Everyone wants your home. At least that’s what Google would have you believe.
If you’re thinking about selling your house, and you go on the good old Google and type in “home selling” or anything that sounds remotely like that, you’re going to get a whole page of different companies. In most cases, it’s not going to be great agents that could help you sell your home or a “how-to” guide. For the most part, you will get a page or two of companies that want to purchase your home for “market value” and so easy with no realtor. So a lot of these companies will tell you to just enter your address and they will make it so easy for you. You don’t even have to clean. We’ll come in and buy your house for market value. We’ll close quickly, and then you know, you can move on with your life. For a lot of people, in a lot of financial situations, that can sound so appealing, but there are, with a lot of these companies, so many hidden fees. So if you’re looking at doing that, make sure that you ask your questions. I would also encourage you to call a realtor that you trust that can look at all of that documentation and tell you if it is truly market value, or if you could, with just a little bit of effort, make a good amount of money more than those people will pay you, because in most cases, they’re going to pay you less than market value. They’re going to do very minimal repairs or painting, things like that and then they’re going to put it back on the market for considerably more than they’re going to pay you for your house. So while I don’t have any problem with people making money, and sometimes, you know, you just need to get out and move on, I get it, but make sure that you understand the market and understand exactly what their fees are, because a lot of these companies do charge a good amount of fees, and in many cases, they’re gonna get a home inspection and ask you to pay for repairs before you close. These things often show up when you are too far into the transaction to back out. So proceed with caution, when you’re looking at a lot of these companies that come up when you’re thinking about selling your home because nobody is giving you a free lunch, and if they’re going to come in and make the deal super easy, they’re going to get something from you in return.
The next thing you’ll see on Google are going to be lots of companies telling you that they can connect you to a great agent in your area. Keep in mind that in most of those cases, they are then going to get your information and sell it to an agent. In many cases, that agent will have to pay them 30%/40%/50% of the commission that they earn. I will also say in those cases, the vetting process is not always great. Sometimes it is not the best agent in your area. It’s the agent who answered the text message saying we’ve got buyer leads or seller leads in your area.“Do you want them? You just have to pay us a referral fee.” Sometimes great agents respond to those, and often not great agents respond to them.
So make sure that you’re doing your due diligence, and don’t just click on the first link that comes up on Google, because I can guarantee you it is not going to be the best thing for you. Do your homework. Give me a call. I’m always happy to read through information. Give you a little bit of advice if you’re trying to figure out the best route to go. And I’ll be honest, if somebody is going to give you a great deal on your house and you don’t have to do anything for it, I’m going to tell you to take it. But in most cases, there’s something else lurking behind there. So just, not only buyer beware, seller beware.
