Top Reasons you still need to hire a Realtor® in a Hot Seller's Market

You may think that in a hot real estate market that selling your home privately or through a low cost/service brokerage that merely lists your home on the MLS would be easy—however, here are some compelling reasons why you should hire a full service Realtor®.

1. Pricing Your Home—when the market is hot, prices are dynamic and ever changing. A realtor® can provide valuable inside information on current inventory levels, recent comparable sales and provide forecasts on where the prices are heading.
2. Offer Strategy—in a Seller's Market many real estate agents employ a “no offers until” strategy whereby they postpone offers until a certain date. The goal is to create maximum interest and exposure on your home and try to generate multiple offers. This strategy would be difficult selling privately—think about it most sellers have never dealt with one offer let alone multiple offers. Also, if you take the first offer you receive on your house you could seriously be limiting the price it could potentially sell for.
3. Property Viewing's—are you available to show your home at all hours of the day?—most people are not. In a hot real estate market you could be overwhelmed with number of showing requests you receive. When you list your home with a realtor® the brokerage coordinates and schedules all appointments for agents to show their clients who have already been vetted and pre-qualified. Also, do you really want to invite complete strangers into your home?
4. Buyer Agents Still expect to get paid—finally, if you decide to sell privately or list with a low cost brokerage you should understand how commission gets paid. First, when a home is listed on the MLS usually it is the seller that pays the commission—an amount that is shared between a Listing Brokerage and a Co-operating-Buyer Brokerage. Today most buyers use a real estate agent/brokerage to purchase a home—87% according to a recent NAR report. This means that they are contractually bound by a real estate brokerage and—you guessed it—the brokerage expects to be paid for their services! With this in mind if you decide to sell privately and are not offering to pay a co-operating brokerage commission the onus is then on the buyer to pay. I can tell you from experience that most buyers do not want or expect to have to pay commission when they purchase a home. In fact, some buyers may choose to simply overlook your listing faced with the prospect of having to pay the commission which could limit the number of buyers who see your home.