You might have the inside of your home newly renovated with new appliances, fresh pain and newly finished hardwood floors, but if your home is lacking curb appeal, you may never get potential buyers inside your front door.  Your home’s exterior, along with your lawn, gardens, garage and walkways need to turn heads and grab the attention of buyers and passersby.

Truth be told, there are a variety of reasons why a house might stay on the market for an extended period of time.  Any time a house remains unsold for 90 days or more, real estate agents consider the house to be “stale”.  Once this happens, the selling price typically drops because potential buyers look at the listing and assume there is something wrong with the property, bypassing it all together.  However, the property really could be a gem in disguise and you need to determine why the house isn’t selling.

With the growing popularity of Zillow.com, Trulia.com and Realtor.com, I felt that it was important to discuss something you should look out for when you are visiting these sites. According to most real estate statistics, the majority of people are going online if they are in the market to purchase a new home, so there is a strong possibility that you will land on one of those sites.  Let’s take Zillow as an example. On Zillow’s homepage, there is an opportunity to search for a property by town, here’s an example of this search feature from Zillow’s site.

It is no secret to anyone watching the housing market that within just the past year, the sales of new homes have increased to the highest level we have seen in over a decade.  For anyone currently looking to become a homebuyer, this news puts more of a strain on the process, which can quickly lead to heartache and frustration. 

In this current market, you need to be aggressive in your search and in your offers.  There is no time for procrastination.

The short answer to this question is YES, you should.

Though you might feel as if you have enough knowledge about real estate and can find information you need by doing research, there are many reasons to hire your own agent.