Has anyone sold a house this way? Would you do it again? Biggest challenges? Tell me about your experience.
We aren't on a timeline, we would like to sell our house before DH looks for jobs out of state so we can move quickly if needed. We don't think he's high enough that any company would offer seller assistance.
What is your market like? I would make certain you can get your house on MLS (through a site like FSBO). You can have a lawyer handle the paperwork and note on your MLS listing you are willing to pay a buyer's REA 2.5 or 3% and just avoid having a realtor for yourself.
I think a lot of this depends on the area. I know people have some trouble doing this in my area because realtors try to deter their clients from looking at FSBOs as a way of forcing the sellers to list with an agent. I know one person who has sold recently with success and this was a direct result of listing on Zillow and having a buyer that was not using a realtor and only looking in this specific neighborhood. In other areas the offer of 3%, like Pom suggested, will be enough to entice a realtor to encourage their buyers to look. If you are in a hot market you are better off as well. Good luck!
We lived in a very hot market, and our price point was particularly hot.
We listed it on Zillow, made sure it said we were "buyers agents friendly" (we ended up paying 2.5% instead of 3%). IIRC, we posted it on Wednesday afternoon, had someone look at it thursday, two separate buyers on friday (two different agents called to set it up), one of those buyers came back through on Saturday, and we had a full price offer Saturday night. We actually settled for more than asking price (we were anticipating a competing offer).
If we didn't have much traction within a week or two, we were going to pay to list it on the MLS, but luckily we didn't need to do that.
We expected to pay the buyer's agent, but it's good to know that we should note that in the listing. Our neighborhood seems to sell fast, one house listed for $10k more than what we would list ours sold in one week at list price. But an overpriced house in the neighborhood has been sitting for six months. I'm not sure I want to put the work in, especially since my availability for showings isn't all the time. And I don't take criticism well, so that might be an issue. I guess to save over $6k, I could toughen up.
Post by imojoebunny on Aug 3, 2015 21:51:26 GMT -5
It can be tough, if your not a good negotiator, and by that, I mean impartial and not offended. I did it once, but not with the next house we sold. The house I sold, I had tried a realtor, and she did nothing in a down market, so I used a service like the one Vicmo describes. We still paid about 4% in realtor fees, but the buyers agent got 3.5%, which drove a lot of traffic, a lot more than the previous agent we had drove, since 3% was the standard buyers agent fee.
The next house we sold, the realtor did a much better job of both staging the property, including adding value with changing certain inexpensive features that got us top price, and driving traffic. The market was fast moving, so I don't think that made a difference, but the price we got after the changes, taking out expenses, was much more than we expected. I would not have made the changes without his consult.