Private sale or no private sale

Now there's a question: to sell your property privately or go through a real estate agent.

At home, the Landfield real estate didn’t call by as expected. So, we chose another agent. That’s the way it goes. In many ways your life choices are not made as a result of careful weighting of the pros and cons of something; those of agents in this case. It was more about who was there at the time. There’s not often a lot of personal experience people might have on which to base a decision.

In actual fact, with this property being located on a relatively busy road, I was inclined to sell it privately. I was thinking of doing little more than sticking a sign up on the front and waiting for the punters to call. Real estate agents don’t have your best interests at heart. Well, of course they don’t, they are in the business for the money. The best they can do for you as a buyer is put you in contact with sellers, and you have to resist being influenced by anything that might sway you from your goals, like paying more than you want. The best they can do for you as a seller is bring in the punters, and you have to resist their persuasive tactics of lowering your asking price.

I’m reminded of a Canberra real estate company, though the name escapes me for the moment, that had a really obscure advertising strategy. They were aiming their advertising at property owners. They said that they consistently obtained higher sell prices than any other agent for equivalent properties, and this was the reason you should use them rather than any other Canberra company. Hmm. Sounds like a great thing if you are selling your property; we all want as much as we can get. Suppose you are shopping for a property. The slogan doesn’t sound nearly as good. Why would anyone want to buy through an agent that boasted of fleecing its punters?

There is quite a lot of information, on the web, and books that specialise in selling privately. Basically, the main reason for not doing it was that I was in Canberra and S was in Melbourne with the house. It may have been awkward. If you have time to browse some of this literature before deciding how to sell it will be worth your while. There was one book I had a look at, which was quite interesting to read, particularly some of the experiences some agents get up to. It was a real education. It described various scams real estate agents have used to squeeze more money out of a deal, and how to go about selling privately. If I can find it I'll edit the post.