Price the hours you will spend
Write the tasks you would take on, then estimate the hours before you decide to sell it yourself.
Write the tasks you would take on if you sell it yourself, each on its own line: showings, calls, form review, and offer replies. Next to each line, write the hours you can actually give it in a normal week. A showing block of two hours is not the same as being on call all day. Be specific. Tuesday and Thursday, four to six, is an hour number. Whenever they want is not.
Add the hidden hours. A call to book a showing, the time to clear the house, the time to lock up, and the time to write the answer are four lines that people fold into the showing. If you write only the visit, you will undercount. Forms have hours too. Reading a A form where you report what you know about the property. Your state decides which forms you sign. packet and filling it in is not free because you are not paying a commission on that hour.
If the hours are more than you have, that task is a reason to hire help or to pay someone for that piece only. This is a schedule, not a judgment. The commission calculator can show the money. The hour list shows the time. Put both on the table before you decide. A task you cannot staff is a task you should price out, even if the quote is simply ask a photographer or ask an attorney what a review costs.
Look at one sample week on paper. If three showings, two offer reads, and the calls already fill the hours you wrote, you do not have a spare evening for a new repair bid. Hire that piece out or move the list date. Redo the hour list when your week changes. The decision to sell it yourself can stay. The decision to personally do every line does not have to.
What to do
- List each task you would keep, including calls and lock-up time.
- Write the hours you can give it in a normal week.
- Hire out a task that does not fit the week.
- Read the hour list next to the commission calculator before you decide.