Various Articles

Selling a home can present many different challenges. Listing your home with a REALTOR® just because that Realtor is your friend can present some of the most serious problems when listing your home. Here's a story that illustrates this point.

A home owner listed his home with his best friend, that also had gotten his real estate license a few months ago. Considering the friendship, the agent could not bring himself to tell the owner that his home was dirty and that it needed to be cleaned up if it was ever going to sell. The Realtor was also reluctant to break the news to the owner that he had spent thousands of dollars on home improvements that may have added to the owners's enjoyment but did not increase the value of the owner's home.

You can imagine what happened, the Realtor listed the home tens of thousands of dollars above the market value and in poor showing condition. Despite the friendship, the weeks passed with few showings and no offers. The Owner's friendship with the Realtor became more and more strained as each week passed without a contract. After several unsuccessful months, the owner dropped the price of his home to well below market value, but by then it was too late. The few people who came to see the home had already purchased another house, and the most active buying season was over. The Owner decided to take his home off the market for a while.

Several months later, the owner contacted a well-known, professional Realtor who met with him and told him the truth about his house. This Realtor shared with the owner the history of sales in the neighborhood, gave him a list of all the competition, shared an aggressive computerized marketing plan and suggested a fair marketing price based on the facts. In just a fraction of the time that the original agent took, the owner sold his house for 98% of the listed price.

The sad part of this listing is that the owner now resents his friend for for not getting his home sold the first time around & not being honest with him up front. Although the owner's friend was a good professional, he simply couldn't separate business from friendship and as a result he lost the friendship and the owners business. That's the danger of listing your home with a friend.

Most Realtors can't draw a distinct line between their friendships and their business, so if you truly value your friendship and you sincerely want to sell your home in Northern Virginia, play it safe and list with someone who can be objective with you and who can sell your house quick. Selling a home is too complicated and too important to entrust to a part time professional, who by not knowing the pitfalls and complications of the business could embroil you in legal issues

Lets separate the professional job of selling your home from your friends. Keep your friends and sell your home. This is a true win-win situation.