass.
You won’t have to feel sorry for lonely Harry either. He will be as happy to see your house sold as you are to say goodbye to old Harry. Maybe that house you saw for sale in Los Gatos is closer than you think!
