What should I do: sell my flat through a real estate agency or through a private individual?

Gin and tonic (in a balloon glass), paella (Valencian)... if you are always looking for the best, you know that selling your flat is not something you should do with just any agency and even less on your own. If you are not sure, in this post we explain what you should consider.

14 June 2018 by Monapart

ALTO: If you want to selling your home and you are one of those who read articles on the real estate sector to, unfailingly and whatever their content, contribute comments such as: "... you are all swindlers... we have learned nothing... while there are still people living on the street... that's why I do it myself..., etcetera", please stop reading now and vent your anger. here.

If, on the other hand, you are one of those who read, understand, analyse and respond in a reasoned way, whether you are for or against real estate services, and you are at a point in your life when you ask yourself "what should I do: sell my flat through a real estate agency or a private seller?

In this post I want to argue, without having to go into too much explanation, three ideas:

We must stop justifying the services of a real estate agency on the basis of necessity. The idea that people hire an agency because they "don't know how" to sell a flat on their own is ridiculous. Precisely because real estate agencies are not necessaryshould strive to make themselves desirable.
Those who hire a real estate agency are looking for convenience and added value, exactly the same as every time he consumes something outside that he could otherwise satisfy at home or with his own resources, e.g. a gin and tonic or a paella.
The differential between the price and the cost of a product or service is determined by many factors beyond the law of supply and demand or the value of the brand, the difficulty of doing it or the moral, economic or legal implications of doing it badly on one's own account.

Can I sell my flat on my own?

In order to understand the economic cost for people to perform a task, I have taken as a benchmark the average wage in 2016 for a person resident in Barcelona. This €21,775 per year represents a gross income of €11.34 per hour worked (calculated over 1920 working hours per year).

Gin and tonic

The cost: The cost of preparing a gin and tonic domestic is €3.17: €2.23 for the raw ingredients plus €0.94 for the five minutes it takes to prepare it, according to the average salary of a Barcelonian.
Price: The average price of a gin and tonic in Barcelona can be around 10 €.

The added value: The difference between the retail price of the gin and tonic and the cost of preparing it at home is 3.15 times.

Selling my flat through a real estate agency or private seller | Monapart

You pay three times as much for a gin-tonic away from home than at home because of all that is expected in return: that it is perfect or repeated if it is not; that it is prepared and served; the music while it is consumed; sitting in the sun; not worrying about cleaning the glass or the table when you leave.

The difficulty: I will assume that there is some consensus that preparing a gin and tonic The homemade, drinkable and easy-to-drink is of little difficulty.
The risk: The only risk of preparing a gin and tonic The most important thing is that it is undrinkable and therefore has to be diluted, repeated or drunk with effort.

The reasons why someone hires the services of a real estate agency are not very different from the reasons why they hire the services of a bar or a restaurant: guarantee of quality, convenience, nonchalance...

Paella

The cost: Preparing a SEAFOOD PAELLA at home costs €2.37 per portion: €0.96 per person in raw ingredients plus €1.41 in paid time calculating that it takes 45 minutes to make a paella for six.
The price: Assume an average price of €12 for a portion of seafood paella in a restaurant in Barcelona.
The added value: Eating a paella out is 5.06 times more expensive than eating it at home and the added value of doing so is similar to the case of the gin and tonic.

The difficulty: It is quite possible that the reason why it is not difficult to make a good homemade paella is because it is not the first one you have made. I will say no more...
The risk: Again, the risk is that the paella will turn out badly and you will have to eat it reluctantly or throw it away - if it burns, for example, and have to cook something else or eat the paella outside the house.

Real estate services (selling a flat)

The cost: Selling a flat does not require raw materials, but it does - if it is to be done properly - require a series of necessary services, of which I will give an estimated retail price: photo shoot (€150); energy efficiency certificate (€120); certificate of occupancy (€75); floor plan (€50); nota simple (€8). In total €403, to which must be added €963.9, the cost corresponding to the 85 hours which is, on average, the time it takes to sell a home. Both concepts added together, the total cost of selling a property on one's own account is €1,366.9.
The price: The average fee charged by agencies in Barcelona for selling a flat is 4% on the final sale price, which in 2016 was, on average, €324,689. Therefore, the price of hiring an agency is €12,987.56.
The added value: Selling through an agency is 9.5 times more expensive than selling on your own account. The added value lies mainly in (1) avoiding mistakes that prevent the property from selling at the best possible price in a timely manner; (2) not having to deal with of a process that is intrusive and requires hours of management, telephone attention, face-to-face visits and negotiation; (3) avoiding the stress and worries of taking responsibility of a very burdensome and compromising sale; and (4) avoid responsibility for possible errors which would abort the sale or for which the buyer could claim financial compensation.

The difficulty: Selling my flat through a real estate agency or a private individual? Selling a property on your own is not difficult - it is cumbersome and stressful.-and hardly anyone has any experience of it. It's like always making the first paella of your life on the first day your in-laws come to eat. And for sure, too, you'll want the sale to go quickly…
Risk: If you are an orderly and rigorous person, the likelihood of something going wrong is low, but you can't afford to be a risk-taker. the implications of getting something wrong can be very costly and burdensome.

Decided. I want to sell my flat.

The reasons why someone hires the services of a real estate agency are not very different from the reasons why they hire the services of a bar or a restaurant: quality assurance, convenience, lack of concern... Whether in one case they are only willing to pay three times the cost of self-production and in others the difference is much greater depends, among other factors - market, value proposition, brand of the provider, etc. - on the perceived difficulty and the cost of making a mistake.

Therefore, if you are one of those people who ask for the gin and tonic in a ball cup, who travels to Valencia to eat a paella (which is never seafood, by the way) and who has to sell a flat, give yourself without fear to the pleasure of having everything done for you and let yourself be pampered by Monapart the only real estate agency with fans. To begin with, if you want a free valuation of your property, without obligation, reasoned and without generating false expectations, request it free of charge. here.

In view of this, are you still wondering whether to "sell my flat through a real estate agency or a private individual"? When we sell, paella and "ginto" are on us.