Realtor vs. selling yourself (for sale by owner, real estate, renters)

[diamondmom]

We just fired our realtor as they were useless. Question is, do we hire another realtor or reduce the price and sell it ourselves? We really need to move.

[ehs]

You can do either way; however, if you are going to find another realtor, here are some tips will help your property sold quick:

1. Put in the lease "listing agent get 1%" and "selling agent get 4%" commission, then thousands of realtors will be on your side and show yours first.

2. If you try to find next realtor, you may want to go to realtor.com to find listing agents who take "lots of nice pictures" of their listing.

3. Make sure your listing agent will hold Open House and do marketing before Open House not just put out side and waiting for neighborhood other listing agent to do marketing on their open house.

If you are going to sell you by yourself, make sure you know many powerful for sale by owner sites such as forsalebyowner.com craigslist.org ...etc. And you want to hold Open House yourself too.

Due to the fact mortgage rate jump, if you do not have have to sell, you may want to take off market for a while, soon when gas price keep going down, the mortgage rate will be too, then you sell again ... http://www.bankrate.com/brm/graphs/g...t=1&prodtype=M

[krusher]

Due to the fact mortgage rate jump, if you do not have have to sell, you may want to take off market for a while

Spoken like a true realtor. God forbid your commission goes down because the market is tanking. The original poster has said they "really need to move."

My question to the OP is why do you think the first realtor was useless? What do you think would be different by hiring a new one?

[BobKovacs]

I'm interested in finding out what realtor is going to take your listing with a 1%/4% split. It's not worth the time/expense of listing the house if another agent happens to get a buyer first.

Bob

[ehs]

Yes, I sound very knowlegable on real estate, but I am just advisors for many top realtors, but am not one.

I invented this 1% vs 4% tip for current market, what I called "first time buyers market."

Think about it, Bob, if you were a listing agent, no matter how much % commission going to give you, if you were NOT able to sell the property, you still got NONE!

In fact, for a $500,000 house, 1% is $5,000, still lots of money. If you list the unit, and thousands of other selling agents able to help sold the unit, the listing agent spent little effort and make $5,000 that's a lot.

If you go to any realtor license course, the teacher will tell you, how much you make per hour, depending on how much time you spend, so if you spend 100 hours on listing the house and sold eventually, making $5,000 you still make $50 per hour. But what if most listing agent spend only 50 hours? Then they make $100 an hour!!!

Why you say it's not worth the time? Besides, listing a house at MLS cost very little listing fee. The key is really if other thousands realtor will bring buyers to your listing.

I know it may be hard to explain all these, but this 1% vs 4% tip has been practicing in dozens of cases thru out NJ, and I have not heard any one not worked. (and of couse, some realtor members in the forum has endorsed this).

If you think 1% is not enough to motivate listing agent, then 2% is fine too, but if seller willing to pay 6%, I would do 1% vs 5%.

Other than 1% vs 4% rule. The seller also need to be aware that since realtor.com changed their policy to listing properties with "multiple photos", so taking 8 to 10 nice pictures are very importants, you got much more exposure.

Foxtons.com is a discount realtor service, it did wonderful on photos taking, some close to 20 nice pictures, but the draw back is that it only gives 1% to selling agent, many MLS affiliated realtors would NOT bother to show. I would say, ideally, the seller will use Foxtons and increase commission volunteerly from 3% to 6% and make it clear that Foxtons still got its 2%, but would give selling agent 4%, then it would be wonderful!

On the other hand, there is no "perfect services" existing, and that's why real estate expert like myself has great value. Just like one the one hand Yahoo provided me free email services for many years, say, $10 per month value, and it could be well over $1,000 value for all these years, but then it removed my email address without reason nor notice that cost me hundreds of times loss ...

In IT profession, since there is no best solution in many situation, so we have to write "wrapers" to glue all the given tools and program to work together, and this is the same in real estate.

So, ideally, any seller came to me, I would say they may need to use MLS, Foxton and Forsalebyowner to be in the best position to sell. So a fair and workable scheme may be
also include that seller can place ads at forsalebyowner, and if sold by seller, the listing agent still get 1%, and seller get that 4% as if s/he is selling agent. On the other hand, buyers from forsalebyowner channels tend to want to save the commission, at least a big portion, so that 4% commission in fact may be going to buyer. Seller can offer to refer prospective buyers who did not buy the house to the listing agent to buy neighbors unit, that way it is a total win situation.

[ehs]

Originally Posted by krusher

Spoken like a true realtor. God forbid your commission goes down because the market is tanking. The original poster has said they "really need to move."

My question to the OP is why do you think the first realtor was useless? What do you think would be different by hiring a new one?

Well, "really need to move" still does not mean HAVE TO sell. Think twice, you can move and rent out the property, especially, rental market should be very hot for the area where sales is slow.

The first realtor may be a fair realtor, but that impression made to seller is that the property not sold. You can still use the same realtor and use that 1% vs 4% rule, and it will work too.

[krusher]

Originally Posted by ehs

Well, "really need to move" still does not mean HAVE TO sell. Think twice, you can move and rent out the property, especially, rental market should be very hot for the area where sales is slow.

And I'm sure they'll get top dollar for their place after they get some renters in there for a couple of years beating it up.

[NC little foot]

I've been down this road. We also fired our first realtor after 15 months on the market. Hired a new one, had offer in 30 days, 10 day's before closing they backed out.

Find a wealthy realtor, they have money for advertising, Look for the one's that drive the mercedes. The poor one I hired first kept complaining he couldn't pay his mortgage because the market was so bad. Which in turn meant no advertising for me.

I am now 4sale for 18 months, the house is not a dump in fact it is completely renovated. We just lowered it again to just under what it appraised for. I am also offering a buyer's agent $1500 bonus. and the 5% split.

I feel your pain. Me, I'm so aggravated at this point. Renting may be an option soon.

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by ehs

Yes, I sound very knowlegable on real estate, but I am just advisors for many top realtors, but am not one.

I invented this 1% vs 4% tip for current market, what I called "first time buyers market."

Think about it, Bob, if you were a listing agent, no matter how much % commission going to give you, if you were NOT able to sell the property, you still got NONE!

In fact, for a $500,000 house, 1% is $5,000, still lots of money. If you list the unit, and thousands of other selling agents able to help sold the unit, the listing agent spent little effort and make $5,000 that's a lot.

If you go to any realtor license course, the teacher will tell you, how much you make per hour, depending on how much time you spend, so if you spend 100 hours on listing the house and sold eventually, making $5,000 you still make $50 per hour. But what if most listing agent spend only 50 hours? Then they make $100 an hour!!!

Why you say it's not worth the time? Besides, listing a house at MLS cost very little listing fee. The key is really if other thousands realtor will bring buyers to your listing.

There's just a few flaws in your logic:

1. Of that $5,000, typically 1/2 goes to the broker- especially for newer salespeople- so using your "100 hours" example, the listing broker is now only making $25/hour- not the $50/hour you touted.

2. You mentioned that "listing a house at MLS cost very little listing fee. The key is really if other thousands realtor will bring buyers to your listing." So that's all it takes to promote a listing, huh? I'm sure plenty of realtors wish it was so easy- just pop the listing in the MLS and sit back and wait for the selling agents to drag buyers kicking and screaming to your door. Unless you clearly post in the listing title "HEY! YOU GET 4%!!!!" most realtors will never even see that fact, as they don't have the time to go through every listing that pops up in the MLS in detail.

3. The listing broker is going to do far more for his $2,500 than just "list the house in the MLS"- he's got to present the offers, negotiate on behalf of the seller, see the deal through attorney review, open the house for inspections, keep the deal together, take care of all of the last-minute details prior to closing, and deal with the seller's constant questioning on every aspect of the process. Sounds like a lot to handle for $2,500 IMO.

If your process is so brillant, why are you just "advisor for many top realtors", rather than being a top realtor yourself???

Bob

[NewHomeHappy]

Originally Posted by diamondmom

We just fired our realtor as they were useless. Question is, do we hire another realtor or reduce the price and sell it ourselves? We really need to move.

I have a friend that I am highly recommending to everyone.
Let me know via PM if you would like his name/#.