Do I Really Need A Real Estate Agent To Sell My Marin County Home?
If you’re selling your home, you may have considered doing it yourself, or using a discount, fixed price broker. Will you sell your Mill Valley ranch, or Larkspur fixer, if you do it that way? Maybe, eventually. So why pay all that commission to a real estate agent?
What do they do to earn 6% of the total sale? Well first, they don’t get 6%. They get half of it. The selling agent, representing the buyer, gets half. Still, that’s a lot of money, right? So why do it? Because like any other professional, a good agent will deliver expertise and real value that will make you more money – more money than if you tried to do it on your own. And isn’t the amount of money in your pocket at the end of the day what you’re really concerned about?
This will be a short series. Here is reason No. 1.
1.In Marin County, homes are not commodity items. Houses in Marin County are not like airline seats, or Wall Street stocks, both of which are now increasingly bought and sold directly over the Internet. That’s easy to do, because one share of Apple stock is exactly like every other one. So are airline seats.
But in Marin County, every single home is different, and unique. Every town is unique, with its own personality, micro-climates, schools, and culture. Mill Valley is totally different in many ways from Corte Madera, yet they border each other, and are on opposite sides of the same Mt. Tamalpais ridge. San Anselmo and Fairfax? Same story.
School districts make a huge difference. Put two identical homes on opposite sides of the street, one in Greenbrae, one in San Rafael. The Greenbrae home will sell for several hundred thousand dollars more. Why? The Bacich School Distict is among the best in California, and Redwood High School is consistently rated the best in Marin County.
And within the same town? There are big differences between Sycamore Park, Middle Ridge, and Blithedale Canyon in Mill Valley, yet all are close to town. Climate, neighborhood, architecture, you name it, the differences are real.
We understand the subtleties of home values, and can sell those subtleties to buyers. Anyone can run comps, put a price on it, and wait for the phone to ring. But a good Realtor© will put a real value on your house, sell it to prospective buyers, and get you a higher price for your property.
Part 2 will be published soon.
