With home sellers looking to take advantage of current market conditions—and fears of a real estate bubble motivating them to sell quickly—they’re turning to real estate professionals for guidance more than ever, according to a recent report from Clever Real Estate. The firm conducted a survey of more than a thousand homeowners who plan to sell their home in the next 12 months, and asked them about their perceptions and expectations of the process as well as the role of a REALTOR®
Key findings from the survey:
- 45% of home sellers believe the housing market is in a bubble that could burst in 2022.
- Approximately 43% of sellers expect their home to sell for more than asking price.
- 25% expect to receive an offer on the first day their home is listed; 53% anticipate an offer within a month.
- The most common fear among sellers is that their home will stay on the market for too long (74%).
- The share of sellers who plan to use a REALTOR® is 77%, up from 54% in 2019.
- 19% say finding a good real estate agent is the hardest part of the home-selling process.
- Nearly twice as many millennial sellers plan to use an agent (80%) compared to 2019 (47%).
- Just 8% of sellers plan to sell their home without the help of a REALTOR®, citing expense as the No. 1 reason why.
- 47% of all home sellers believe AI can currently outperform a traditional REALTOR®.
- Millennials are twice as likely as baby boomers to favor AI.
- 46% know how much they’ll end up paying in commission; 42% don’t realize they’re also expected to pay the buyer’s agent’s commission.
- 53% of sellers are aware their agent isn’t responsible for appraising a home.
- Word-of-mouth referrals are the third-most common way to find an agent (42%), behind online real estate platforms (54%) and review websites (48%).
- Millennials are three times as likely as boomers to trust unverified REALTOR® reviews.
The takeaway:
According to Clever Real Estate, “Some of the most common misconceptions among home sellers stem from a lack of understanding about the typical tasks a seller’s agent performs…when shown a list of tasks associated with a real estate transaction, only two of the 1,004 respondents correctly identified the only ones handled by a seller’s agent—revealing most sellers lack an understanding of the process.”
“The majority of sellers say they plan to interview two or three REALTORS® (54%) before making a hire,” the report also noted. The most popular methods for interviewing real estate agents are speaking in person (53%), followed by a video call (21%) and a phone call (15%).
