Should You Use a Toronto Real Estate Agent to Sell Your House?

When you decide the time is right to put your home on the Toronto real estate market, one of the first decisions you have to make is whether or not you will go through a real estate agency or take care of the selling process on your own. There are advantages to selling your home yourself in that you do not have to pay out a percentage of the selling price as the agent’s commission. However, there are also disadvantages to taking this route. Before you do make the final decision, you should take a look at the pros and cons to help you decide which route you want to take.

The whole idea of putting your home on the market is to make a profit. Whether or not you find yourself in financial difficulty and this is why you need to sell, you still want to come out of the transaction with some money in your pocket. This may be the main reason why you want to take the sale on yourself – to avoid paying fees to a real estate agent. This is not a small amount of money because it could be thousands of dollars depending on how much you get for your house. The lowest commission fee charged by real estate agents is 6% and on a home that sells for $200,000, this fee amounts to $12,000 – a sizeable chunk of change.

When you list your home with a real estate agency in Toronto, the agent will assign times for viewing and for an open house event. The real estate agent may also call at odd times saying that a prospective buyer has expressed interest and would like to see the home. This means that you have to have everything spic and span and find somewhere to go during this time. If you are handling the sale of your home yourself, you are in charge of when these viewing times are so you can host them at your convenience. In addition, you are still in the home, so you can judge the reaction of the potential buyers and speak to them directly.

On the other side of the coin, real estate agents put a lot of work into the process of selling your home for you. They advertise in newspapers, have their own websites and let other agents know about your property by posting signs on your property. They have to pay advertising costs and if your home does not sell within the term of the contract, you do not have to pay the agent any money. If you sell your home yourself, every time you place an ad, it will cost you - especially living in Toronto. You will have to buy the signs and look after all the advertising yourself – which is not cheap.

Real estate agents have experience in dealing with the forms for offers and counteroffers and can help you with some of the legal aspects of completing the transaction. The experience of the agent you choose can also mean the difference between a quick sale or having your house on the market for several months.

Since real estate agents spend their days and nights showing homes and dealing with prospective buyers, you will not have this time to put into the process. You do have to work each day and chances are you will be too tired at night to put much effort into the selling process. You do have to be completely certain that you have what it takes to close the deal and get a good price for your home before you take on the task of selling your home yourself.

That being said, it is not impossible to bypass real estate agencies and sell your home on your own, but it is challenging. If you are up to this challenge and are willing to learn the ropes as you go, then you can try to sell your home yourself. With a little knowledge of how the real estate industry works and by working hard you can save yourself the money you would have paid to an agent to do the work for you.
The first step in getting started in selling your home yourself is to set the right price. Start looking at houses in your area and what they are selling for to give you an idea of how much you might be able to make in a sale.