Selling your house by yourself

Lightcycle said:
We sold our place ourselves. The money we would given to an agent paid for the first year of travel.
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That's what I was thinking.
As for ppl that can't negotiate...wth!

We have the internet and put up some lawn sings so when ppl on your street are selling they will see your signs.
Why are ppl paying residential realtors this much money for no real service.
Tell me what is involved for the realtor to sell a condo.
Open the door, and here you go, look around at your 500-1000 sqft in 10 minutes then get the financials.
Do they walk you around the building to show you everything?

If you are a legit seller then get your realestate lawyer and a proper home appraisal done...present the information online to potential buyers.
You have nothing to hide, tell them as part of the deal they must also get their own home inspection done. And if you really want to show you have nothing to hide, you pay for their inspection if there are any failures (because your inspector should have caught it). Wth is $1000 when you are selling property in the hundreds of thousands or million range?

Also, why is it what I am not allowed to sit in their negotiation meetings? I am the buyer.
Because if both realtors getting paid at both ends then why end the gravy train.
 
-D- said:
Also, why is it what I am not allowed to sit in their negotiation meetings? I am the buyer.
Because if both realtors getting paid at both ends then why end the gravy train.
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Typically? Because most people can't even negotiate at Best Buy let alone on a million dollar purchase.

But there's no rule against it.
 
-D- said:
...Also, why is it what I am not allowed to sit in their negotiation meetings? I am the buyer.
Because if both realtors getting paid at both ends then why end the gravy train.
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They claim it's to keep personal feelings out of it. But we all know it's so they can get the best deal between them for their commissions.
 
Riceburner said:
They claim it's to keep personal feelings out of it. But we all know it's so they can get the best deal between them for their commissions.
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Ok, I have no feelings and I want to see and hear. I will wear a muzzle and sign a disclaimer so I do not speak...now what, lol

How ppl do not see they are being duped just shows how majority of ppl are dumb.

Hey we are asking 100k for this house.
Will you sell it for $90k...you know so WE can ALL make LESS money?
OR
Ok I will tell my client you have another buyer and we can close the deal tonight for $105k.

hmmm what would 2 people do who ONLY makes money on commissions.
hmmm tough one, let me ponder this over a steak and a beer at the Ponderosa.
 
I sold a house before com free existed, guy put a note in my mailbox. Sat down three days later and did the deal at the table. Lawyer took the paperwork and it was over. Simple and clean.
Next was ComFree, had a potential buyer bring an agent, I was very upfront, you want her here and to do a deal, your paying her. She gets zero on my end. They gave her 1% for handling the papers for them.

If you live in a place where the houses barely get paint dry on the sale sign, then its going to go regardless of who has the listing. Selling in zippy doda, you may want help.
 
you don't need a realtor if you have basic business sense.

comfree came to my rescue multiple times flipping houses over the years.


currently have an investment res/com property on the market in hamilton if anyone is interested.... PM me.
 
-D- said:
Ok, I have no feelings and I want to see and hear. I will wear a muzzle and sign a disclaimer so I do not speak...now what, lol

How ppl do not see they are being duped just shows how majority of ppl are dumb.

Hey we are asking 100k for this house.
Will you sell it for $90k...you know so WE can ALL make LESS money?
OR
Ok I will tell my client you have another buyer and we can close the deal tonight for $105k.

hmmm what would 2 people do who ONLY makes money on commissions.
hmmm tough one, let me ponder this over a steak and a beer at the Ponderosa.
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That never happens, and I've done a load of transactions as a buyer and seller, and a realtor representing buyers and sellers. I've never once dealt with an agent who didn't want max price for his sellers, or lowest price for his buyers.

I know there's a general disdain for Realtors out there, but this particular situation you stated is NOT the norm, I can promise you that.
 
I think if you want the agents to bring you clients then you would need to offer them something for it. Maybe 1.5-2% would be fair depending on the selling price....not sure as I used the selling agent on the last place we bought and got it at 3% below asking before the Open House.

actually thinking of doing my license as I'm kicking around the idea of being one part time. Not sure yet need to do more research.
 
mmmnaked said:
That never happens, and I've done a load of transactions as a buyer and seller, and a realtor representing buyers and sellers. I've never once dealt with an agent who didn't want max price for his sellers, or lowest price for his buyers.

I know there's a general disdain for Realtors out there, but this particular situation you stated is NOT the norm, I can promise you that.
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If that's the case then people need to revisit their position on this noble profession.
 
mimico_polak said:
actually thinking of doing my license as I'm kicking around the idea of being one part time. Not sure yet need to do more research.
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I wouldn't. Soon enough (maybe it's already started) the market will tighten up and there will be a glut of agents. Even now there are too many agents out working. The top few make a killing, the rest fight to get by. When the market contracts, the ones that survive will be the ones that put together connections from their lists. Those that wait for buyers or sellers to show up will have little to do.

I know some people that got the license for themselves so they could access the data occasionally represent their friends a few times a year. That way works part-time, but I doubt you could make a go of it working a few hours a week.

Paying real estate agents by % is ridiculous. Especially for the sellers agent, the agents should submit proposals on what services they will provide and what they will charge to do it. Sometimes it is way easier to sell a $1,000,000 house than it is to sell a $400,000 house. I would have no problem if the agents wanted $5,000 to market the expensive house and $20,000 to market the cheap one. Let the market dictate prices, not the monopoly. In recent months, was the work required to sell a house 4 times the work required a couple years ago? Hell no.
 
GreyGhost said:
I know some people that got the license for themselves so they could access the data occasionally represent their friends a few times a year. That way works part-time, but I doubt you could make a go of it working a few hours a week.
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This is actually what I was thinking. Already had a few family members/friends tell me that they'll be selling by end of year so if I have my license I'll get first crack at their place.

As for the glut of agents...there's WAY too many of them, but even talking with some agents....many of them started part-time and just built it up over the years until they moved to the full time gig. Not sure yet...the $ commitments isn't that much so might give it a whirl.

And if anyone is selling and wants to get an agent for a lower commission, try out www.feeduck.com ... my friends started it and basically agents bid down the commission for selling your house.
 
If you're also buying a house, an agent should be pretty damn close to free for the selling portion. I've done it several times now for friends, and would probably do it for anyone else for that matter. That means a buy and a sell at $800k each nets me about 20k - still more than enough for the actual work involved. With that said, many full time agents will routinely bump into buyer clients who waste an inordinate amount of time looking at listings, and sometimes end up with nothing. It's a balance.

As for getting into it part time, its a fine idea if you can muster one paid transaction per year, otherwise the expenses are just too great. I believe the education portion has changed yet again and the requisites are higher, you used to be able to do just a few courses now you have to do them all at $500+ each. The initiation fees are high, and annual upkeep is in the thousands (board fee, brokerage fee, insurance etc). Do it if you have a guaranteed first transaction lined up, just be mindful that it takes a long time before you actually register.
 
If it's a crazy house market with multiple offers on houses and houses being sold within a week or less of listing you don't need a traditional estate agent. We sold a house in Ottawa for the new street record using a flat rate listing service and paid extra for a photographer for the MLS listing. The flat rate place passed on the offer amounts to us and we said yes or no. Buyers agents have an obligation to show the house to the buyers if they ask to see the property listed on the MLS, doesn't matter if it's a flat rate seller place or not, and most buyers these days do their own perusing of the MLS service to scout out properties. We saved a packet of cash doing things this way and would not hesitate to do it again. The commissions realtors earn for some transactions is downright nuts.
 
I didn't read this thread, so forgive me if what I type here is a repeat, but try propertyguys.com

I believe the website was created by Waterloo comp. sci. grads who has a bad experience buying a house through two agents who didn't do their due dilligence.

I've always been curious about this, and I feel like real estate corporations have a serious monopoly here, and any agent that doesn't cross EVERY T and dot every I is a god damn scam artist. Real estate companies know that they don't really provide a valuable service, so in order to maintain relevance, they hold MLS.ca close to their hearts, and blacklist anyone trying to get around their system. They make INCREDIBLE money (calculate 2.5% for EACH agent for a million dollar house), if you factor in what it takes for them to make a sale, and the amount of hours invested in each sale.

If your house is high in demand (as it should be right now), you would be better off taking two-three weeks off of work, getting all the paperwork sorted (legal selling contract, property line evaluation, site layout, local zoning info, etc.) then cleaning and partially staging your own house and you could save tens of thousands of dollars on your sale. Its kind of amazing how people will line up for gas when it's 0.02 cheaper, but never consider selling their own home.

****, I might even take time off to get a realtor's license just to sell my properties, if/when the time comes.
 
Kri$han said:
I didn't read this thread, so forgive me if what I type here is a repeat, but try propertyguys.com

I believe the website was created by Waterloo comp. sci. grads who has a bad experience buying a house through two agents who didn't do their due dilligence.

I've always been curious about this, and I feel like real estate corporations have a serious monopoly here, and any agent that doesn't cross EVERY T and dot every I is a god damn scam artist. Real estate companies know that they don't really provide a valuable service, so in order to maintain relevance, they hold MLS.ca close to their hearts, and blacklist anyone trying to get around their system. They make INCREDIBLE money (calculate 2.5% for EACH agent for a million dollar house), if you factor in what it takes for them to make a sale, and the amount of hours invested in each sale.

If your house is high in demand (as it should be right now), you would be better off taking two-three weeks off of work, getting all the paperwork sorted (legal selling contract, property line evaluation, site layout, local zoning info, etc.) then cleaning and partially staging your own house and you could save tens of thousands of dollars on your sale. Its kind of amazing how people will line up for gas when it's 0.02 cheaper, but never consider selling their own home.

****, I might even take time off to get a realtor's license just to sell my properties, if/when the time comes.
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Realtors and their respective boards built the MLS, so it shouldn't ever surprise people that they're protective of it. Nothing dubious about it.

As for whether or not you can sell the house yourself, that's up to the individual. Some people can't screw in a lightbulb or do an oil change. Some people can't handle a million dollar transaction with all the associated baggage. Also think of it this way - if you bought a house for 500k a few years ago and its been gaining value @20-30% annually, are you really gonna fret over 2.5%? That's literally one month's worth of market value.

You also have to make the conscious decision to choose an alternate path of marketing your house for sale to a much smaller audience. You can be certain that you likely won't attract multiple offers, and you quite likely won't extract the maximum price for it either. The unconventional listings (for sale by owner) that pop up on the MLS almost universally offer 2-2.5% to the co-operating realtor regardless. So yeah, not such a black/white choice.
 
We sold our townhouse in waterloo privately . Advertised on kijiji, negotiated with buyer. Only condition was a satisfactory home inspection which cost me $600 to replace a couple of faulty windows.

My only other expense was $450 for legal.n Estimated savings were about $9000 net on a $200k home

Would do it again no problem.

Realtors are parasites who prey on uninformed people's fears imnsho
 
fastfil2004 said:
We sold our townhouse in waterloo privately . Advertised on kijiji, negotiated with buyer. Only condition was a satisfactory home inspection which cost me $600 to replace a couple of faulty windows.

My only other expense was $450 for legal.n Estimated savings were about $9000 net on a $200k home

Would do it again no problem.

Realtors are parasites who prey on uninformed people's fears imnsho
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Do you know for a fact that a realtor wouldn't have gotten you more money and negated that savings? Was this recent?
 
If a client (buyer) asks their agent to see a property listed on the MLS and their agent refuses then I thought those were grounds for that agent to have their licence removed. That's not common knowledge but it is, or at least was, common for realtors to ignore listings of "for sale by owners". All you have to do is insist on seeing a particular property if you're using an agent to buy. The key is getting your property onto the MLS and there are agencies that do this for a flat fee like the one we used in Ottawa. As outlined above, we saved a fortune and in a hot market we just needed a little patience to ignore the first few lowball offers and eventually we set the street record price for our property, no traditional agent required. In a hot market all the middleman does is reduce your end of the deal.
 
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