This may not be the best thread to ask this in, but there did not seem to be one specific thread that this question seemed to most apply to. Since this heavily influences my ability to buy an RV...
As part of the plan to go full time and buy a truck and 5th wheel, we are trying to limit ourselves to just financing the 5th wheel and paying cash for the tow vehicle. This, of course, requires maximizing our net profits from selling our S&B house. We've had three market analysis done by realtors and they all essentially come in within about $5-6,000 of each other. The issue then becomes the 6% realtor fees and one realtor mentioned a few other expenses to expect and following his math we could stand to lose up to 40% of our gross profits from the sale of the house and with that the ability to pay cash for our tow vehicle.
One of the realtors was highly recommended to us by close friends and he works a bit differently than most in that he only charges a flat fee (just under $3,000). When we met with him, he suggested listing with an offer of 2.5% to the buyer's realtor, 1% to any realtor in his office, but if we found the buyer then we would only pay the flat fee. So we are now thinking hard about the idea of listing/marketing our home as For Sale By Owner as a way to find the buyer ourselves and then go to the flat fee realtor and have him handle the paperwork.
I think I've seen mentioned somewhere in this forum that one or more of you have attempted to sell your home as the owner rather than listing through a realtor. I'm curious about your experiences, thoughts, advice, pros vs cons, lessons learned...
BiggarView said
08:01 AM Mar 18, 2015
Yes you could save money doing a FSBO... a note of caution, you won't have the best market coverage, buyers usually are working with agents who will typically not be inclined to direct them to FSBOs, and lastly you could be sitting on the house for a considerably longer period than using an agent, not a biggie if your house is paid for, but if not, that's probably enough mtg payments to justify the agent in the first place. My choice would be to find an agent that is a producer, remember your objective is to sell the house first and comparatively quickly not necessarily for the best absolute price. It's a tricky balancing act based solely on your particular situation. Good luck!
Brian
el Rojo and Pam said
08:45 AM Mar 18, 2015
If your housing markets hot for sellers FSBO will work. If not you better list it with a Realtor if you really want to sell it.
Just my opinion, though.
LauriGray said
08:47 AM Mar 18, 2015
I would go with the flat fee realtor your friends recommended (providing your house is worth more that 100,000 1/2 of 5.5%=5500.00 vs 6000.00 at 6%) You get the max exposure with the MLS. I have bought and sold many homes and unless I had all the time in the world to deal with looky loo's , unqualified buyers, and folks wanting you to carry the contract would not do a fsbo. Plus the legal hoops that have to be jumped through may scare some people off as they may feel something might be missed in say a title search if the "professionals" aren't handling it. IMHO the listing realtor rarely sells your home it is always another agent who brings the buyer to you. Even at 2.5% (everything is negotiable) I doubt an agent will turn down an opportunity to bring a buyer to you. Most fees added up including closing average around 10% so say your house is worth 200,000 you can plan on 20,000 going to pay the realtors and associated costs. More if the buyer wants you to pay all or part of their costs.
Terry and Jo said
09:00 AM Mar 18, 2015
Robert,
We first listed our home in 2008, a bad year because of the housing and economic downturn. In all, it took us 3 years to get our home sold, but that was because of the economy, not our choices in whether to use a realtor or go alone. We had a good realtor for 2 1/2 years before we went to FSBO. She kept us updated on the markets, and we had the secondary bad luck that our home was in the price range where the slowest interest was for homes.
When we went FSBO, we did as was suggested to you by going to 2.5% to the realtors, but some of them are so greedy, that they even refused to mention the home to their clients. We know this because one of those realtors called to ask if we'd still consider 3% instead of the 2.5%. While she said that her clients (actually family members to her) "might" want to see it, we never heard from them again. So, dropping off the 3% to 2.5% might not work for you if the realtor still wants their 3%.
We did sell using the FSBO method, but I think we were lucky in many ways. Our home happened to be of interest to a couple where she had a realtor's license. With that, she offered to do all the closing paperwork so that we didn't have to have a realtor do that for us. We did have the assistance of one realtor that offered to list our home on the MLS for a fee of some amount and also offered to do the paperwork for a flat fee of $1500 if that were needed. We were prepared to pay all of that, and we were delighted that our buyer had the realtor's license.
We did sell the house for a few thousand less than we owed on the home, but considering the mortgage payments that we were no longer paying, that loss was covered in just a few months.
Terry
Talensnana said
09:30 PM Mar 18, 2015
If you choose to sell it as a FSBO you may want to contact a title company to do the final paperwork. This could prevent some problems later on. Where we live there is one realtor in town that does flat rate and the rest are percentages. Most of the other realtors will not show his listings unless their buyers or the sellers agree to pay their 3%. Be careful a lot of people prey on FSBOs and you could waste a lot of time with people who can not or won't be buyers.
The Restless Youngs said
08:32 AM Mar 19, 2015
We were fortunate enough to sell our house through a listing on Zillow. We were in a market that was hot and realtors and buyers were scanning Zillow for potential homes so that worked in our favor. We ended up paying one side of the commission, because our buyer had a realtor they were working with. Prior to the sale of our last home, we also sold our other homes without using a realtor, but utilized a MLS listing service, so the property gets listed on the MLS but basically is a FSBO as you do all the showings and paperwork. The listing shows like it comes through a realtor, but you ultimately do all of the work. Cost for that was around $500.00 and the advantage was that it showed up on the MLS listings. With that being said, and all the luck we've had doing it on our own, I believe it ultimately depends on your market, how much inventory is available, average days on market, etc. Realtors provide a great service and having a good realtor who is aggressive on the marketing side and will negotiate pricing and concessions is priceless.
We've also been fortunate that the paperwork where we lived isn't too complex so that process didn't scare us too much. The buyer's realtor (and their main office) were very helpful on getting some of the paperwork completed (township certs, etc.) for a small fee which we gladly paid (under $100). But understanding the process, what inspections and certifications are necessary is critical. I have managed relocation as part of my job and know some states have more complicated processes (or more paperwork!!) than others...so something to understand for sure.
To sum it up--what Red said!!
The Junkman said
07:21 PM Mar 19, 2015
We just sold a house , here in Florida.. Sold it in 3 days.. With century 21..We did well.
Close on a new property we are keeping, tomarrow.. It was listed with a realtor as well..I would not have ever found it, if it wasn't.. in horse ranch areas..
Alot has to do with location.. condition and price..
If you can hit 2 of 3.. it should sell fast..
Good luck
-- Edited by The Junkman on Thursday 19th of March 2015 07:22:37 PM
Someday said
01:37 PM Mar 20, 2015
FWIW: After googling for discount mls listing companies ...........
We are planning on using Brokerlessmls.com to get our Sarasota property listed on the mls system (that's where the majority of sales stem from as being the best source to promote) for $188 +/- listing side, and we will offer out 3% to a buyers agent so they won't blacklist our property being they are getting paid what is the more typically seen fee when they are searching for their buyers. We will provide the description, photos and room sizes, and probably create our own in house feature sheets which are easy enough to do with all the programmes out there today.
The reason we like this is that all showings have to be booked direct through us so we know exactly what is going on during our absence, and we just can't justify paying double the commissions when we know what is involved in the physical listing side of things. It's just the mls exposure we want.
Hubby is going to approach an elder neighbour couple opposite to ask them if they'd be kind enough to open all drapes etc before showings and go back through afterwards to close them and make sure all doors locked, lights off except the timer ones, and air conditioning not been altered. When we are there in residence of course this is not a problem. Of course we can either offer to pay them 'x' amount per showing booked or give them a few hundred bucks upon a sale and a nice gift to show our appreciation, which we would do any how.
Our decision now is do we put it on the market in a couple of weeks time after he gets the photos back to me or would we be better off to wait for the next snowbird season when we can between us be more in residence from October through to late spring without compromising our limitation on days allowed in the USA being Canadians? Decisions, decisions. Would value any Fla folks experience for this area regarding whether Fall and winter is better time to sell in that area than late spring and summer. We are in no panic, but be nice to get it done and done now we've committed to the decision.
That's just our 2 cents, not sure if there's something along these lines that might help OP or others to gain the right exposure but be able to save on the listing side of commissions.
This may not be the best thread to ask this in, but there did not seem to be one specific thread that this question seemed to most apply to. Since this heavily influences my ability to buy an RV...
As part of the plan to go full time and buy a truck and 5th wheel, we are trying to limit ourselves to just financing the 5th wheel and paying cash for the tow vehicle. This, of course, requires maximizing our net profits from selling our S&B house. We've had three market analysis done by realtors and they all essentially come in within about $5-6,000 of each other. The issue then becomes the 6% realtor fees and one realtor mentioned a few other expenses to expect and following his math we could stand to lose up to 40% of our gross profits from the sale of the house and with that the ability to pay cash for our tow vehicle.
One of the realtors was highly recommended to us by close friends and he works a bit differently than most in that he only charges a flat fee (just under $3,000). When we met with him, he suggested listing with an offer of 2.5% to the buyer's realtor, 1% to any realtor in his office, but if we found the buyer then we would only pay the flat fee. So we are now thinking hard about the idea of listing/marketing our home as For Sale By Owner as a way to find the buyer ourselves and then go to the flat fee realtor and have him handle the paperwork.
I think I've seen mentioned somewhere in this forum that one or more of you have attempted to sell your home as the owner rather than listing through a realtor. I'm curious about your experiences, thoughts, advice, pros vs cons, lessons learned...
Yes you could save money doing a FSBO... a note of caution, you won't have the best market coverage, buyers usually are working with agents who will typically not be inclined to direct them to FSBOs, and lastly you could be sitting on the house for a considerably longer period than using an agent, not a biggie if your house is paid for, but if not, that's probably enough mtg payments to justify the agent in the first place. My choice would be to find an agent that is a producer, remember your objective is to sell the house first and comparatively quickly not necessarily for the best absolute price. It's a tricky balancing act based solely on your particular situation. Good luck!
Brian
Just my opinion, though.
Robert,
We first listed our home in 2008, a bad year because of the housing and economic downturn. In all, it took us 3 years to get our home sold, but that was because of the economy, not our choices in whether to use a realtor or go alone. We had a good realtor for 2 1/2 years before we went to FSBO. She kept us updated on the markets, and we had the secondary bad luck that our home was in the price range where the slowest interest was for homes.
When we went FSBO, we did as was suggested to you by going to 2.5% to the realtors, but some of them are so greedy, that they even refused to mention the home to their clients. We know this because one of those realtors called to ask if we'd still consider 3% instead of the 2.5%. While she said that her clients (actually family members to her) "might" want to see it, we never heard from them again. So, dropping off the 3% to 2.5% might not work for you if the realtor still wants their 3%.
We did sell using the FSBO method, but I think we were lucky in many ways. Our home happened to be of interest to a couple where she had a realtor's license. With that, she offered to do all the closing paperwork so that we didn't have to have a realtor do that for us. We did have the assistance of one realtor that offered to list our home on the MLS for a fee of some amount and also offered to do the paperwork for a flat fee of $1500 if that were needed. We were prepared to pay all of that, and we were delighted that our buyer had the realtor's license.
We did sell the house for a few thousand less than we owed on the home, but considering the mortgage payments that we were no longer paying, that loss was covered in just a few months.
Terry
If you choose to sell it as a FSBO you may want to contact a title company to do the final paperwork. This could prevent some problems later on. Where we live there is one realtor in town that does flat rate and the rest are percentages. Most of the other realtors will not show his listings unless their buyers or the sellers agree to pay their 3%. Be careful a lot of people prey on FSBOs and you could waste a lot of time with people who can not or won't be buyers.
We've also been fortunate that the paperwork where we lived isn't too complex so that process didn't scare us too much. The buyer's realtor (and their main office) were very helpful on getting some of the paperwork completed (township certs, etc.) for a small fee which we gladly paid (under $100). But understanding the process, what inspections and certifications are necessary is critical. I have managed relocation as part of my job and know some states have more complicated processes (or more paperwork!!) than others...so something to understand for sure.
To sum it up--what Red said!!
We just sold a house , here in Florida.. Sold it in 3 days.. With century 21..We did well.
Close on a new property we are keeping, tomarrow.. It was listed with a realtor as well..I would not have ever found it, if it wasn't.. in horse ranch areas..
Alot has to do with location.. condition and price..
If you can hit 2 of 3.. it should sell fast..
Good luck
-- Edited by The Junkman on Thursday 19th of March 2015 07:22:37 PM
We are planning on using Brokerlessmls.com to get our Sarasota property listed on the mls system (that's where the majority of sales stem from as being the best source to promote) for $188 +/- listing side, and we will offer out 3% to a buyers agent so they won't blacklist our property being they are getting paid what is the more typically seen fee when they are searching for their buyers. We will provide the description, photos and room sizes, and probably create our own in house feature sheets which are easy enough to do with all the programmes out there today.
The reason we like this is that all showings have to be booked direct through us so we know exactly what is going on during our absence, and we just can't justify paying double the commissions when we know what is involved in the physical listing side of things. It's just the mls exposure we want.
Hubby is going to approach an elder neighbour couple opposite to ask them if they'd be kind enough to open all drapes etc before showings and go back through afterwards to close them and make sure all doors locked, lights off except the timer ones, and air conditioning not been altered. When we are there in residence of course this is not a problem. Of course we can either offer to pay them 'x' amount per showing booked or give them a few hundred bucks upon a sale and a nice gift to show our appreciation, which we would do any how.
Our decision now is do we put it on the market in a couple of weeks time after he gets the photos back to me or would we be better off to wait for the next snowbird season when we can between us be more in residence from October through to late spring without compromising our limitation on days allowed in the USA being Canadians? Decisions, decisions. Would value any Fla folks experience for this area regarding whether Fall and winter is better time to sell in that area than late spring and summer. We are in no panic, but be nice to get it done and done now we've committed to the decision.
That's just our 2 cents, not sure if there's something along these lines that might help OP or others to gain the right exposure but be able to save on the listing side of commissions.