When you’ve finally made the decision to sell your home, the next thing to decide is whether you want to sell your property alone or hire the help of a real estate agent/auctioneer.
While it may seem appealing, and also cheaper, to have total control over the sale of your home, there can be a number of risks and responsibilities that come along with this. From lengthy legal proceedings to knowing how to value your home, selling your home alone can often be quite stressful, time-consuming, and messy.
In this blog, the team at Property Properly will go through both the benefits and potential risks of listing your home for sale by owner.
Why Do People Want to Sell Alone?
The main reason that property owners choose to sell without an estate agent or auctioneer is that it initially seems to work out cheaper. When selling your home, estate agents often take a percentage of the sale price as commission, which can reduce the overall amount that you receive at the end of the sale. While avoiding this can seem appealing initially the hidden costs associated with selling alone quickly add up.
When selling your home alone, you will have to take care of several things including property listings, paperwork, valuation services, and more. As you can imagine, paying for all of these services separately can add up to be extremely expensive, not to mention time-consuming. Estate Agent services include these services as part of their overall fee, often working out as cheaper and more convenient for the person selling the home.
Normally, property sales by owner do not work out to be as cheap as one would initially think, and hiring the help of an agent is a more cost-effective and comprehensive service.
Real Estate is Time-Consuming
Real estate is a full-time job, which is why agents’ services exist! Even if you have a huge amount of free time during the week, selling your home alone is going to be an extremely time-consuming process that requires extreme organisation skills.
As well as readying your home for the sale, selling alone means that you will have to list your home on real estate directories, market your home for sale, organise legal paperwork, organise viewings, negotiate sales, and more. Selling your home is an intricate and lengthy process requiring many skills in marketing, negotiation, sales, and more.
Unless you have past experience in these areas of expertise and plenty of time to dedicate to the process, it can be easier to hire the help of an expert to aid you through.
The Legalities of Real Estate
There is a lot of paperwork to be organised when selling a property, which should always be overlooked by an expert. From BER certificates to deeds and mortgage clauses, the paperwork involved in a property sale is often best left to real estate agents and solicitors to manage, as they are experts in this field and have plenty of experience.
By attempting to organise and submit all of this paperwork alone, you run the risk of omitting important information and potentially breaking the law during your property sale. This can lead to messy and expensive legal proceedings which are always better off being avoided.
By hiring the assistance of a real estate agent combined with an experienced solicitor, you can ensure that your property sale will be legally compliant and come with all necessary paperwork filled out and filed properly. As well as putting your mind at ease, this service will speed up the sale of the property and allow you to relax when it comes to the paperwork involved in the sale.
Is It Always Better to Hire an Estate Agent?
It’s impossible to definitively say whether sale by owner or sale with aid of an estate agent/auctioneer is better for you, as different people have different requirements and levels of expertise. Overall, selling your home will probably be one of the largest transactions of your life and it’s important to think long and hard about how you want to go about this.
While selling alone may seem empowering, it can come with many hidden costs and stresses. By hiring a professional estate agent, you can save time and money, negotiate a better deal for your property, and ensure all legalities are taken care of while the sale goes through.
For professional Laois estate agent services that will look after all areas of real estate and property sales for you, choose Property Properly today.