North Shore/Western Nassau - Current average rate for listing your home with a real estate agent? (Manhasset: broker)

[Michelle1015]

We are considering selling our home on the North Shore of Western Nassau (Manhasset/PW/Roslyn area). In your experience, what is the typical/current rate a seller's agent is charging to list a home? I'm not sure if rate varies by area..
Thank you!

[amyla]

2 %

[Michelle1015]

Originally Posted by amyla

2 %

wow - we were anticipating the agents would request 5-6% to sell our home. This is good news.

[Glad2BHere]

4%

[Elke Mariotti]

The commission is a negotiated rate and varies, in part depending on what the agent will do to market it (including $$ spent), who the agent is, how much in demand the area is, does the agent work RE full time, etc.

Generally, commission rates range between 4-6%.

If you want your house marketed through the Multiple Listing Service, bear in mind that the selling broker will usually expect 2% (which will be split with the selling agent). If the listing broker/agent only charges 2% of the seller, which is then offered to the selling side, they will in effect work for free, or actually, they'll be in the red because of costs incurred to market the property, not to mention overhead.

[amyla]

2% to agent that sells/2% to agent that buys-that has been the norm with everyone I know that has bought and sold the last few years-including myself.

You can offer a more to the agent that brings your buyer as incentive for your house-ie: if they have a 500k buyer and getting 2% to sell 5 other homes but getting 3% to sell yours thats making 10k vs 15k-your might become more attractive for them to sell.

Also, if the same agent is used for both the buy and the sell things can be negotiated.

[longislander2]

Based on recent past experience, most agencies will probably quote you 5%. The person who posted 2% may have been talking only one side of the deal. I can't imagine any reputable agency taking your house for that amount (and you probably wouldn't want anyone who works for that low a commission).

We were given the option of paying 4% or 5%. Why anyone in their right mind would choose the higher amount is beyond me. Since our home is pricey, we saved a lot of money by going with the lower figure. Some agents will tell you that competing brokers will not show your house because they only get 2% instead of the standard 2.5%. We did not see that issue come up.

As you talk to agents, also keep the market in mind. We are hearing inventory is low, especially for homes that don't need a lot of work and are fairly priced. That means agents are scrambling for listings and may be able to sell quality homes fairly quickly, so you may be able to negotiate a lower commission if yours is an especially good one. We saw a nice, clean, updated well-priced home in Glen Head that recently went on the market and was sold in seven days.

Just a few pieces of advice from someone who's a recent seller:
1. Don't sign a listing agreement for more than six months.
2. Look at the "comps" carefully and make sure agents aren't giving you a low-ball appraisal by putting your home against inferior competition. As I've posted elsewhere on here, if we had not done our homework on "comps" and had simply listened to the agents, we would now be out about $100,000.
3. If you negotiate a good commission, make sure the agent still does a quality marketing job, including good photos and full exposure on all possible sites beyond the Long Island MLS site. We've seen too many homes with 20 photos on MLS and then little or no presence on realtor.com, NY Times and others. Some agents may think a commission lower than 5% means they can skimp on the marketing effort.

Good luck!