OT: For sale by owner ?
- Thread starter Plum Street
- Start date
Sounds like the true key to this transaction is that you had buyer and seller already together and only hand to handle the transaction. If you are at that point, I can see why there would be no need for an agent.
But if someone is listing their home to sell and do not have any potential buyers set, a good agent is worth the price. As someone else mentioned- if it really is just a hot(commodity) market for the type of property you are selling, you may be able to do well there again. I have had many friends that do well flipping houses and are always fsbo- but those tend to be more of a commodity type of sale.
Same when it comes to lenders too. Big difference between working with a very good loan officer or better yet, mortgage loan advisor, then working with an "employee". A very good loan officer will work with and work you through all of the processing, expectations, getting your loans approved, working alongside an agent in dealing with the lawyers, titles, inspections etc...it isn't always about just get the best rate...
remember listing and selling Realtor fees are negotiable...just like other commissioned based sales.
In a hot market like this year in NJ, you absolutely don’t need a listing agent but you need to offer 2.5% to the buyers agent to get any foot traffic.
Here’s the play:
1) this is the most important step: talk to 3-4 agents who know your town and market. Ask them what should the house list for if you want to sell within 60 days with only one price reduction. Ask them what staging or renovation work is needed to make the property more appealing
2) make the appropriate fixes to your property.
3) list the property FSBO with a service that lists on Zillow and GSMLS at the average price that the agents suggest. Offer 2.5% to any buyers’ agent.
Unless your property is a mess you’ll get offers in the first couple of weeks and will likely accept an offer with 45 days. The buyers’ agent will produce the offer paperwork. As the seller you just need to agree on a price and a closing date. All other details in the contract can be adjusted by your attorney who will charge you $1500-2000 regardless of whether you have a listing agent or not.
By going FSBO you save 2.5% by not paying the listing agent. Would I do that for a $3M home? Hell no. For a $1M home? Every day and twice on Sunday.
In this “begging for inventory” market, it makes zero sense to use a listing agent. Anyone who says you should not do what I suggest is a real estate agent.
Here’s the play:
1) this is the most important step: talk to 3-4 agents who know your town and market. Ask them what should the house list for if you want to sell within 60 days with only one price reduction. Ask them what staging or renovation work is needed to make the property more appealing
2) make the appropriate fixes to your property.
3) list the property FSBO with a service that lists on Zillow and GSMLS at the average price that the agents suggest. Offer 2.5% to any buyers’ agent.
Unless your property is a mess you’ll get offers in the first couple of weeks and will likely accept an offer with 45 days. The buyers’ agent will produce the offer paperwork. As the seller you just need to agree on a price and a closing date. All other details in the contract can be adjusted by your attorney who will charge you $1500-2000 regardless of whether you have a listing agent or not.
By going FSBO you save 2.5% by not paying the listing agent. Would I do that for a $3M home? Hell no. For a $1M home? Every day and twice on Sunday.
In this “begging for inventory” market, it makes zero sense to use a listing agent. Anyone who says you should not do what I suggest is a real estate agent.
I believe there is a lot wrong in this post. First- and maybe nuts can correct or verify, you can’t list a property on MLS without an agent.
and I hope you know 4-5 gullible agents that are going to do their work free for you…
Now- Zillow and similar - take another look at how many homes are listed for 60+ days.
There are several sites that will get you on MLS for a few hundred bucks- houzeo is one of them.
Realtors will gladly come to your house and assess it for free- in hopes of getting the listing. Do you get paid for going on job interviews? No? Does that make you gullible?
Most good houses in good towns NJ in sell in less than 30 days. There are too few houses out there.
You dont know what you’re talking about!
Average time from listing to accepted offer in NJ this year is 44 days. You don’t know what you’re talking about
In a hot market and where there isn't a lot of inventory your best to negotiate the commish down. You can easily get 5% or 4.5% now. Just sold my condo and paid 4.5% commish. Think it was split 2.5 to my agent and 2% to buyers agent in the end.
But I was in a hot market with little inventory when I sold
But I was in a hot market with little inventory when I sold
Number 1 response when you ask a realtor their opinion on value is…….what do you think it’s worth.
Yeah, desireable commuter town with good schools.
I sold my widower dad’s house in Cranford in 3-4 weeks this summer- paying 2.5% to a buyers’ agent. It hadn’t had any renovations in 20 years. 3 realtors said list it between $749-699. I listed it for $749K. It sold for $781K in a bidding war. We got our first offer in 2 weeks. FSBO. I saved my dad $19,500. I don’t think that a realtor would have done better.
I spent $400 on a listing fee and $500 for a photographer. That’s it.
Down here in cape may county no one uses lawyers at closing. Things go so Much smoother too. The realtors and title company does all the work
To the OP I just sold my house over thanksgiving weekend. We listed with a realtor/my daughter but I lucked out as I found the buyer myself who I knew and he was not working with a realtor. Since my daughter was the listing agent she waived her commission so I just saved $62K Sold in 2 days at asking price. Market is still hot down here
I used to think this way...until I became a realtor. I am now a broker in New Brunswick and we cover all of Central NJ FWIW (shameless plug). The amount of babysitting that must be done alone, absolutely earns the commission. Having the skills to negotiate earns the commission (I saved one client 50k on 1 deal recently). Getting the CO taken care of because people drop the ball. Marketing is extremely important. The realtors database helps tremendously (I sold one property this year because of other realtors I know on Instagram). Sometimes you run into attorneys who are useless. It's so far from just turning a key, such an ignorant statement.
85% of FSBO end up being sold by a realtor BTW.
Also one of my best real estate investments ever was buying from a FSBO. They didn't want to pay a 5% commission so they sold the house to me for 100k under asking price instead to save 20k on commission.
Union County is so hot. He would be foolish to do FSBO. Feel free to DM me and I can help him (or not) but if it's listed and marketed properly he will be happy.
Re: MLS for a small fee - I did something similar a few years ago.
I did FSBO, not that I wanted to. I was happy to go the regular route. This was in 2013, so the market kind of sucked. First agent was a neighbor. Followed her recommendations on listing price, fix ups, etc. Unfortunately she put up her similar house for sale about 1 week after we listed. Of course her‘s sold pretty quickly. That soured the relationship a bit. But we still listened to her, and reduced price a few times. When she refused to have a open house because quote “I don’t want to waste my time” we had enough and dropped her after 6 months. We got a new agent. Same deal, we listened, did what they said…nothing happened. I was pretty much resigned that I was going to be a slumlord, haha, so started the route of listing for rent. The company that I hired for that also was able to also list for sale for almost no extra money. So, figured, what the hey, while trying to rent, see if anyone was interested in buying. In a few weeks, I showed to a few people to rent, was pretty close to getting a renter, but got a hit to show for a buyer. Nice young couple. A few days later, they were ready to put in an offer, when I got a call for another showing. Another nice young couple. I showed it and they offered that night. So, I went from nothing in a year, figuring I’d start my rental real estate empire, to a frigging bidding war less than a month after I take over, lol. I went back and forth a few times, then had enough and said give me your best and final. Sold for over the original listing price a year ago.
None of this is really blaming the agents (although the first one did turn out to be an *******). Or saying I’m some kind of genius. I think it was just timing. If had to do it again, I’d probably do the same - get an agent and let them handle it, and only do FSBO if needed.
The point is you can absolutely do it. I did. My lawyer handled all the paperwork. Easy Peasy.
Yes. Houses are practically selling themselves but let me be your listing agent so that I can make 2.5% off you. LOL
Here’s a list of the things my agent took care of when selling my house:
Painted kitchen
Fixed about 1/2 dozen things I was too lazy or incompetent to repair myself in 5 years
removed tree
Removed bushes
Planted nice flower bed
Took great photos
Answered 1,000 questions on how to move deal along and weigh risk/reward of negotiation points
Expertise on market timing
Conducted open houses and 40 walkthroughs
Talked me out of walking away from our only offer “on principle” (would have resulted in losing my wife’s dream home)
Saved my marriage
Realtors are worth every penny.
Painted kitchen
Fixed about 1/2 dozen things I was too lazy or incompetent to repair myself in 5 years
removed tree
Removed bushes
Planted nice flower bed
Took great photos
Answered 1,000 questions on how to move deal along and weigh risk/reward of negotiation points
Expertise on market timing
Conducted open houses and 40 walkthroughs
Talked me out of walking away from our only offer “on principle” (would have resulted in losing my wife’s dream home)
Saved my marriage
Realtors are worth every penny.
You don’t need a realtor to list on MLS. Just a credit card. Plenty of sites will list your property on MLS for a few hundred bucks.
25 years ago, it was predicted that insurance agents would go the way of the dodo. Didn't happen. I doubt that technology ever causes real estate agents to go out of business, either.
Before the internet, agents would drive around with buyers and spend an entire weekend looking at houses, many of which would end up as duds. And, hosting open houses weekend after weekend were the norm. A 5% commission seemed warranted. Much of that has changed thanks to MLS, Zillow, Google Maps, etc. where you can vet houses from behind a computer and not waste time with houses that don’t check all the right boxes. So, I would argue the actual time spent by realtors selling/buying today vs. 25 years ago has gone down but the commission has remained about the same. I’m not anti-agent by any means. I think they add value to many transactions. It’s the 5% (2.5/2.5) that seems a bit excessive especially when you are talking about million dollar listings that essentially sell themselves in today’s market.
930 pm posting about Bruce was okay, right? Asking for a friend.
Having just done the FSBO, and ultimately the agent route, this past summer I have some thoughts to share.
The first is that so much obviously depends on the property itself - town, location within the town, condition, etc. and the price point. What we experienced, and confirmed by several buyer's agents (yes we protected them at 2% when we did FSBO), was that 95% of the buyers looking at anything over $1.25MM were not showing up without an agent in tow or at least will want to use an agent to bring in the contract, "negotiate", coordinate, yada yada yada, and 99.9% of buyers in the $1.5MM and up range are using a buyers agent. Therefore, if you're in this price range you are looking at saving 3%, not 5% so please keep that in mind. Notice this has nothing to do with the "value" the agent - buyer or seller - brings just the fact that the vast majority of buyers at a certain price point are going to want the comfort and "expertise" that the agent brings them and they also know that it doesn't cost them anything!
My second thought on the FSBO route is that potential buyers tend to misread the situation, or think that you, the seller, are asking too much and/or they get greedy because it is a FSBO. Case in point, I had two local buyers (so they know the town already, the market, etc.) each show up several times, they know the price and appear comfortable with the price and yet offer significantly less than asking price. So much so that I didn't even counter since I know at that point that they are simply looking for a steal and/or really can't afford the house.
I also had 4 or 5 other potential buyers offer less, just not significantly less like the aforementioned bozos, and then had to listen to them explain why it wasn't worth what I was asking. Then there was the 1 family from a neighboring town (Bridgewater) who really wanted to move to Basking Ridge who were not using a buyers agent who made an reasonable offer and then wanted an additional 5% discount because they knew we were not paying any realtor commission (yes they structured the offer that way). I said that given their offer I was confident that I could roll the dice with a realtor and be indifferent because they wanted the entire realtor savings for themselves - this is the greed aspect of FSBO buyers.
At the end of the day we listed with a local KW agent and given the magic of the MLS (that is the golden gate in all of this) we had 1 open house plus 2 additional showings within 48 hours of the open house, resulting in 8 offers, 5 of which were over asking price. What did the agent do or have that I didn't as a FSBO - not much - except for the KW platform, the MLS and the strategy to lower the price to, hopefully, generate offers over the asking price. They didn't "negotiate" anything or manage to "sell" the house with extra bells and whistles like some car dealer and they didn't use any creative contract language (it's a standard NJ real estate contract that is tweaked by both buyer and seller attorney's). They simply showed the house, answered some questions and asked for best and final offers, collected said offers and relayed the information to me. I would imagine in a different market it isn't so simple, but in this market getting a listing is the hard part, not selling the house.
The agents - buyer and seller - do act as a nice buffer between the parties so they don't kill each other with unreasonable requests that almost always occur post inspection and they keep the process moving along. After all - no deal no commission - so they are both keenly interested in keeping it together.
In case anyone was wondering, the house sold for MORE than I had originally listed on FSBO where I was told again and again by potential buyers it was over-priced and even a few times by agents. I knew what we had and we just needed the right buyer who saw the value. I guess you could say we got lucky that the buyers agent saw the MLS listing and decided to pursue the property.
Good luck and remember - all real estate is local (town, street, neighboring houses & even the orientation of the house on the property) - just ask Zillow.
The scenario you described makes perfect sense and is consistent with my past experiences. I have nothing against agents and have used them in transactions and achieved good results. It just amazes me that commissions have remained stable after all these years notwithstanding the migration of listings to the MLS platform. And, like financial advisors, the barriers to entry are virtually non-existent = it’s not like they paid for 3+ years of grad school (like lawyers/doctors) and need to pay off education related debt. A lawyer has 3 years of law school to contend with, plus a ridiculous amount of continuing legal education, yet financial advisors and real estate agents are essentially managing two of the most important aspects of our lives and with a few tests and no college degree can receive their licenses. So strange when you think about it.
Absolutely true. After buying and selling a few homes in New Jersey, where the three-day attorney review is pretty standard, I was surprised that it's not a thing in Pennsylvania at all, and it certainly isn't missed. I will say that it probably places a little higher premium on having a good agent working with you (as opposed ot your brother-in-law or your mom's friend), but there isn't anything in a typical real estate transaction that requires anything more than their level of knowledge. It's been so refreshing.
Gotta give my realtor credit- she found my place before it was on Zillow.
Realtors are also especially useful in learning about the reputation of buildings/complexes- they're not always online.
Realtors are also especially useful in learning about the reputation of buildings/complexes- they're not always online.
Lawyers are like OL. They shouldn’t get too much attention but you not not getting anything done w/o them.
I don't unless a buyer specifically asks for that when preparing comps for them. Too many other more important things to take into account, for any buyer that you familiarize yourself with, IMHO. "Square footage" is great for commercial and corporate buyers.
Agree with you here. I almost never hear price per square foot except on Zillow. It really isn’t relevant on residential.
Realtors in New Jersey do absolutely nothing. No need to have one these days.
I now believe there are just trolls in here...people can't really be this dumb
I am noticing that in threads about certain industries "new" posters weigh in with very "strong" opinions. I really hope the places that seemingly pay people to post crap here and all over the internet think it's worth it because any time I see anything like that I'm inclined to believe the opposite and I'm sure I am not only one.