subject: Is An Agent Always The Best Choice When Selling A Home? [print this page] Homeowners who want to sell a house quickly need to have a goal, and then make a plan and stick to it. Your plan may involve your agent or it may be entirely for yourself if you're selling "by owner." You'll want to consider getting professional help if you're not comfortable doing what it takes to sell a house quickly in the present marketplace. The truth is, there are so many houses for sale now that you'll need to find a way to make your own house stand out from the crowd.
whether or not I list my house with an agent depends on each particular house and my own needs, and of course I have years of experience as an investor so it's a matter of habit for me now to get started doing every item on my checklist to sell a home quickly. Thinking back to when I first got started investing in residential real estate it helps me remember how overwhelming the whole process can be for sellers who have never sold a house. Frankly, it can appear to be too much work unless you consider the alternative - paying out a chunk of home equity as a real estate commission. For the most part it's the same as anything else you want to achieve, first you have to make a decision about what's important to you, then you make a plan and you stick to it.
That's what it takes to sell a house quickly. And that's the time to consider your support team, meaning the other people who are going to be cooperating with you to work your plan and accomplish your goal. What I do when I need to sell a house quickly is ask other people what they are willing to do to help me and then follow up to make sure they do their part. This includes the people who help me prepare my house for showing, who maintain it, who help me get my documents prepared and of course my agent if I'm hiring one.
Look at it this way, if you hire a landscaping firm to mow and trim and haul off yard debris there's no doubt when they have completed the job. But it can be hard to tell what's been done for sure when I hire other professionals, and that's because what they do is not as obvious. So, having a schedule is a good way to stay on top of my own marketing tasks, such as sending out a postcard mailing to my neighbors announcing my house for sale, and organizing and holding an open house. Of course those are only two of the many, many tasks involved in the process when I set about to sell a house quickly.
