There are many ways you can sell your house; you can do it yourself or hire a real estate agent to do all the work for you. You want to make your house look neat and presentable to sell it quick, of course the price also a big factor to sell your house. You should compare your house with the similar houses recently sold or under contract to check the current market price around the area, real estate agent can print out the CMA or comparable market analysis to help home owner to decide on the price of the house for sale. The other deciding factor to price your house for sale will be the total square feet of the house, how many rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, as well as the house condition and how old is the house compare with the similar house in the area.
You can sell your own house and advertise it yourself, you can advertise it on newspaper, online, put for sale sign at front of your house, word of mouth (tell your friends and family),etc. If you sell a house yourself, it calls FSBO or for sale by owner; you can use many online venues to advertise FSBO house. You can hire a lawyer to draw a sales agreement for you or you can use "ready to use and fill in the blank" real estate contract. You can also advertise your house at MLS (Multi listing service) that is used by real estate agents and pay flat fee for certain period of time. You can also offer to pay real estate agent commission to bring in buyer to your house; some home owners willing to pay 3% commission of sales price to a buyer agent or selling agent. This commission is negotiable and you can include the commission to real estate agent at HUD-1 (your settlement company can prepare this for you) and to be paid at closing or settlement date.
Of course you can also hire a real estate agent to do all those work for you. If you hire a real estate agent to list your house for sale, the agent call listing agent. He or she can pull the comparable market analysis to help you price your house for sale, it call asking price. Real estate agent may takes pictures and measure your house and then add your house into Multi listing service, advertise your house with other advetising venue, place sign at front of your house, install lock box key, do open house for you, in contact with selling agent, negotiate in your behalf, write counter offer and take care of all paperworks for you to sell your house. Usually real estate agent paid by commission which is the percentage of the sales price plus administration fee if any, The home owner pay commission to the listing brokerage firm then the listing broker will distribute the commission to listing agent and coorporating broker (selling broker where the buyer agent work). The selling broker then distribute the commission to the selling agent or buyer agent after take some percentage of it for the company.
You need to ask yourself do you have time and do you feel comfortable to sell it yourself and save some commission fees or you rather hire an experience agent to work on your behalf and do all of those work for you. Remember hiring a good real estate agent can be the key to sell your house with the higher price and faster, because your house may get more public exposure, thus bring in more potential buyer to view the house and in return you may receive more acceptable offers. Real estate agent also can walk you through the selling process from start to finish.
