I am not sure where to start here.
Selling my home has proved to be more frustrating than I would care for.
In speaking with realtors, (who btw, I have named the new slimy profession, lawyers run free) I am amazed.
A realtor wants 6-7%, which they split with others. However, it is still 6-7% for the interested parties to pay.
A realtor can list your property, and increase your market numbers, and they have keys to your house and can point out a bathroom. The job pretty much ends there in my eye. In our case, we are in a first time home buyers market in an affordable market, so the money to be made by the realtor stands at about $7,678. To list my house, open the door, and announce I have 2 full baths. That seems insane to me. Especially in the age of home printers, and computers, and digital cameras.
I found out yesterday after speaking with 4 attorneys (I do not need one in this state to sell my home) I need only a title company. Charge $675. When speaking to the attorneys, they asked how my "market" was because 2 had homes they want to sell themselves.
I told them I imagined I was in a different market than they were. But I am not frightened yet. I am also not beyond using a realtor, if I get into a pinch. But there is no pinch yet.
I keep hearing about foreclosures, and buyers market, and how houses are standing months on end empty.
However, I think the market is probably more effected by a generation of folks who bought a home they should have never bought. I.E. my peer group. The number of Mcmansions sitting foreclosed is amazing, as well as the number of Mcmansions that have no furniture and are being lived in.
It seems as though I am from a generation of folks who even though are probably more educated than previous generations seem to think they need to maintain a lifestyle in which they cannot afford. They leave their parents home, and think they are entitled to live the same lifestyle even though they have not worked 30 years to get there.
The amount of foreclosures in America, well it might be the economy, but it is an economy, in which I see the bus being driven by people that do not know how to say no, and folks that are soooo worried what others will think they get involved in a dangerous game of keeping up with the Joneses.
It is a game that can rarely be won.
I also do not see it changing soon.
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We've bought and sold 5 homes in the past 15 years and I can sympathize with your situation.
One of our homes was in a desirable area and someone was waiting to buy it; the Realtor basically did nothing and still got her 7%.
One home we tried to sell through BuyOwner -for a year- plus they lied to us. Talk about slime?
That's when we found the answer. There are companies out there who list homes on the MLS -where Realtors can find them- for $600 and $700. Some are called flat fee, others are harder to discern from the 'normal' realtors.
That's how we sold that one house and that's how we found the home that we live in now... or rather, that's how our Realtor found it.
They don't get anything at closing, but to up the ante you can, as the homeowner, offer a percentage to the purchasing Realtor as incentive for them to show it.
Hope this helps!
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