3 Reasons Selling Your Home by Yourself is a Horrible Idea

3 Reasons Selling Your Home by Yourself is a Horrible Idea

To most people selling a home seems an easy task since all they need is to post a catchy advert, and within a short time get a potential buyer to seal a deal with. However, the opposite is true, for both the selling and buying processes will involve a series of activities. For instance, if you want to buy a home, you need to be aware of a few things such as its payment plan. Similarly, if you want to sell a home, you have to know the best market.

However, one of the most terrible ideas you can ever choose when selling your home is doing it by yourself. That is why I am sharing these three reasons why selling your home by yourself is a terrible idea, not unless you are a Realtor.

Paperwork Becomes Daunting

The process of selling a home will involve some legal documents such as property disclosures, lead paint records, sales contracts, and occupancy agreements. For this reason, you will require to have all these documents right with you, which you can just download. On top of that, you will need to be conversant with each of them, which is the trickiest part ever to most home sellers.

Understanding real estate paperwork is the main challenge to most for sale by owner home sellers. For instance, according to the 2015 National Association of Realtors sellers’ profile, 85% of for sale by owner home sellers understand, only one of the legal home selling documents.

Bears All the Liabilities

Just like any other business, home selling is prone to mistakes, which you can easily make. For instance, you might list home as a hardwood floor, only for the buyer to discover that it has wood veneer instead. Most likely, the buyer might sue you for dishonesty. We are living in a litigious society.

Whenever a buyer sues a for-sale-by-owner home seller, the seller bears the entire liability. As a result, you will pay for all your mistakes. However, you can transfer these risks and relative liability burdens to your Realtor or attorney by hiring them to sell your home.

If your Realtor or attorney commits similar mistakes when selling a home, they are most likely to be prepared for such a burden, rather than yourself. Real estate agents are often covered by specialized insurance called General Liability insurance and/or Errors and Omissions insurance, sometimes referred to as GL & E&O.  With the appropriate insurance coverage, it may be likely that neither you nor the Realtor would have to pay out-of-pocket for unintended mistakes.

FSBOs Sell Less and Spend More Time

According to relative studies, for sale by owner home sellers earn a lower sales price than Realtors. This is the biggest reason most home sellers choose to use a real estate agent. For instance, in 2015, for-sale-by-owner home sellers averaged total yearly sales worth $210, 000 with Realtors averaging $249,000. In this illustration, for sale by owner home sellers had 16% lower sales prices than Realtors.

FSBO home sellers makes fewer sales due to various reasons. First, most of them lack devoting ample time to the selling process. For instance, the National Association of Realtors states through it recent studies found out that only 3% of FSBO sellers will devote enough time to every sale aspect, and vice versa is also true. Also, most of these home sellers are unfamiliar with appropriate market value, market reports and best suited market for their home.

Besides, most homes for sale by owners lack home selling techniques, expertise, and skills. As a result, they take longer to sell their homes than Realtors. For instance, recent studies by the National Association of Realtors found out that, 18% of for sale by owner home sellers will sell their home after a year of advertising it.

Selling a home might seem an easy task that you can do it by yourself. However, as a for sale by owner home seller, you will not only spend more time selling, but also bear all the liabilities associating with the home selling process. As such, when selling your home, always hire a professional Realtor to sell it, unless you are a Realtor.