Decide whether and how to use an agent or sell your home yourself
As you can see from past sections of "Steps to Selling Your House," selling a home involves a lot of details and can be complex. There are some big decisions to make: Is a good time to sell your home given local market factors? Should you use a real estate agent in some capacity? Or should you try selling your home yourself?
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Is selling your home yourself the best use of your time?
The first question an astute seller should ask themselves is whether a home-selling project is the best use of your time. For instance, if you are a highly paid professional, successful contractor, own a business, or otherwise generate significant income through your course of work, then perhaps you should consider retaining a real estate practitioner to professionally market your property, get it under contract, and bring it to a successful closing. After all, if you can make $5,000 by working an extra 100 hours as opposed to saving $4,000 by investing the same amount of time and effort into selling your own home and all that it entails, then you would effectively be losing money by selling your home yourself.
With which home–selling tasks are you comfortable?
The second question a home seller should ask themselves is: Given the entire spectrum of task and skills (functional & fiduciary as discussed in the "Real Estate Consultants" section of this report) associated with selling a home, with which of those tasks and skills is the seller comfortable?If you are comfortable with all of the tasks and skills associated with a home-selling transaction, then "For Sale by Owner" (FSBO) may be worth pursuing. If not, then identify which tasks and skills are in your comfort zone, and then interview real estate agents to get quotes for the professional services you require � refer to the "Real Estate Consultants" and the "Flat Fee and Fee-For-Services" section of this report
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