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Selling you will pay anywhere from 4.5 to 6% to agents/brokers and .3-1.5% transaction/closing costs of sales price, Plus any applicable taxes due WA or the Feds. Buying you pay only your closing costs which these days can run from .3 to 3.5%..when selling you have to pay your agents commission and the buyers agent commission as opposed to buying where you pay zero commissions. You have closing costs associated with your sale that you have to pay escrow fees (varies wildly) title fees, recording fees, but overall more or less the same when you are buying. In a very desirable home even in a slow market you can get the agents to knock off a bit of the commission percentage if they feel it will be an easy sell with minimal marketing..for example I recently sold our California Property but even in the horrible market we had a very desirable property so the buyers agent took our 2% offer and our listing agent took .8%,I don't want to seem like i don't want anyone to make money but literally all they had to do was the paperwork to handle the transaction.....You can find low cost brokers in WA that will do the deal for 1%,but I would say unless your house it the very best on the block or best priced with the most features I would keep the standard buyers agent commission in place or even raise it 1/2 a percentage point to 3.5% so your home will get more views than most others and the buyers agent will have e very good incentive to show your home..the Seattle area is starting to shows cracks...so all in all your biggest savings is to use a low cost broker,another option which I have done in the past is to spend for a very good for sale by owner ad,then if your price point and location is good,wait for the buyers to walk in and use their agent for the entire transaction and offer him/her .3 to .6% to work as a dual agent...but this takes a strong stomach as someone won't get the best representation and it might be you...and one last thought since your are selling and buying if you are within the same or relatively close area use one agent to sell and buy your properties and offer a flat 4% comission for them to handle both transactions,even the large companies that would have rejected this in the past are more receptive these days...
good luck
Last edited by ST CRoix To Seattle; 04-14-2008 at 04:31 PM..
Reason: spelling
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