Selling your home in the metro Charlotte NC area

If you are in the market to sell your home, you have options. If you are a savvy home seller, you could sell your home as a FSBO (For Sale By Owner). You also could sell it to an I-Buyer like Open Door, OfferPad, Knock and countless other investors and wholesalers. You could also hire a real estate firm like Cornerstone Realty of the Carolinas to have your home listed for sale on the MLS for a flat fee. Or, you could have our firm list your property for sale, full service, whereas you would be charged a fee based on the final sale price of your home in exchange for having a real estate professional promote your property and negotiate its sale while staying in the realm of real estate laws. Each method of selling your home has its own advantages and disadvantages which we go over below.

Selling your home on your own (FBSO)

One way to sell your home is to put a for sale sign in your yard and waiting for the phone to ring. You might even list your home for sale on a free platform like Craigslist or Facebook to see what kind of response you can get. Even though the idea of selling your home by yourself to save on commissions sounds attractive, it might actually end up costing you much more in wasted time and lost income. Below are the advantages and disadvantages of selling your home by yourself.

Disadvantages of FSBOs

Limited promotional reach

With no access to the MLS, the largest database of homes for sale, selling your home on your own will limit your market exposure, how many eyes see your home and how many offers you get. When listing your home on the MLS, your home will promoted nationwide to all kind of buyers.

No appointment setting service

Realtors use an appointment setting service to manage appointments and showings. This professional service allows for properties to be shown to potential buyers by licensed Realtors at different times during the day without the need of the homeowner to be present. With no appointment setting service to take and grant appointments on your behalf, and no lockbox like a SUPRA box to keep and access the keys to your property, you will have to make yourself available for showings, whether the person actually shows up or not, at any hour of the day and any day of the week.

No control on whom visits your home

You won’t be able to filter out who visits your home. Some of those visitors may not be approved to purchase your home or may have no intent to buy your home. Buyer agents only show homes to motivated and qualified home buyers and listing agents only allow showings of the property to qualified buyers.

Litigation risks

You most likely will make mistakes and misrepresent information when promoting your home. In some cases, it could lead to serious issues and even lawsuits (misrepresented square footage, concealing important defects the property may have) because large sum of money is involved and buyers depend on your truthful disclosures to purchase your property.

Under pricing and over pricing

Over price your property and it will sit on the market for a long time to the point where buyers will start thinking something is wrong with your property. Under price it and you risk losing thousands of dollars for under selling your property. Realtors are professionally trained to determine market values with Comparative Market Analysis (CMA). Automated CMAs you can obtain online for free are inaccurate most of the times. According to the National Association of Realtors, FSBOs sell for 28% less than properties sold through a listing firm. Most listing agents charge between 4 to 6% of the sales price for their services and would on average get you a lot more money for your home than if you sell it on your own. Over pricing and under pricing are two major issues faced by for sale by owners

Lack of knowledge of real estate laws and unfamiliar with the process involved in selling a home

You will need to handle all the paperwork and details on your own to make sure the sale goes through. With so many moving parts in a real estate transaction, you might miss something important that could derail the entire sale.

Emotional attachment to the property being sold

You might be emotionally attached to your property which will make it that much harder to negotiate effectively when it comes to offers, repairs, concessions.

Selling Your Home to An I-Buyer

What exactly is an I-Buyer? An I-buyer is basically a corporate wholesaler which can buy your home, usually in cash, with the intent to either resell it at a higher price or rent it. This approach will not particularly save you more money as I-Buyers usually charge a 5% fee or more plus repair costs to buy properties. The advantage is how fast you can usually sell your home without the buyer having a financial contingency because the purchase will be made in cash. There are advantages and disadvantages to choosing an I-Buyer to purchase your home

Advantages

Quick close and flexible closing time;
No financial contingency;

DisAdvantages

You still have to pay a fee – usually 5% or more of the purchase price, as well as repair costs when using an I-Buyer. Those fees and costs will be deducted from your proceeds;
Selling your home directly to an I-Buyer without marketing it through the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), will limit market exposures. If listed in the MLS, your home could attract home buyers nationwide and internationally which could lead to multiple offers and bidding wars for your home;
Some HOAs restrict the number of homes owned by investors in the community. If the I-Buyer buying your home plans to rent it afterwards, your HOA’s covenants and restrictions might prevent the I-Buyer from purchasing your property after you are under contract. This could lead to your home going back on the market, taking longer to sell and selling for less because other home buyers might think something is wrong with your home now;
The I-Buyer will resale your home for more which leads to an overall increase in home prices;

FLAT FEE Option - As low as $1,000 to sell your home

Save money when you sell your home using our flat fee option where you can pick and choose only the services you need to sell your home. This option is best if you are real estate savvy and starts at $1,000 and up.

Full Service Option - commission on the sale of your home

With the full service option, we take care of everything for you including professional pictures with aerial shots, professional home measurements, marketing of your property nationwide for maximum exposure that bring in multiple offers, negotiations, offer reviews and much more.

Selling a home seems like it would be an easy process, but it’s not and many For Sale By Owners (FSBOs) find out the hard way that selling a home involves a lot more than they anticipated. Make a mistake with your pricing and/or the way you list your home, and it could cost you thousands of dollars in loss and lots of frustration.

Here are some things to consider when selling a home:

Solely putting a for sale sign up in the front yard does not sell a home. A home needs to be properly marketed through various marketing channels to ensure maximum market exposure in order to bring home buyers to the property.
A home needs to be ready for sale – issues that arise while listed for sale could be disastrous. Staging, upgrading a few features and a pre-sale inspection will go long way in facilitating a sale.
Pricing a home diligently based on recent market activities (and not emotions) is lot more complex than it appears. That’s why Realtors prepare CMAs so that all factors that influence home values can be taken in consideration in pricing the property. Price a home too high and it will sit on the market for a long time creating a stigma that something is wrong with the property. This is an open invitation for “low-ball” offers and if you are pressed by time to sell, you could lose thousands of dollars. Price it too low and you could lose thousands in lost profits.
Realtors who work with home buyers are called Buyer’s Agent. They work with home buyers who are willing, ready and able to buy a home and are pre-approved by a lender. If you sell your home on your own, you will end up showing your home to individuals who are not qualified, under-qualified or just looking. Since you will be making your own phone number public as the main contact number, you may also end up getting calls and unannounced visits at any time of the day (or night!). A Realtor working for you as your seller’s agent (you are the client) will filter inquiries and handle the entire process on your behalf.

The advantages of working with a Realtor as your seller’s agent are many. Think about it, Realtors are experienced helping people buy and sell homes. They know the market; They work at it every day. They are real estate experts with hundreds of real estate transactions to their names. They know how to market homes, the process involved in selling homes, how to set the right price based on market data and how negotiate with other agents so you get the best deal for your home. Do you trust yourself more with selling your home than a professional that does this every day for a living?

Off course, in exchange for your Agent’s experience and help to sell your home, a fee (brokerage fee) is charged upon the sale of your home. That fee is divided between the buyer’s agent who brings a qualified home buyer and the seller’s agent who marketed your property and handled all the details for the sale. Cornerstone Realty’s fee is 6% – 3% for the buyer’s agent and 3% for the seller’s agent. When you hire our real estate firm to sell your home, we promise to work hard to get you as much money as possible for your home and to sell it as quickly as possible.

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