Expert: Selling your own home today a tough sell

By Special

For the AJC

In some recent years, about all you had to do to sell your own home was stick a sign in the yard and wait for the offers to pour in. In some areas, sales were so hot that owners expected (and often got) offers of more than asking price. The heat of the market led some to question the need for the marketing expertise of a real estate agent.

Things have changed.

Today's home seller is faced with extremely tough (and in some cases desperate) competition. There are many more homes for sale than buyers to buy them, and the few buyers out there are demanding bargains.

Dozens of new subdivisions litter the metro Atlanta landscape, some owned by lenders anxious to unload, others still being completed.

My advice to anyone considering putting his house on the market now in one word: Don't!

The market is stacked against you. When you have too much supply and not enough demand, the product is destined to decline in value. And even though prices are great and interest rates are remarkably low, people worried about losing their jobs just don't buy houses.

This, too, shall pass. As Americans inexorably continue their migration from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt, and as Atlanta continues its march to become a major American city, our creation of jobs will resume, and demand for housing in our metro area will increase. Add to that the fact that we aren't building anywhere near enough housing to replace what we are losing to neglect, age and decay, and demand must eventually exceed supply.

In the meantime, the toughest job I see today belongs to the homeowner who feels he must sell but has decided to do it himself.

He mistakenly figures that the huge commission may make the difference between a sale and a lost sale, and he secretly wants all that money for himself because he figures he deserves it (in these tough times).

Meanwhile, the hottest buyers in Atlanta aren't sitting in their hotel rooms poring over the for-sale-by-owner ads. Not by a long shot.

Instead, they are referred to our city's elite brokerage firms, are picked up in limos at the airport and whisked off to a plush office where they view a carefully screened list of homes designed to meet their every need. All of which just happen to be listed for sale by a real estate broker.

Thus, it is no surprise that homes sold without the assistance of a real estate professional dropped to a record low this year, only 11 percent of sales as opposed to 13 percent in 2009. This according to research from the 2010 Profile of Home Buyers & Sellers, published by the National Association of Realtors.

My advice: This is no time to go it alone.

John Adams is an author, broadcaster and investor. He answers real estate questions at noon every Saturday on WGKA (920 AM).

For more real estate information or to make a comment, visit www.money99.com.