6 Pros and Cons of Selling a House Without the Help of a Realtor

Selling a house is something that doesn’t happen every day, meaning that when the time for it comes, you have to be very careful and wise with your decision. As we all know already, there are people who specialize in helping others get the best out of their transaction, and they’re called realtors.

On most occasions when a person is inexperienced in this field, they decide to hire a realtor to help them out with the entire process. However, this will obviously cost some money, and today we’re here to see whether the price is worth it or not.

In today’s article, we’ll take a look at some of the most popular pros and cons when it comes to selling with and without a realtor, so if you are currently trying to decide whether you need the extra help or not, this is the right place to be. Without further ado, let’s take a look at what you need to know.

Pros:

• Less money spent directly

From the very start, if you choose to do this without the help of a realtor, you’re saving a good amount of money. This is simply because you won’t have to pay for the professional service the realtor offers, and you’ll be able to use that budget for something else instead. A few good examples would be fixing some minor things around the house to make it more appealing and easier to sell. Every detail makes a difference, and you never know if that window that you’ve changed could be the reason why somebody called you.

Now, what makes all of this really tricky is the fact that hiring a realtor is not as expensive as some people think. This is especially true if the agent is able to sell your home for more than what it’s worth, meaning that you’re basically not losing anything, but your task got completed successfully.

• No middleman

Having no middleman is a great thing because you can directly contact the buyer and negotiate with them, instead of letting someone else do this for you. When things are not so “official”, it’s easier to form a friendly deal with the buyer, and there’s less pressure on both of you.

This can easily fall both into the pros and cons category, because a middleman is sometimes not required, and other times having one by your side can make a huge difference. However, it also happens quite often that a realtor doesn’t clearly transfer the message from the seller to the buyer, whether because of miscommunication or confusion that can happen from having too many clients. When you are your own middleman, you won’t risk anything like this happening to you.

• You make your own choice

Usually, an agent will decide what’s best for you, meaning that you won’t be the one who makes the more important decisions, and that’s something that not many people find appealing. Even if you are totally inexperienced in selling real estate, you’ll have a lot more peace of mind if you’re the one who decides how things will go regarding the entire selling process. Once again, this is a good and a bad thing at the same time, because if you end up making a mistake, that’ll be completely on you. Thankfully, there are useful websites and internet services these days, such as gemstatecashoffer.com for example, who can help those who want to sell quickly and without too much hassle. The development of technology and the internet have a huge impact even in the real estate market, making it so much easier for people to sell instantly.

Cons:

• No connections

No matter what it is that you’re working, in almost every field of life you get a few connections every now and then simply by doing your job. A professional realtor will probably know a lot of people who do things in that field, real-estate related, meaning that they can do this job a lot faster and easier for you by using those exact same contacts. You as just an “average Joe” in this scenario, have no contacts and you’ll need a lot more time to get things done, and as we all know, time is money.

Also, by knowing a lot of people in the world of real estate, it’s much easier to know the right times for buying and selling. A regular person with no connections and no previous experience won’t know when the market is about to crash, bubble-burst or rise up in value.

• No expertise and previous experience

An average person gets to sell their home probably once in their entire lifetime, but that’s not nearly enough experience to call yourself a professional. Even if it doesn’t sound like a complicated thing to do, there are some things in the home-selling process that require a lot of experience and knowledge. You’re probably aware that negotiations are a real thing in this business, and if you are not experienced in that, nobody will take you seriously. A professional realtor will easily get a lot more value by negotiation, but that’s solely because of their previous experience and expertise.

• Easy to rush it and mess up

Last but not least, it’s so easy to rush the process and end up making the wrong decision, especially if you are currently in a situation in which you require money as fast as possible. Patience is a key when it comes to selling a home, and if you rush it, you can easily get less money than what your home is worth. Besides, the feeling of regret is also quite bad after you mess up, which is why we recommend that you hire a professional if you are totally inexperienced.

Conclusion

Hiring a professional real estate agent to sell your home for you is both a good and a bad thing, depending on a few factors. If you decide to do this all by yourself, the main benefit is that you won’t have a middleman and you’ll be able to clearly communicate with the buyer, making it a lot easier to find common ground. The main disadvantage is that you won’t know whether it’s the right time to sell or not, and it will take you a lot more time to get this done.