Should You Use a Discount Broker (like Redfin) to Sell Your House? from Mike Novak on Vimeo.

You have a few options when you sell your home. You can try to sell it yourself or hire a full service brokerage, but many who are new to real estate are enticed by a third option - hiring a discount brokerage at a lower price. For sale by owner only works in special situations, and we’ve seen enough horror stories to strongly advise against it. It’s like trying to rewire your house by yourself - a lot can go wrong. But what about those discount brokers such as Redfin? Are they a viable option? Let’s look at the services provided by a discount broker vs. those provided by a full service one.

Services Provided by Discount Brokers

Discount brokers offer you the bare necessities for selling your home. Typically, they:

• Enter your home into the MLS. Tough to sell a home without this

• Yard sign. Classic. You could do this yourself.

• Take photos. No guarantee on the quality. If it’s a smartphone picture, once again, you could do this yourself.

• Set up a key box. These are really necessary when there’s a lot of demand for your home.

In reality, the major benefit of going with a discount broker is that your home will be entered into the MLS. The rest wont do a ton to sell your home, and you could probably do a lot of it yourself. The MLS is the most credible source for buying or selling a home and is heavily used by the agents who would bring buyers to your home. You might save a little by using a discount broker, but buyers agents will still want to be paid a commission for the work that they do, otherwise they won’t feel motivated to bring their buyers to your home (would you feel motivated to do a job if you knew you wouldn’t be paid fairly?)

The Benefits of Using a Full Service Brokerage

Finally, there’s the option of going with a full service brokerage. Of course, we’re a little biased towards this option - we’ve worked with many clients, gotten them great results (see our zillow reviews), and have enjoyed helping them get a better value for their home.

Here’s the question: if you knew that a full service brokerage could at least cover its costs with a higher selling price, would you use one?

Of course you would!

Our 21 step marketing/sales plan is packed with activities and services we provide that go above and beyond the basic elements of selling a home. We’ve tested this plan extensively, and have the data to prove that it really adds value - on average, our clients sell their home for 102% of normal market value. Not only that, but the average days on market for Snohomish County and the Washington area is 12 days - our houses average just under 6 days on the market. Here are a few of those services included in our marketing/sales plan:

• MEGA open houses. We’re talking about weeks of preparation and advertising (email blasts, phone calls, etc)

• Networking. We’ve been in the business for a while, and we reach out to our connections (including our global ones) to get better buyers inside your home faster.

• Massive internet exposure. We have a high traffic website and strong social media presence that will make sure buyers are constantly looking at your home online. We also have a great website to search for Snohomish County Homes that's tied to the MLS.

• Skilled negotiation. You’d be surprised how much negotiating goes on with the sale of a home. Sometimes, a home gets an offer at a great price but poor negotiating throughout the process lowers that value. We’re experienced in these negotiations and protect you from this.

• Avatar specific social media marketing targeting the demographics of the potential buyer for your home (most homes have 3-4 ideal buying avatars)

• Direct and consistent communication.  We provide a detailed summary of all activity each week including showings, showing feedback, online performance and social benchmarks in addition to a phone call at least once per week throughout the process

Check out this video to learn a little more about what we do to provide value and make your home selling experience easy and profitable. Also, make sure you get in touch below. We’ll reach out and provide you with a full copy of our marketing and sales plan for free and begin creating a strategy tailored for you going forward.