Do I REALLY need a Real Estate Agent to sell my home?

If you decide to sell through a real estate agency/salesperson, you might be put off by having to pay a commission (or ‘success fee’).

While the success fee can seem like a lot of money, you only have to pay it when/if you come away with a satisfactory result. Plus, there are some considerable upsides to listing your property with a salesperson which can justify the cost.

Here are the 11 reasons why I believe appointing a real estate salesperson is crucial:

Broader exposure: It’s very likely that you won’t be able to promote your property to as many potential buyers as a salesperson can – particularly one who works for a company with as many other salespeople as Barfoot & Thompson (all who have potential buyers of their own). Plus, they can introduce most of those buyers to any property within 24 to 48 hours and usually with just one phone call or email blast. How much time and how much advertising and marketing would you need to invest in to reach the same number of buyers? It would cost you thousands of dollars, and it would take weeks. After that, you’d have to show them all the property yourself. A bit of a hassle to say the least.
Higher offers: With a private sale, buyers will often have a strategy of reducing their offers by the amount that they calculate you’d typically pay to an agency (they want to claim at least half if not all those savings). So you potentially won’t be saving anything at all, despite having done all the work yourself!
Impartiality: When a third party (such as a real estate salesperson) points out the positive aspects of your property, it can have a more significant impact on the buyer than when you do it yourself. In other words, buyers can take your claims with a higher level of caution and scepticism.
Saved time: With a private sale, you will have to make yourself available to handle all the calls, viewing appointments and open homes that the salesperson would otherwise have dealt with on your behalf. These enquiries can arise during the day or night, week, or weekend. Can you get away from your job at any time to meet with an interested buyer? It is easy to see how a deal might be lost because the private seller was unable to react quickly enough.
Right skill-sets: You’ll get the benefit of all the people skills, research skills, negotiating skills, sales skills and the legal skills that a salesperson has developed over numerous selling transactions.
Higher prices: One of the critical attributes of a quality real estate salesperson is that they are a skilled negotiator and therefore they will probably achieve a higher sales price. That premium is likely to be at least equal to, if not exceed, the commission you will pay them.
Property appraisal: It would take you a lot of time to research how much properties have sold for in your area. If you use a real estate salesperson, they will do all this work for you at no cost. This crucial bit of information is something you definitely don’t want to get wrong!
Marketing plan: It takes a private seller a lot of time to develop their marketing plan and obtain all the services required to market their property. However, a real estate salesperson will do all this work for you.
Greater protection: If you make a mistake when trying to sell your home, you may have little or no claim against anyone. If you use a licensed real estate salesperson, there are a robust set of contractual, legislative and ethical safeguards to protect you
Advertising: Most real estate agencies offer their sole agency clients a certain level of complimentary promotion, which may include advertising on multiple websites and a contribution towards other marketing assets.
No sale, no fee: Remember, you’re only responsible for a real estate agencies success fee if they manage to sell the property for you. And of course, you are entirely in control of the outcome since you decide whether or not to accept any offers. You will only do that if you’re happy with the purchase price and any other terms of sale. In other words, you only pay if you get the result. However, if you try to sell your home by yourself and it doesn’t sell, you’ve done all that work without any reward!