Real Estate commissions?

As I said in my post last year – having never done it before it was much easier than I thought. But you do need to know the market and you do need to be confident. The last thing you want is to save money by doing it yourself and then lose money by underselling the property.

And in June 2011 AllHomes charged $995 to list privately.

zorro29 said :

@ Jazz – an agent DID attempt to sell my house and the best offer they got was 25k below what i achieved…they had 6 weeks and i did it in 1 week

hence my comment is accurate and has a comparison

my god people are narky and annoying around here especially when they dont know anything about it

Congratulations on your result.

Jazz said :

Holden Caulfield said :

All good points, but disclaimer required?

Nothing to declare, Wifey isn’t in real estate any more.

Cheers.

@ Jazz – an agent DID attempt to sell my house and the best offer they got was 25k below what i achieved…they had 6 weeks and i did it in 1 week

hence my comment is accurate and has a comparison

my god people are narky and annoying around here especially when they dont know anything about it

Holden Caulfield said :

All good points, but disclaimer required?

Nothing to declare, Wifey isn’t in real estate any more.

Is it becoming the case that real estate agents are simply a time saving extension of the vendors? It is possible to do it yourself, but if it doesn’t cost too much, people choose to pay someone else and save themselves the hassle.

arescarti42 said :

poetix said :

You can pay too much attention to detail and worry about what are small sums in the context. For example, $2000 on a house worth, say, $650,000 is nothing.

I’ve always been of the opinion that context is completely irrelevant. $2000 on a house buys exactly the same amount of stuff as $2000 on anything else.

Unless the $2000 you spent helps to increase your selling price, in which case that $2000 may ultimately buy you $10,000 worth of stuff.

Difficult to quantify, I know, but the point is that context can’t always be dismissed so easily.

arescarti42 said :

poetix said :

You can pay too much attention to detail and worry about what are small sums in the context. For example, $2000 on a house worth, say, $650,000 is nothing.

I’ve always been of the opinion that context is completely irrelevant. $2000 on a house buys exactly the same amount of stuff as $2000 on anything else.

+1 on that.

poetix said :

You can pay too much attention to detail and worry about what are small sums in the context. For example, $2000 on a house worth, say, $650,000 is nothing.

I’ve always been of the opinion that context is completely irrelevant. $2000 on a house buys exactly the same amount of stuff as $2000 on anything else.

Jazz said :

zorro29 said :

2.2-2.4% plus $2000 for marketing

that said, i sold my house privately for more than the agent ever got and faster…

If an agent didnt sell your house zorro how do you know you got more money and faster? You’ve got nothing to compare to.

There is no question that using a real estate agent will cost you more in real $ than listing and selling your own property. However I would offer the following counterpoints.

1. Not everyone has the time to do so. Selling a property is an involved process which could involve market research, negotiating with trades, solicitors, call backs to everyone who came to your property to determine interest, engaging with buyers from other listings
2. An agent has access to discounted placement fees on Allhomes and other sites (current private listing rates are around $1300 on allhomes)
3. Not everyone feels comfortable selling
4. An agent has access to a buyers database within their agency of several hundred potential buyers – even one of those could compete to raise the price your property gets in a sale
5. They’ve got more experience at it – a good agent will list and sell in excess of 50 properties a year, as an individual you’re averaging 1 every 7 years.
6. For some people the idea of negotiating directly with the owner is intimidating & therefore wont look at all – again reducing your potential buyers and competition
7. Just because the tools are available for your to do so, doesn’t mean you should. You can buy a scalpel at the chemist and buy an anatomy text book but would you conduct minor surgery on yourself?

That said, If you think you can do better with (likely) your biggest asset. Go for it

All good points, but disclaimer required?