Should You Hire a Friend or Relative When Buying or Selling?

When you buy or sell a home, don’t hire a friend or family member as your real estate agent. There are three main problems that arise if you don’t hire a professional agent.

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Buying and selling real estate is a very sensitive and complicated matter. Here on the McDaniel Callahan team, we handle real estate transactions on a daily basis. If you are thinking of buying or selling a home, you may have a friend or family member prodding you to hire them out of obligation. Here are a few things you need to keep in mind: 

1. Security of personal information. Your friend or family member might be a great person to have a beer with, but do you really want to show them your tax returns? Do you want them to know the ins and outs of your banking life? When you buy or sell a home, it is helpful to work with an objective third party that can look at your information without judging you based on what they see in your financial history. 

You need to have the right counsel in your corner when buying or selling a home.

2. Avoiding the hard truths. There can be some hard decisions you need to make when it comes to buying or selling real estate. If you work with someone who is close to you, they may pad the truth a little to protect you from these hard decisions. Unfortunately, that could cause some very serious consequences for you down the road. You could have some financial issues or discover property damage that your friend didn’t tell you about. You need to have the right counsel in your corner when you are buying or selling a home. 

3. Navigating legal minefields. There are dozens of pages of legal writing that you need to understand and a lot of little idiosyncrasies to keep track of. If your family member or friend doesn’t work with real estate on a full-time basis, you could end up in a lot of trouble. You may even lose a home that you have your heart set on because the person you’re working with is not up to date on the newest contracts and how to get the job done. 

If you have any questions about avoiding these three potholes or about real estate in general, give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!