To hire or not hire a real estate agent in Kenya. The Pros and Cons
Decision of selling a house might be one of those difficult one especially
if it is your very first time to try it out. It may cross the mind of many
homeowners. Deciding whether to sell a home or not requires a constructive
choice. The choice might be tricky in its own way and real estate terms to
refer to such a choice of selling you house without an agent is Sale by Owner.
As much there are some advantages of selling your own house, it is also
necessary to realize that there are pitfalls for the same. Whether you are
considering selling your house through an agent or not, you may need to know
the following before you get to the market.
THE PROS
It helps save money
Of course having an agent means that there
are some amounts that will be needed to pay out. When you decide to sell your
own house by yourself, you save such a cost. The cost of advertisement is on
you as well as the marketing strategies. You therefore eliminate all the
loopholes that would cost you in terms of money when you sell the house by
yourself. Not having realtors maybe cheaper to sell your house as you save on
commission paid to them.
There is some degree of control
Selling your own house can give you some
degree of control through the whole process. There are so many benefits that
are attached to selling a house privately-that is as the owner. You get to meet
the clients, explain your house and add what feels like the best part of the
home, you get to negotiate the house to your preferred amount and some degree
of control is felt. In short, you have your freedom in your house transaction.
To clients, it also feels like dealing with the owner some degree of trust and
therefore making the transactions easier. You might have heard of clients who
insists on knowing the owner of a certain property in order to purchase it.
They get such lucky when they get to know the owner.
THE CONS
Wasting time
Real estate marketing, from listing,
advertisement as well as the negotiation and transfer process is never easy. It
requires a lot of time. It may waste a lot of your own time as a home owner.
Real estate agents have a wide range of clients and are good at advertisement
and marketing. Furthermore, they are very conversant with real estate
platforms. Instead of using a lot of time while selling your home by yourself,
you could otherwise hire a credible real estate to save on your time in the
process of selling your home. In fact, real estate agents are well networked
and may find a client a lot easier.
Lack of enough market knowledge
Deciding on selling you home does not
guarantee the fact that you are knowledgeable in the real estate industry
neither does googling it amount to acquiring of knowledge. Real estate agents
have interacted with the different kind of markets-the sellers market, the
buyers market and the neutral market. They therefore know when your house
would fetch the highest and when it could be on average pricing.
