Stephen Knight

If you've got a really expensive property, you might go,

No, I can't be bothered.

I'll use a real estate agent.

So that data there that I gave you, the 11% difference, it doesn't mean that if you sell your property that you are going to get an extra 11% and that actually a real estate agent pays for itself.

Now, if I look at some data out of Cotality, who used to be called CoreLogic, they also did the same numbers in 2023, and they found that there was a 12% premium for using an agent, so about a $78,000 gap, with the same caveat that they're not necessarily looking at the same properties because people who own cheaper properties might decide to list them themselves.

But what I did see

is that agent sales are more likely to succeed.

So if we look at the last decade, 76% of properties that were listed by agents ended up selling.

Compare that to only 65% of privately listed properties selling.

So putting that in other words, if you use an agent, there's about a 25% chance that your property doesn't sell.

If you try and sell it yourself, there's a 35% chance that it doesn't sell.

actually, the difference isn't that bad.

Like, you might have expected that the difference would be larger than that, right?

Now, let me ask you this, though.

Now, we're sitting here, I mean, not begging real estate agents, but they're so easy to beg.

We've got some good friends who are real estate agents.

Have you ever sold a house privately as in Andrew Nichol was there smiling at the open home with some flyers that he's designed on Canva?

Have you ever done that?

Absolutely not.

And nor would I.