If you own a house and you are anything like me, you understand that house to be one of if not the largest investment you have and you want to maximize that investment when it comes time to cash in (sell). No matter the investment, whether stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or real estate, there are costs and expenses involved that affect the bottom line, your net profit. When it comes to Real Estate, there are a great many large expenses involved in upkeep ... one might equate these to mutual fund management fees ... and with Real Estate there is also the usual front-load AND back-load sales commissions added to the process.
It should be clear that buying and selling your home isn't exactly like buying and selling stock, but from an investment point of view it isn't that different either. Seen as an investment, you should expect to have to pay your broker a certain percentage of your investment for picking the right stocks and doing the transactions on your behalf as well as some transactions fees for entering and leaving the stock; and that same thinking applies to your house. The difference is really only one of magnitude, your house is subject to commissions in the 4%->6% range when you sell and unless you've had some good luck in housing prices in general, that's a good chunk of your multiple year investment gone to a real estate agent or two in what seems like a snap of the finger.
If you are like me you don't want to see that much gone, if it doesn't seem fair to work for years building up equity through real monetary investment (mortgages and renovations) and sweat labour only to give up so much of it to people who value their time more than I do, then perhaps you are ready to sell your house yourself. We had a house valued something close to $400,000.00 and I really don't see $20,000 as a reasonable amount of money to give up just to sell it to another person. Particularly because I know that the $20k is just the biggest but certainly not the only expense coming. I've met a lot of agents and while some of them have been really great people, none of them qualify as the smartest people I know and if they can do it well so can we!
Successfully selling your house privately ... this ain't rocket science but there is definitely a trick to it! We did it ourselves, we got our first offer 14 days after we officially listed and we saw all conditions removed a little over a week later ... and while we got below our asking price, it wasn't below our settle price and we got as much or more than any “real estate agent” was recommending we even list at.
There is a lot of mystique surrounding real estate, it represents probably the biggest investment and largest purchasing decision most people will make. Houses don't have a set price, there are many variables involved that determine how much a particular house will sell for, it is only partially based on what the house is “worth” in terms of space and materials.
A Real Estate Agent will help you sell your house for a fee that varies from low-cost, fixed-fee listings to 6% commission for a full-service sell; most commonly the commission is set at 5% these days but with increasing frequency it is set at 3.5% or even 3% in a reaction to the upswing in For Sale By Owner strategies. Strategies like this book provides.
This book will tell you how we as novice first-timers, sold our house so successfully. It wasn't luck, in fact it was a lot of research, planning, work, and expense but it was definitely worth it. This book won't solve all your problems but it will give you some solid experience and knowledge to build from.
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