My parents are selling their house and I don’t want them to get ripped off by any realtors. They live in Virginia and are open to moving any time within 3 years or so. Sooner the better.
What‘s the best route to selling your home for the most amount of money and the lease amount of fees with moderate work?
I know there’s no golden bullet but should we think about selling the house ourselves? Are there any downfalls there? Or things that could back fire? and if it doesn’t work out, then we bring in an agent or reality company?
Is it worth selling your house yourself?
byu/pleasedontjudgeme13 inRealEstate
Posted by pleasedontjudgeme13
13 Comments
This is a very uneducated approach. Professional realtors are not there to rip off your parents. You can just search on past posts on this topic. You can do a Google search on the risks of selling your own home. You can also do a search on the benefits of a good realtor. It’s worth interviewing three well respected realtors just to get educated about what you’re missing since you don’t understand their value. You can directly ask them these questions.
Do the research. Any professional worth their weight will show you exactly why you don’t want to do this line wolf. It’s not about knowledge, or math skills or just putting it into the mls. It’s a matter of liability. Check your state’s statuate of limitations, then see if your folks want to be on the hook personally for any repercussions or belated contentions with the house. You take on a professional because they’re informed and carry insurance. If it’s ripoff that you fear, interview 2-3 brokers, and get a feel. Commissions and payments are always and have always been negotiable.
An arm’s-length private transaction is a valid way to sell a property. Depending on whether you are in an attorney state or a title state, it will determine who handles the legal aspects of the sale. If there are required State disclosures, make sure to complete those. Your attorney or title company will inform you of estimated fees to handle the transaction.
Pick an initial listing price, take a few photos, and write a description of the property. Pay a fee to upload the listing to an online portal like Realtor(.com), Zillow, or Trulia. Sit by the phone and wait for calls.
Ha ha ha hilarious. Let me spend the next few hours of my life explaining everything you need to know about selling a house and all of the things that can go wrong. I’ve been selling homes for 20 years but I’m sure you’ll pick it all up on the first try. If you see no value in Realtors then I’m not about to educate you for free.
Your parents should interview several listing agents. The listing agent’s job is to assist, guide and protect your parents throughout the sale’s process.
There is a formal contract and it’s a very regulated industry. They should pick an agent with a good reputation that works in their neighborhood.
Listing agents typically charge 2-3% of the sales price. It is in their interest to get your parents the most amount of money for their property.
It is very unlikely that your parents will know how to properly prepare, market and then negotiate for their property and outsell an agent.
And, it looks very bad to try and do FSBO and then hire an agent. Throws up a major red flag.
Well from personal experience I’m going with a real estate agent on my second go round on selling a house and property. I had a guy lined up to buy this place last summer. I gave him plenty of time 4 months to get his place up for sale and purchase my place. I’ve known this person for over 20 years. Long story short he kept jacking me around with excuse after excuse. Begging me not to put it on the market. Finally I had no choice but to recind my offer. I was not happy. What really pissed me off was I was giving him a deal substantially below market value because he was a long time friend. Never again. I’ll pay the extra money and let an agent deal with people that shouldn’t be offering on the property in the first place.
We’re in the process of selling in a moderately buyer’s market. In my opinion, it’s not an “either/or” proposition; it’s a team effort. We spent a month getting the house ready. Paint, carpet, de-cluttering, etc. Our realtor spent time researching comps and advising us on pricing. He then used his network of contacts to take amazing pictures and market the house.
The result was multiple offers after three days on the market. We chose a strong offer, passed the option period and close in less than three weeks.
If you’ve never sold a house before, use a realtor.
You will only do it once!
There are flat fee/low fee listing agents out there if you don’t want to pay someone 6% but still have an agent to do the basics.
Penny wise and pound foolish
Why do you think a realtor will rip you off? They provide a service. Interview several and then decide if DIY is right for you.
The way things are now, it’s impossible to avoid paying a buyer’s broker without losing almost all your potential buyers, even for a FSBO. If the seller isn’t willing to pay the buyer’s agent, most buyers are taking a hike.
That leaves the listing side: a potential savings here of 2-3 percent listing fee to the listing agent.
But ditching the listing agents has cost as well, it’s just not apparent initially. Your cost will be a lower sales price, mostly. The marketing for the property will be sub standard: no professional photos, a terrible description, and no social media presence, which most likely will result in a smaller buyer pool. It may or may not be in the be MLS.
Others areas too. Did you price it right? Too high? Too low?. How did you handle the negotiations of terms besides price? Are you going to handle inspection discussion well? Let’s say you got multiple offers: are you sure you have a strategy to maximize your sales price?
Easy for a mistake in any of these areas to be more than 3 percent.
There are professionals out there who are educated, experience, and trained to make sure that you don’t get taken advantage of, they facilitate all of the details, provide the resources and tools necessary to get through it, and know your market so they can get the highest price and best terms. There are bad agents out there, do a little bit of homework and you can find a good one. It’s really not that difficult. You’re going to spend a lot more time trying to navigate it yourself doing all the homework all along the way and you absolutely will miss something because you don’t know what you don’t know.