Selling Your Toronto Home Yourself: A Lawyer & Marketing are Key.

by David Green on November 21, 2013

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To the chagrin of traditional real estate agents throughout Canada, there is a growing trend of home owners who are deciding that selling your home yourself (also known as ‘selling privately’ or ‘for sale by owner’) isn’t the wild, outlandish notion it once was.  More than ever, Realtors have been on the offensive to ensure the home selling process appears overly convoluted to ensure their services are of high need.  (case in point)  I will start by saying that like any profession, I love ‘good’ Realtors.  I love those who go all in for their clients.  Who put time into mastering their craft.  My wife is a Realtor.  And I think there will always be a need for Realtors into the foreseeable future.

With that said, there is a growing number of savvy home owners who have figured out that to sell your home yourself, there are a bunch of options for you out there.  When selling with a Realtor in the past, they took care of most of the pricing, negotiating &  marketing of your home,  as well as handled the paperwork when you received an offer.  When selling yourself, the absence of a Realtor simply means you want to have your lawyer ready so you can bring your offers to them to review and to make you aware of any pertinent details in a timely fashion.  Let them know you’ll be selling privately so they understand the time constraints you’ll be on when receiving offers and can reply accordingly.

The pricing, negotiating and marketing piece is where you will have to do some of your own legwork.  You can often get a local Realtor to do a market analysis for you for free to see what sold in your area for what price and so you can objectively price your home.  Pricing is arguably the most important detail when selling, so it’s important to get it right.  You will have to be somewhat comfortable with negotiating with potential buyers and how to remove emotion from the facts when it comes down to if an offer is fair or not.  As for marketing, a Realtor can argue until they are blue in the face that there is more to listing a home than simply Realtor.ca/MLS, but the facts would argue otherwise.  Realtor.ca is overwhelmingly the #1 real estate website in Canada and is one of the top 100 most visited sites by Canadians.  You NEED the MLS/Realtor.ca.  Without it, it would be like trying to market your small business and being non-existent on Google.

There are a few companies out there that will help with all aspects of the private sale process.  You don’t know how to price your home or hate negotiating? There’s a solution for that.  Need access to the MLS/Realtor.ca? There are lower cost options.  Need legal support?  There are lawyers waiting.  I obviously have a bias towards my own company, but regardless of who you use, simply understand one thing.  We aren’t in the 1980s where snail mail and film photography is the norm.   You have options! And especially for Toronto home owners who have some of the highest real estate prices (and consequently commissions paid) in Canada, you deserve to explore those options.

David Green
Owner of a trendy company helping home owners take control of the home selling process while saving thousands on commissions.
David Green

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