REASONS TO CHOOSE A REAL ESTATE AGENT OVER "FOR SALE BY OWNER"

1. Realtors May Not Show a "For Sale By Owner" Home
   In an FSBO deal, the buyer’s agent knows there won’t be a professional colleague on the other end of the transaction. Even if a client insists on seeing your home, the agent might discourage making an offer, citing the hassles and risks of trying to close the deal without a professional representing the seller—and without a guaranteed commission.
2. Agents Avoid Emotional Sales
   Selling your home is typically an emotional process. Having an agent keeps you one step removed and makes you less likely to make mistakes, such as overpricing your home, refusing to counter a low offer because you’re offended, or giving in too easily when you have a deadline for selling. “A realtor can follow up without communicating a sense of eagerness or desperation; following up is their job,” says Ailion. “When a seller repeatedly checks, it signals, rightly or wrongly, the willingness to accept a lower price.” An agent can take the sting out of the rejection and put a positive spin on any negative feedback. “It is more difficult for [the seller] to keep their emotions out of the sale, because there’s no third party to bounce anything off of.
3. Real Estate Is a Full-Time Job
   Can you rush home from work every time someone wants to see your home? Can you excuse yourself from a meeting every time your phone rings with a potential buyer? At the end of a long workday, do you have the energy to take advantage of every possible opportunity to market your home? Are you an expert in marketing homes? Do you have any experience doing so? Your answer to all of these questions is probably “no.” An agent’s answer to all of these questions is “yes.” In addition, by going through an agent, you’ll get a lockbox for your front door that allows agents to show your home even when you aren’t available.
4. Agents Access Large Networks
   Yes, you can list your home yourself on Zillow, Redfin, Craigslist, and even the multiple listing service (MLS) that agents use. But will that be enough? Even if you have a large personal or professional network, those people will likely have little interest in spreading the word that your house is for sale. You don’t have relationships with clients, other agents, or a real estate agency to bring the largest pool of potential buyers to your home. A smaller pool of potential buyers means less demand for your property, which can translate into waiting longer to sell your home and possibly not getting as much money as your house is worth.
5. Weeding Out Unqualified Buyers
   An agent can find out whether someone who wants to view your house is really a qualified buyer or just a dreamer or curious neighbor. It’s a lot of work and a major interruption every time you have to put your life on hold, make your house look perfect, and show your home. You want to limit those hassles to the showings most likely to result in a sale. “Realtors are trained to ask qualifying questions to determine the seriousness, qualification, and motivation of a prospect,” says Ailion. Realtors are also trained to ask closing questions about how long buyers have been looking, whether they’ve seen any other homes that would work for their needs, if they are paying cash or have been prequalified, what schools they are looking for, and so on. They can move a qualified and motivated person to the point of purchase. FSBO sellers lack this training and skill set.
6. Price Negotiations Take Skill
   Even if you have sales experience, you don’t have specialized experience negotiating a home sale. The buyer’s agent does, so they are more likely to succeed in the negotiation, meaning less money in your pocket. An agent may have negotiated hundreds of home purchases, know all the games, the warning signs of a nervous or disingenuous buyer. Not only are you inexperienced; you’re also likely to be emotional about the process, and, without your own agent to point out when you’re being irrational, you’re more likely to make poor decisions. Instead of an offended seller making an emotionally charged, inappropriate response to a buyer, an agent will say something more professional, such as, “The seller has declined your initial request but has made the following counteroffer.”
7. You Ignore Your Home’s Flaws
   Agents are experts in what makes homes sell. They can walk through your home with you and point out changes you need to make to attract buyers and get the best offers. They can see flaws you’re oblivious to because you see them every day or because you simply don’t view them as flaws. They can also help you determine which feedback from potential buyers you should act on after you put your home on the market to improve its chances of selling.
8. Exposure to Legal Risks
   A lot of legal paperwork is involved in a home sale, and it needs to be completed correctly by an expert. One of the most important items is the seller’s disclosures. “A seller of real estate has an affirmative duty to disclose any fact that materially affects the value or desirability of the property,” says attorney Matthew Ryan Reischer, founder and CEO of LegalAdvice.com. A seller can be held liable for fraud, negligence, or breach of contract if they do not disclose properly. Unless you’re a real estate attorney, your agent probably knows more about disclosure laws than you do. If you fail to disclose a hazard, nuisance, or defect and the buyer comes back to you after having moved in and found a problem the buyer could sue you. Agents can make mistakes, too, but they have professional errors and omissions insurance to protect themselves and give the buyer recourse, so the buyer may not need to pursue the seller for damages.

The Bottom Line

• You might be tempted to avoid a real estate agent, save the commission, and just sell your home yourself—also known as “for sale by owner” (FSBO).
• While tempting, in most cases the risks of going it alone likely outweigh the benefits.
• Risks include having few potential buyers (let alone qualified buyers), making emotional decisions, not knowing how to negotiate properly, and not having enough free time to dedicate to finding a buyer.
• One of the biggest risks of FSBO is not having the experience or expertise to navigate all of the legal and regulatory requirements that come with selling a home.
• It’s a tall task to learn how to sell your house without a realtor—and selling your home will likely be one of the biggest transactions of your life. You can try to do it alone to save money, but hiring an agent has many advantages. Agents can get broader exposure for your property, help you negotiate a better deal, dedicate more time to your sale, and prevent your emotions from sabotaging it. An agent brings expertise, which few FSBO sellers have, to a complex transaction with many potential financial and legal pitfalls.