Popularity of private home selling continuing to grow

Saskhouses.com hit another milestone today, passing the 450 million dollar mark in property listed for 2007. To put that into perspective, that number is higher than the total dollar volume of listings advertised through MLS by the Saskatoon Real Estate Board as recenty as 2003, when 431,860,820 dollars worth of Saskatoon property was listed through MLS.

Saskhouses.com listings come from all over the province - not only in Saskatoon, so we can't compare our numbers directly with the SREB, but we do know that the popularity of for-sale-by-owner websites has grown dramatically in the past number of years.

There are a number of theories about why more and more people are choosing to sell their homes privately, and this summer the Quebec Association of Real Estate Agents conducted a survey to try and find some definitive answers. The Association surveyed 322 people who sold their own homes during the past 12 months, and asked them why they chose not to use an agent.

Among the reasons they were given....

Why did you decide to sell your own home?

87 % - To save money
87 % - A good property sells itself
65 % - Confident they had the skills required
48 % - In no hurry to sell
44 % - Confident about the growing market
29 % - Do not trust Real Estate Agents
28 % - Agents are useless

What about the selling price?

89 % - Felt they would get net price equal to or higher than if they used an agent
75 % - Did not want to pay a commission

Why go through an agent?

43 % - Because one doesn't have the necessary skills
27 % - To avoid stress
24 % - To get more visibility & publicity
21 % - To sell more quickly
17 % - To save time

The study also found that while 73 percent of respondents felt that real estate agents provide access to a wider network and more publicity, and 55 percent felt they are more knowledgeable about the legal aspects of a transaction, 41 percent felt that agents make a lot of money for a minimum of effort, 41 percent felt agents can be replaced by the Internet, and 36 percent felt that they can’t be completely trusted.

The company which conducted the study said the bottom line was that commission was most often the determining factor in the decision to sell one’s own home. And it said one of its most troubling findings, was that 82 percent of the people who were selling on their own, had used real estate agents to sell in the past.

The recommendation to the Quebec Association of Real Estate Agents - create a “value” perception around the profession - “You need to plaster the entire province of Québec with images showing how useful agents can be, how competent they are, the fact that they belong to a network, know all the legal aspects and are experts at evaluating and negotiating the price of a property.”

You can read the full report on the Quebec study by clicking here.

We've seen a pretty focussed television & newspaper campaign in the past year or two which attempts to make people who are trying to sell their own homes look foolish, but if the results of the Quebec survey, and the growing popularity of websites like ours are any indication, those messages aren't taking hold.