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We are planning to list our home for sale in the early Spring. At our price point, we will be looking at upwards of $50,000 in fees if we agree to pay the traditional 3% each. I value realtors and understand that they split commissions with their brokerage firm, but $25-30,000 to list and sell our home seems excessive, even if it takes awhile. How do I have a conversation with a realtor about capping their fees? or is it best to use a service that just lists on the MLS? Advice appreciated.
I would try and use a lawyer to lawyer but in less sophisticated locations people may be thrown off by this. I agree 6% is huge but if you are not getting bites w your own open houses (signs everywhere, pay to be on MLS & pro pics of home) then you may have to give in to the broker rate. Good luck! It can be done.
In a sellers market in this time of age with redfin, zillow, trulia, and all these real estate websites, it is not that hard to sell a home with the right amount of experience and knowledge. You can take high quality pictures of homes with your iphone. I mean come on, we're on iphone 10 now? The younger generation use instagram and facebook, so it is very common to have an eye for taking photos and using filters to make the images look better and more vibrant.
Nowadays with todays technology and the ease of finding information through google, you rely much less on realtors. 3% commission to your agent for selling a home or buying a new home is ridiculously high.
it's probably very rare to find a 1% agent that does quality work.
I'm guessing this is what a 1% agent typically offers:
limited number of crappy photos.
5% response rate to inquiries. (He rarely answers the phone, and never returns calls from other agents) No wonder you're not getting any good offers. Those buyers have moved on to the next house. You'd be shocked if you found out how many missed unreturned calls he had.
lets you handle the buyers directly.
When you're paying peanuts, do you expect more than this?
Selling homes doesn't require a Ph.D. It's just time consuming sometimes, and a lot of agents don't maintain high standards.
There are enough lazy 3% agents already. Going with a 1% is asking for trouble.
Well, as long as you're simply guessing why not guess that he has prisoners tied up in the basement or bodies buried in the backyard? Isn't that the type of person that would work for only one percent?
These kinds of agents should be fired, since they are doing the buyer a huge disservice.
The buyer loses when there is inter-agent retaliation.
Normally you hear about agents blackballing listings with 1% buyer-side commission, but this discount broker was offering 3% to the buyer side.
I don't see any good reason to boycott this guy's listings, if that's the case.
There may have been some sarcasm in my post. Sellers often assume there is some reason other than condition or price of their home that is causing it not to fall. Often the folks who claim blackballing need to come up with a reason why the home didn't sell so it's as good as an excuse as any for them. In reality it is price or condition. Even poor marketing is overcome with correct pricing.
Trust me, buyers pick the homes to see these days. If an agent won't show those homes then the buyer will find someone who does. Blackballing may occur from time to time but when it does it's on a small basis by a rogue agent and it's not widespread among the industry.
Just do a For Sale By owner and sell it yourself. As far as Redfin (and other discounters), from what I see they don't maximize your sales price like a real Broker might do. Many of their listings could get more money with better marketing and experienced agents.
I sold my house with redfin after letting go of a well known "traditional agent" in my area. Traditional agent kept pushing me to list for $20k lower than what my own market research showed me. Redfin came in, listened to me, showed me their market research and looked at mine, and listed it for my desired price. All for 1.5% selling fee, including professional photography. House was actually sold a few grand over asking within two weeks.
Because of redfin I came out over $30k above what I would've gotten under my traditional brokerage.
Remember, sales price is mostly determined by the MARKET. We live in the internet/smart phone age and listings are now known publicly for anyone to access. There is no special marketing trick that a realtor can offer.
I sold my house with redfin after letting go of a well known "traditional agent" in my area. Traditional agent kept pushing me to list for $20k lower than what my own market research showed me. Redfin came in, listened to me, showed me their market research and looked at mine, and listed it for my desired price. All for 1.5% selling fee, including professional photography. House was actually sold a few grand over asking within two weeks.
Because of redfin I came out over $30k above what I would've gotten under my traditional brokerage.
Remember, sales price is mostly determined by the MARKET. We live in the internet/smart phone age and listings are now known publicly for anyone to access. There is no special marketing trick that a realtor can offer.
I have to call BS on this. The numbers skew way too much for this to be a logical outcome. Either that or the buyer got taken to the cleaners.
I sold my house with redfin after letting go of a well known "traditional agent" in my area. Traditional agent kept pushing me to list for $20k lower than what my own market research showed me. Redfin came in, listened to me, showed me their market research and looked at mine, and listed it for my desired price. All for 1.5% selling fee, including professional photography. House was actually sold a few grand over asking within two weeks.
Because of redfin I came out over $30k above what I would've gotten under my traditional brokerage.
Remember, sales price is mostly determined by the MARKET. We live in the internet/smart phone age and listings are now known publicly for anyone to access. There is no special marketing trick that a realtor can offer.
While Redfin does provide value over the average lazy agent, I think you're giving them too much credit.
How many offers did you get on your home?
What often happens is that even if you listed $20k below market, there would be multiple offers to bring it back up to your price or more. A lot of times, a buyer's first offer will be well above asking.
That's just one of the strategies to bring lots of eyeballs.
Since you got a few grand over asking, I'm 99% sure you would have gotten the same price or more with the traditional agent.
Just because you list below market doesn't mean you'll be stuck below market. Buyers and their agents are not dumb. They do their own CMA, and would have easily seen that your home was priced below market, and made an appropriate offer.
More importantly, just because you list below market doesn't mean you have to accept the first full-asking-price offer.
It's too bad that traditional agent lost out. He should have taken your price, and then made you agree to a price reduction within 2 weeks if there were no offers.
Last edited by oh come on!; 10-17-2017 at 01:36 PM..
in many cases, a Redfin agent can be just as good as some folks who merely stick their hand out for a higher commission. If an agent cannot show you or convince you of their value, you should choose someone else.
it doesn't sound like kishac actually listed with the 1st agent.
I sold my house with redfin after letting go of a well known "traditional agent" in my area. Traditional agent kept pushing me to list for $20k lower than what my own market research showed me. Redfin came in, listened to me, showed me their market research and looked at mine, and listed it for my desired price. All for 1.5% selling fee, including professional photography. House was actually sold a few grand over asking within two weeks.
Because of redfin I came out over $30k above what I would've gotten under my traditional brokerage.
Remember, sales price is mostly determined by the MARKET. We live in the internet/smart phone age and listings are now known publicly for anyone to access. There is no special marketing trick that a realtor can offer.
Its interesting you mention that...In my mind I've turned over the logic of hiring (as a selling agent) someone that sells a huge volume of properties in a year...I always think, "that's great for the Agent but I wonder about for the sellers." I wonder if they aren't great at selling the seller on both themselves and what they should do to get the house sold, and pricing it right for a fast sale. Not that that's a bad thing, but I question how much of it is financially wisest for the seller. I wonder if there is a "sweetspot" for days on the market of a Realtor's listings. Someone that routinely had their listings under contract in three days, I might be wary that they simply list too low.
Its interesting you mention that...In my mind I've turned over the logic of hiring (as a selling agent) someone that sells a huge volume of properties in a year...I always think, "that's great for the Agent but I wonder about for the sellers." I wonder if they aren't great at selling the seller on both themselves and what they should do to get the house sold, and pricing it right for a fast sale. Not that that's a bad thing, but I question how much of it is financially wisest for the seller. I wonder if there is a "sweetspot" for days on the market of a Realtor's listings. Someone that routinely had their listings under contract in three days, I might be wary that they simply list too low.
In respect to days on market (DOM), also be mindful of listing agents that purposely game the stats by withdrawing and relisting with every price drop. Although it doesn't completely reset in my MLS ( there are 2 fields that track DOM). One gets reset, the other doesn't. If an agent only shows the one that resets on a listing appointment, it's going to look mighty attractive to some sellers..
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