Robyn Seymour - Private Sale of Real Estate Properties

This article outlines the real estate private sale and the reasons for this and it refers to Australian real estate selling but is much the same the world over. The numbering of the reasons is purely arbitrary of course. For example, people who are facing foreclosure are apt to be solely interested in the fastest sale for the smallest cost. While someone with one hundred per cent equity and plenty of time to sell their home will possibly value the do it yourself aspect higher. This is because there is a definite sense of accomplishment in selling your own property.

Here are some reasons that I believe in. What are yours?

Commission saving can allow you to offer a lower price for a faster sale, No middleman potentially confusing the sales process, You have the opportunity to learn and practice a valuable skill e.g. negotiation, You have more control over when people inspect your home, You have more control over who inspects your property, You don’t have to deal with an agent pressuring you to sell, The feeling of satisfaction you get in selling your own home, Based on an average sale price of $500,000 at 3% commission you potentially save $15,000 in agent commission, To earn the $15,000 that you save in the above example would require extra wages of around $25,000.Or if you are a great saver and can save $100 per week then it would take you 150 weeks to save that amount or around 3 years.

Real estate private sale isn’t for everyone, but everyone can certainly achieve it.

Fortunately, it’s much easier nowadays to sell because the average person now has so much computing and marketing power within their reach. You no longer have to rely on an old cardboard sign or a cutoff piece of corflute from an old agent’s sign, in your front yard, to attract buyer’s attention. You could list your own home privately on some of the major real estate sale portals and literally have someone on the other side of the world snap it up. You can run your own highly professional marketing campaign based on marketing your property cheaply on the big real estate portals

As a real estate agent myself I see the writing on the wall for the agents.

I’m not saying they’ll become extinct. Not at all. But they sure are certain to lose market share big time. The trend to private sales is unstoppable and its driven from two main areas The first is general dissatisfaction with agents from the general public and secondly an even stronger trend – the cost of buying and selling becoming out of reach for more and more people. Pure economics will dictate that the For Sale By Owner market will increase as people seek out every way possible to reduce the costs of their real estate sale. The transaction costs are huge with conveyance, agent’s fees, moving costs, stamp duty and mortgage payout penalties etc, etc.

When you think about it a set fee is much fairer isn’t it, especially an exceedingly low one. After all why it is that someone with a one million dollar home has to pay four times as much commission than someone whose home price is in the median price bracket. Oh, of course the agents will make a case for such an unmitigated rort. They will argue that such expensive homes require marketing largesse but the truth is that the discrepancy only exists to line agent’s pockets. As people become well educated, knowledgeable, savvy and streetwise they are starting to buy less and less in line.