It was work, but it wasn’t that hard. We only showed the house on weekends, so it didn’t interrupt our jobs. At the time, social media wasn’t a thing so we simply advertised in the regular, old-fashioned Classified ads where we posted a link to pictures of the home.
We asked for $85k more than two realtors suggested the house was worth. Buyers got in a bidding war and it sold for even more (seller’s market, fur sure).
Between saving the realtor’s commission and the more accurate price for which we sold the property, our net gain was in excess of $100,000 more than we would have netted using a realtor. It took 2 months of weekly open houses. We felt the net difference was worth the effort.
I think it’s important to remember realtors are looking to earn a commission with putting in the minimal amount of effort and time to achieve that goal. I know there are hard-working realtors, but you can’t ignore this fact.
One thing we did to reduce the number of kooks was to ask for a large earnest money deposit. Only serious buyers were willing to put their actual money on the line. As for showing the house to lookie-loos, well, sometimes I’m one of those, too.
FSBO is not for everyone, but it worked really well for us. I’ll do it again when the time comes.
You could also say to anyone who asks why healthcare in the US is so much more expensive than the rest of the high income countries that they should do their own colonoscopies?
If a colonoscopy costs $700 in the US and €200 in the Netherlands do you tell the American who is suspicious about the price difference to fuck off and do your own colonoscopy, the American doctor must be three times better.
I don’t complain to the pump attendant or even the gas station owner about high gas prices. Doesn’t mean I’m not justified in being unhappy about gas prices. (For the record I think gas prices are too LOW in the US, this is just an example).
Oh, no argument there. I’m self-employed, and one reason is so I can control the amount of time I expend to earn a living.
But I do think what I earn is more commensurate to the time I expend earning it than most realtors. Obviously others may feel otherwise. I’m just pointing out that the savings can be significant and the work not that onerous.
ETA: I’m also not in a business where I can just drop my asking price and earn a better living by selling more properties more quickly. I must perform knowledgeable, accurate tasks well to earn my living – same as you.
I am looking for your point in your analogies, and your analogies are not valid, therefore it appears that there is no valid point. Perhaps try better analogies, or make your point in some way that doesn’t involve analogies at all.
It’s not the exact same energy or even a close situation. Did you come in here to just let us know that you’re butthurt over something that has nothing to do with the subject of the thread?
You came in here with a truly irrelevant analogy about computer support charges. Which has nothing to do with network economics that drive real estate agency pricing.
You’re assuming here that people are entirely mathematically rational when it comes to such decisions, an assumption that isn’t safe. People often act stupidly, especially when they are being asked to make financial decisions that involve large numbers or percentages.
Around here the average house costs about a million dollars. The difference between six percent and a discount approach is five percent, or about $50,000. That’s a truly enormous sum of money, and were it presented that way I suspect more people would eschew realtors, but they don’t because they think in terms of “four or five percent” and it doesn’t seem like as big a deal. You think, well, what the hell, I’m getting all this money for my house, right?
This is why a car salesman will do everything in his power, almost to the point of deception, to NOT discuss what the car actually costs; he wants you to look at the monthly payment. Getting you to go from a monthly payment of $450 to a monthly payment of $600 doesn’t seem like as big a deal as paying $33,000 instead of $25,000, but for a 60 month 2.99 percent loan those are the same thing. People react to them very differently, however.
If real estate agents came in ,estimated your house and said “I’ll charge you sixty thousand dollars for my services” (or whatever the number is for your local market) people would be much likelier to balk.
real estate agents couldn’t make a dime if everyone marketed their own properties.
everyone can market their own properties if they so choose
but they don’t do that, for whatever reasons.
therefore real estate agents make money
people can still avoid paying them one single cent if they’re willing to do their own marketing. but they don’t want to do that, so they hire a realtor, who they also don’t want to pay.
Those are the market dynamics here. People want others to work for them for free. Their rationalization is that everyone else’s job looks really easy from a distance.
Modnote: This is too much of a personal attack. Please do not do this again. While I agree HMS_Irruncible is expanding the subject, it is not off-topic and also the thread is 8 months old.
Your post is really pushing it and more likely to derail the thread. If you thought he was off-topic, you should have flagged his post and explained why.
This is just a guidance, not a warning. Nothing on your permanent record.
FWIW, when I took that real estate agent class, one thing that kept coming up was that agents get in trouble for commingling funds. Don’t deposit that earnest money into your personal account. I’m not sure if that has changed or if FSBO would fall under same rules.
It seems to me the reason to use a real estate agent is to put a buffer between yourself and the buyer. I’d rather they sue my agent than sue me if something goes wrong. More to consider here.
In a flat fee MLS listing, the listing agreement between the real estate broker and the property owner typically requires the broker to enter the property into the MLS and provide other contracted services, with the broker acting as what the traditional industry has coined a “limited service broker”. However, the flat fee industry prefers the term à la carte broker because the services are not limited. Instead freedom of choice is expanded to allow sellers to pick from a menu of services. For example if a seller opts to purchase marketing in an MLS, and other distribution channels only, that does not imply that the listing broker would not have negotiated or offered more services if the seller wanted to pay for those services. In fact many flat fee brokers offer upgraded packages that sellers often contract for. Consequently, the services is not limited but instead custom crafted to the needs and wants of the seller.
ETA: When I took that class, I picked up a book of real estate legal cases. I tried predicting from the summaries which party would prevail in court and I was 50/50 at best. So when I say I’d rather have my real estate agent get sued, it’s because IANAL and selling my own place implies a level of potential liability I wouldn’t be comfortable with (but of course, YMMV). I assume, too, that part of how brokers earn their keep is in making sure no egregious mistakes are made before the deal is completed. But that’s a WAG.
I forgot I was in this thread back in February. I set tracking back to normal in February.
The first home we sold we used a discount Realtor and only paid 2% and at the time 6% was typical. It was a bit more work but we sold for full asking price in a market where that wasn’t too common. So we saved a good chunk of money.
This is a strawman. Nobody in this thread, to my recollection, has suggested that realtors (or anyone) work for free. Your argument is therefore false. Feel free to cite otherwise, but I don’t think you’ll be able to.
What has been suggested, as far back as the TITLE OF THE THREAD, is that perhaps a 6% commission is not commensurate to the work involved in a hot real estate market with very high housing prices. Maybe try to argue against that instead of your strawman.
Fine, substitute “free” for “less”. People think realtors should work for less than 6% because… well… they think 6% is just too darned much, because reasons. And nobody wants to take a stab at what the right percentage is, or how they arrived at that percentage… it’s just, I don’t like having to pay a middleman, so I should have to pay less.
It would be fine if people were saying “I will sell my own home and save the entire 6% commission.” Or “I will use a discount broker for the MLS listing and then do my own legwork.” Or “I will negotiate a lower commission.”
Fine. Those are all easily accessible options for you! Go do all those things if you want! Save yourself some money!
But people aren’t saying that, they’re suggesting there is some kind of monopoly or cartel forcing everybody to pay 6%, when in reality every single seller is free to do it themselves (and often do). That’s no kind of economic analysis, that’s just a chiseler’s mentality.
Yes, I will thanks, because that’s what people have actually been arguing. Welcome to the thread.
Nope, now you’re off in the wilderness again, sadly. Here are several actual reasons people have offered just in the first 50 posts of this thread. I’m sure I could find more if I took the time. Unfortunately, it seems you did not read them, or did not retain them if you did.
I would recommend responding to these actual reasons rather than simply declaring that nobody has any. Maybe these are bad reasons and you can convince us of that.
In fact, several people have posted about those very things in this very thread. Shall I quote them for you? I think I’d better. All of these are literally within the first 10 posts of the thread.
Have you actually read this thread or are you responding to another one?
