Should I use a real estate agent when selling my house in Longmont? This is one of the first questions most homeowners ask themselves when they want to sell their house. The 5-6% commission is what primary prompts this question. Such a commission could completely engulf the house valuation, especially if you want to sell it a couple of years after signing the mortgage agreement.
One option to avoid paying a commission is to find an agent that charges a fixed price. There are not many but some will charge you a fixed price and this type of agent could work to your advantage if you are selling a more expensive house.
The ideal situation will be, without a doubt, to eliminate the middle person charging a fixed price or a commission altogether. In order to do this, you have to advertise the property yourself.
Since the internet is the place where 80% of potential buyers look first when researching for a house you have to be present on the web too.
And, you have to be present on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) since statistics show that over 90% of transactions happen through the MLS. The MLS is, in fact, the database that all the real estate agents in Longmont use to access information for their clients on land, houses, and condos that are for sale. Since you cannot upload data about your property on MLS yourself you have to use an agent/realtor for this. We are not talking about a vicious circle here. You can find an agent that will charge a fixed price for this service of a couple of hundred dollars. This is money well spent for advertising your house.
A back-door entrance to MLS will be to use the site like Forsalebyowner.com, for example. This site, as several others do, let consumers list their properties on MLS. If you use this venue you will pay Forsalebyowner.com instead of paying a fee to a real estate professional.
You can go beyond advertising on MLS and use sites like Craigslist, Zillow, etc. You can create your own web site for your property and work at optimizing your site’s SEO to bring it to the top page of Google. This endeavor will either be free or very cheap since some of these sites have paid versions.
Don’t forget to use your Facebook account and share the property listing with your friends. Don’t be shy, ask your friends to spread the word for you to their friends as well. The procedure is simple: send the link with your property pictures and description to your Facebook friends. Wait for the “six degrees of separation theory” to work on your favor, in order to sell your house. If you want to reach a larger audience you can use a paid Facebook ad. Its cost can be anywhere from $0.16 to $1.00+ per click, depending on the industry, the size of your audience, and the quality of your ad.
You can also advertise in local newspapers, magazines, etc. if you want to attract the more traditionalists prospective buyers. Make sure to use high-quality images in your ads as an image can speak a thousand words.
Advertising is good but there is no guarantee the sale will take place. It is just a step on the “yellow brick road towards the Emerald City” of cash in your bank account. So why not sell to an investor?
Selling Your House to a Longmont Home Cash Buyer: Sell to an Investor!
If you want to be sure that you will sell your house, find a home cash buyer like NoCo House Buyers Inc. Keep in mind that investors like us will buy your house “as is” at a fair price, without commissions, and you can close the sale in a couple of days.