Listing your home for sale in today’s market comes with so many choices, and even bigger consequences. List it too low and you leave thousands of dollars on the table. List it too high and you waste months of carrying costs and lost opportunities to buy the right home. It gets even more complicated when there are so many different business models offered by real estate firms.
Results Matter Most
Your bottom line net is what matters most. When reviewing the various offerings from real estate firms, keep your eye on your net results at closing. For example, getting a sale at 99% of list price with a 6% broker fee will give you a better net profit than selling at 96% of list price with a 5% broker fee.
Seek Alignment
The optimal alignment is when your broker only gets paid when you get the price you want for your home. Some instant offer real estate firms are more focused on buying & flipping houses than optimizing your net results. Other discount real estate brokers get paid upfront for doing the listing paperwork even if they don’t sell your home. Aligning your goals and the broker’s goals is the best way to ensure mutual success.
You need to have full confidence you are hiring a local expert as every dollar and every day matters. Don’t get lost in the marketing or sales tactics, focus on the important factors.
Discount vs Full Service
Ultimately, the most important choice you will make is whether to go Discount or Full Service?
Discount real estate companies include all real estate brokerages who offer a reduced fee for service, a refund/credit of fees, and/or a quick sale option. We also include all the DIY options in this same category as you are trying to save money, time, or effort, but you can never do all three with any of these options. By definition, Discounting and DIY offer less service to you.
Path & Post is built around optimizing results for our clients, with full service and a better experience and bottom line to you. We built every system and hired every Specialist to provide a full and custom experience when buying or selling real estate. Furthermore, our Specialists are 7x more productive than other local agents. By definition, Full Service offers more to you.
In addition to Discount and Full Service options, another newer option is getting an instant offer on your home, without the hassle of listing or preparing a home to sell. For more information on this EASY approach, check out https://www.pathpost.com/instant-offers/.
Key Factors
When listing a home, two key factors (Marketing & Experience) have proven to make more of a difference than any other metric we’ve found. Regardless of the choice you make, be sure to focus on these key difference makers when selecting a broker to represent your most valuable asset in life…
Marketing
Will they pay for professional photos without charging you extra?
Do they pay to Feature Your Property on key real estate portals such as Zillow and Realtor.com?
Will they shoot a walk-thru video to boost your property to the top of Zillow search results?
Will they promote your property in social media with a dedicated ad spend targeting local buyers?
Experience
Have they listed and sold more than 100 listings in your market in the past 12 months?
Are you confident they can win both rounds of negotiations, the offer phase and the inspection phase?
Can they manage a multiple-offer scenario or will you be left to figure it out on your own?
Will you get to develop a genuine relationship with your service provider?
Bottom Line
Ask around for recommendations. Read reviews. Look at websites and social media to see if the quality of marketing is evident. Google the agent or team you are considering. Make the choice that fits you best. Not everyone needs full service, but we think everyone deserves the best net profit possible.
More Resources & Info on Similar Topics
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Redfin vs Traditional Agent: A Tale Of Caution
When It Makes Sense To Sell It Yourself
Updated August 16, 2019
