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You need to make sure you and your friend are on the exact same page. You don't consider yourself to have engaged their services by letting them virtually show your home to buyers but they may have a very different point of view on that. Also, for the right price I would be flexible on move-out but that's me.
You need to make sure you and your friend are on the exact same page. You don't consider yourself to have engaged their services by letting them virtually show your home to buyers but they may have a very different point of view on that. Also, for the right price I would be flexible on move-out but that's me.
Absolutely. That was precisely my point to the OP. Emphasized below.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GotHereQuickAsICould
Talk with your friend. Find out what the expectations are. Be clear about yours.
Then decide if you want to proceed with the video tour and possible sale.
What exactly would an attorney do? I've heard of people doing private sales this way before, but I have no idea what it entails.
5 years ago the place my parents used did a pretty good job, but who knows if it has changed since then. It wasn't their first rodeo selling and she felt they were a good value.
We sold a house last year without any Realtors. Or bank financing, either, for that matter. Although it was on a 1031 exchange so it did have a holding company. We hired an attorney to write up the transaction. Most of it is boilerplate these days so it didn't take her very long to make the documents and paying her $120 per hour for three hours work is a lot less money than the percentage fee for using a Realtor. It would have been $1,200 worth of Realtor fees had it been sold via a standard type of Realtor contract.
Whether it's a dual agency or not, if you already know how much you want for your house, then add the 3% fee to that amount and tell your friend you will let his people buy it if they will pay that amount and take the house as it is without any repairs, upgrades or changes and with your selected move out date. That would save ever so much work on selling it.
Since you have a solid move out date but it's still months away, perhaps it could be sold now and you can rent it for the several months until you move out? Add the rents to the amount you want to sell it for as well as his finder's fee.
If you get your desired amount for the house sale, does it really matter how it gets sold? If your friend can make some $$ from the process, isn't that a good thing, too?
I have not engaged his services--thus far I've only agreed to let him virtually show the home to his buyers and said we haven't decided what we are going to do for listing, but are not okay with a dual agency situation (listing with him). He is already representing the buyer, though I agree he has a conflict of interest, which is why I feel like I need separate representation.
What are you going to do, keep your head in the sand, avoid the issue of commission and wait until he hands you a purchase contract that includes paying him 6%?
Before you go any further with this, call your "friend" and say something like "I appreciate your efforts but just how much commission are you expecting from the sale of my house"?
Whatever % he replies with you can agree or disagree. If you agree get it in writing before you let him into your house. If you don't agree, thank him and send him away.
I have not engaged his services--thus far I've only agreed to let him virtually show the home to his buyers and said we haven't decided what we are going to do for listing, but are not okay with a dual agency situation (listing with him). He is already representing the buyer, though I agree he has a conflict of interest, which is why I feel like I need separate representation.
The buyer's agent fee is not 3%. It's negotiable. And in a case like this, I wouldn't pay more than 1%.
I've sold my home using one of the flat fee listing services. You're on the right track. The only hiccup is that when a buyer's agent reaches out to me, I tell them the commission split. When I sold my home I had plenty of interest so I told every agent that the most I was willing to pay was 2%, and that was acceptable to every single agent except for one who said she wouldn't show the home for less than 2.5%. I was nice about it and told her that I would keep her number and call her if the 2% agents fell through, but I ended up getting 2 offers, one without an agent slightly below asking and one above asking but with an agent.
I ultimately selected the one without the agent because it put more cash in my pocket, but in hindsight I might have been better off selecting the one with the agent because there wasn't much difference in take-home and we had some hiccups in the transaction that the agent would have smoothed over. All in though it was a successful transaction.
You need to decide what you're going to do before you proceed with showing the house in any fashion. You've already gone too far by engaging the services of your friend without having a formal agreement. You're setting yourself up for a potentially strained friendship if the result doesn't match your friend's expectations. Will your friend be representing you (which would be the case if you listed through him), or will he be representing the Buyer? Even if he represents the Buyer, he has a built-in conflict of interest due to his friendship with you. Doing business with friends or family can be tricky. You need to clearly define the business relationship before you proceed any further.
Your friend, the real estate agent, should not have agreed to or planned anything, without a formal contract. It makes me wonder how professional this agent is.
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Absolutely. That was precisely my point to the OP. Emphasized below.
