Good news, agents. Zillow’s 2018 Consumers Market Trend Index tells us that 85% of home sellers rely on agents to help them sell their homes. Why? Agents have experience in and knowledge about home selling…bots and application platforms don’t.
Sure, many sellers do some “selling” activities on their own, such as
- 50% do some home improvements
- 43% help decide when to list
- 39% come with a list price
- 37% do some aspects of staging
- 25% secure a pre-home inspection
before contacting an agent but few DSIY sellers (17%) conduct buyer tours, (11%) promote their homes on social media and (8%) receive offers.
BUT, DSIY sellers want agents to do these things on their own:
- 81% agents guide seller through the sales process
- 78% of agents organize and submit paperwork
- 75% of agents lead contract negotiations
- 73% of agents find interested buyers
Younger urban and first time sellers stand out as DSIY sellers. Nearly all sellers (86% of them), just like nearly all buyers, research housing markets, prices, specific homes on line but only 22% Millennials get involved with finding interested buyers and only 38% Millennials promote the sale of their homes on social media. First time sellers do more of these finding and promoting activities than repeat sellers. Rural sellers are the only exception to this kind of involvement simply because rural population pools tend to be smaller, tend to be more neighborly in terms of spreading around information by word of mouth, and tend to have less access to online services.
The upshot here? Sellers who work with their agents and actually participate in some aspects of the selling process sell their homes faster, almost two months faster. DSIY sellers and agents working together sell homes at an average rate of 5.5 months. Agents working completely on their own on behalf of their clients sell homes at an average rate of 7.4 months.
