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When selling your home, getting the best result comes down to two things: how much you spend on the sale, and how much you make.

Here at Hicks Real Estate, we’re often asked why it’s worthwhile using an agent, so to answer this question we’ve put together a short summary of what goes into selling a home.

Is it worth using an agent to sell my home?

Whether or not to use an agent is often the first question that comes to people’s minds when they’re thinking about selling.

For you, the seller, making the best financial decision is a matter of investing in the right resources to get the highest possible price at sale. And more often than not, this investment comes in the form of an agent.

But you might be asking yourself – how much really goes into selling a home? How does an agent make it worth my while?

Here’s a little peek into all the work we put in to get you the best possible price.

We research the market. A lot.

Anytime we aren’t actively working on a sale or purchase, we’re brushing up on our market knowledge. The more we know about the market and the issues affecting it, the better. This could include anything from government policy to historical trends.

For some, doing this research is a chore that comes with the job, but for us it’s a passion.

We set a strategic asking price

Valuing your home and setting a price is a lot more complex and involved than you might think.

While sellers naturally want the highest possible price, if we set it too high, then the house might sit there unsold for too long – and the longer a property sits on the market, the more buyers will think there’s something wrong with it.

This is why valuations and pricing are a time-consuming and highly intricate skill. We need to balance the realities of the market with your expectations and desires, and this can require a fair bit of explanation and negotiation before a buyer is even involved!

We “stage” the home

Staging is the process of sprucing up your home to make it look as good as possible. We take staging very seriously, whether it’s repairs, improvements, or setting a scene with hired décor.

Again, choosing the best way to stage the home comes down to cost vs. expected return. For more information on staging, feel free to download our free ebook, How to Quickly and Easily Sell Your Home for Top Dollar.

We go above and beyond to market your home

This is where the hardest work goes in – and it’s ongoing work, not just a one-off.

Marketing your home requires a lot more than simply listing it on a website and waiting for the phone to ring. Unfortunately, this is exactly what some agents do – but not us.

We take the time to have your home professionally photographed for listings, showing its unique features and benefits, and we also conduct the open houses.

We’ve even been known to roll our sleeves up and do the cleaning and gardening ourselves, just to make sure everything looks its best for a showing!

In addition to traditional offline and online listings, we also reach out to our friends in the industry – this is a great way of finding interested buyers.

It takes years of relationship building to establish and maintain this network of trusted colleagues in a local area, but the effort is 100% worth it – especially for our sellers!

We negotiate on your behalf, and do all the paperwork

Negotiations can be both nerve-wracking and frustrating, especially for sellers. But they don’t have to be. A good agent will have taken the time to set a strategic asking price to begin with, and will use all their experience and local knowledge to give them the upper hand in negotiations.

Getting a good result is all about knowing more – as they say, knowledge is power.

Then, once a price is agreed on, we get down helping out with the paperwork. After selling a home the last thing anyone wants to deal with is signing documents and reading legal clauses. So we help lessen the load.

Next time you’re looking to sell (or buy) a home, remember to check that the agent you use can demonstrate that they put this much effort in. If not, they aren’t earning their commission!

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Hicks Real Estate is a Brisbane based, full-service real estate agency supporting buyers and sell as well as renters and property investors. With almost 20 years experience in the local market, we are the real estate experts you can rely upon.