A month or so ago, I posed a question on ActiveRain. It was interesting, and another post I recently ran across brought it back up in my mind.

If you have a real estate license, would you still hire an agent to sell your home?

It is an interesting question to ask real estate agents for a couple of reasons:

  • One of the reasons that REAs (real estate agents) give to unrepresented sellers (FSBOs) that they should hire an agent is because of the emotional detachment a neutral agent can provide.
  • I see a lot of agents poorly representing themselves.
  • Quite often on forums or venues that have a lot of anti-REA support, consumers will say that in order to save money they would be better off getting a license and doing it themselves.

And there are two comparisons I’m drawn to immediately when I think on this question.

  • A mechanic will usually do their own repair work. They know that they can trust themselves to take more care of their car than someone else. They have all of the tools (and as REAs, we should too!). They have the ability.
  • Lawyers generally don’t represent themselves. They pay another professional to handle it… while remaining emotionally uninvolved to the same level. Even though they have the tools and ability, it is in their best interest to hire out the job.

In the interest of complete disclosure, I don’t know if i will sell my own house when it is time to move. I think that I would market it better than another agent might… but I don’t have that emotional distance. My sons are growing up here. My wife and I bought this house from DisneyWorld while we were on our honeymoon. I don’t know if i would want to save the money, or if I would decide to hire it out.

But, the real reason for this post is this: I have been seeing a lot of agent owned properties for sale lately… and they are so poorly represented it isn’t funny. Few and/or poor pictures. Showing restrictions. Bad staging. Lousy descriptions. Over-priced. Every sin we rail against… right there for the world to see.

I know I won’t be hiring one of those agents…