selling my home

I’m going to sell my home and move to Las Vegas. My wife is pressuring me to make a decision on weather to give an agent 6% or $14,000 and I think it’s way to much. Am I out of my mind or should I use an agent?

I’m guessing that you already know this, but assuming you list your house for 6%, 3% of that goes to the agent that brings the buyer, so unless the agent you list with produces the buyer, the listing brokerage gets 3%.

You have to decide if you can sell your home yourself better, quicker & easier than if you listed it with an agent. Can you price your home well? Will you be able to show it and hold open houses? How and where will you advertise it? Can you pre-qualify the potential buyers so that you aren’t wasting your time dealing with people that can’t afford your home? Can you negotiate well, deal with inspections, set up the closing details?

If you do try to sell it yourself, will you be willing to pay 3% to an agent to bring you a buyer? If not, you will be limited to those buyers who aren’t working with agents and are interested in dealing with the owner directly. In my experience, buyers that want to by from the owner and don’t use an agent themselves do so because they want to save 6% (or more) off of the house they are buying. These buyers tend to look at your asking price, deduct 6 or 7% and use that as the ceiling for their negotiations. So in the end, some owners spend considerable time and money to sell their home themselves and they don’t end up saving anything because their home would have sold quicker and for more money if they had used an agent.

I agree with missmbb. I tried doing FSBO on my first home I owned and had that experience.

I am extremely tight with my money and hate paying comission, but keep you eye on the bottomline number of dollars in pocket. Going FSBO will bring the “low-ballers” out in force, be a big hassle and has miminal upside.

Thoughts from a guy who has done 20 deals in the 10 yrs.

on the flipside, if you list your house with 3.5% to buyers agents, you will get more showings as all agents want to get that extra $$.

don’t know where you are, but in california, there are online brokers who will list your home on mls and realtor.com for $300. i sold my last residence that way. got top dollar too. but then again, i know how to price my home, pull comps, what upgrades sell and how to stage a home. if you can’t do these things, you’re better off listing with an agent.

If you have to ask, then you’re not experienced enough to sell your property yourself AND get top dollar for it in the process.

Go with an agent. You to interview AT THE LEAST three agents before you make a decision on one. Agents from national chains usually work best (broader advertising), but the most important aspect of the interview is to find out which agent will sell your home the fastest. You want an agent with experience, but you don’t really want to hear all about THEM. Most agents interview by telling you what they have done. “I’ve sold X number of houses” “I’m the top lister” “I’m the top seller” “I’ve won this award or that award” etc etc. All this is great, but what you need to know is what they are going to do to sell YOUR house.

Go with an agent that has a plan to market and sell your house, not market and sell themselves.

Hope it helps,

Raj

whats with awards? almost every other broker/agent i know has gotten some sort of award. are they given out freely?

They aren’t given out freely, but good agents sell enough to earn them. I assume you are talking about the “X” million dollar type of awards.

putting it on realtor.com sounds like a good idea, if its a high priced house you could bput it on dupont registry