if the necessity for and role of real estate agents have been seriously questioned, they remain America’s favorite means to sell and buy homes. Statistically, approximately 80% of American home sales are brokered by professional real estate agents. Numbers don’t lie—most people prefer to use an agent. With such a huge majority, it’s worth looking into just why so many sellers choose not to go the FSBO route. To that end, let’s review some of the cons of FSBO in the attempt to further understand why so many people choose professional support when it comes to selling their homes. Selling the property as FSBO takes longer than an agent sale and requires extensive time and effort from the owner. Selling a home on your own is no easy task. On the contrary, it requires specialized knowledge, hard work, time, skill, and dedication to make it happen. Simply cleaning and preparing the house for a showing can be a challenge in and of itself without professional help and counseling. A home that has not been properly cleaned and prepared for sale will give the buyer the impression that the owner has been slacking off on basic home maintenance, and will be reluctant to pay as high a price as they might have if they had seen the house looking its best. Too little cleaning, or too clumsy a staging, and you could wind up with a substantially lower price when you finally do make the sale. The owner must also consider that real estate agents present and sell homes as a full-time job and, therefore, must be prepared to devote a considerable amount of time to presenting and marketing the house they aim to sell if they aim to do so without professional help and support. Trying to find the hours and energy to handle a real estate agent’s job, as well as whatever other obligations you might have can be a serious challenge, especially for the
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