Real Estate Rates

[AirgunSavant]

Agreed
I fully understand what you're saying. I tried to sell some cheaper houses in the day on my own. What a waste of time. Most use house shopping as a hobby and few are serious. I wouldn't want to be an agent. I respect the good ones and they are worth what they get paid.

Originally Posted By: Noey
If you donlt want to pay for a broker, sell it yourself, and lotsa luck with that.

All agents aren't the same, you want someone who knows how to sell. That's the goal, and to do it quickly and for the most money. If you open the discussion or your criteria for choosing a broker is commission, you'll more likely eliminate the really motivated, good ones who know how to sell...remember they're in business to make the most money, and if you introduce yourself in a way that dismisses or minimizes their role, you'll hold onto your house or not get the best deal.

And the idea that you don't share all your circumstances with your broker is crazy, they represent you and to do that, they need you to be straight with them.

6% is pretty std. If you want to move the house, and at the most money, offer them more. it;s sounds paradoxical, but it actually could net you more.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Sold moms house and give 20K to the realtors was just terrible for a stingy person like me. But I don't see why commissions should be over 4% now houses are 3X what they were 20 years ago.

Realtors = a graduated used car sales person. If I had a 1/2 year window I do FSBO. 10 grand in the pocket is 10 grand buddy!

Don forget to split or let the owner eat the transfer tax if you got one. 1-2% aint chicken feed. Most everything big $$ contractual is negotiable - traditionally done does not mean hard and fast. Treat 'em rough like the shysters they are!

 

[racer12306]

Originally Posted By: AirgunSavant
Sorry to hear that. I thought Aberdeen was going to explode with the army bases etc awhile back. If people don't know this area we get bombed daily because of the proving grounds. Your windows shake often-even this far away.


We did too. I have high hopes for the last BRAC that went through but such it is. The house served it's purpose. We brought our twins home to it in 2011, it will always be a special place for us. But we are where we want to be now.

I've told my wife many times, the next time I move, I'll be in a bag.

We haven't experienced any of the tremors from APG in North East, but they were certainly a regular occurrence in Aberdeen being just a mile or two from base.

 

[AirgunSavant]

Really..........
Here it gets bad.. Are you around Turkey Point by chance?
Even Crystal beach would get bombed near Earlville.
Your happy though and that's great. I wish you the best!
I thought Aberdeen was going up market- I was through there a few months ago and its getting congested.

Originally Posted By: racer12306
Originally Posted By: AirgunSavant
Sorry to hear that. I thought Aberdeen was going to explode with the army bases etc awhile back. If people don't know this area we get bombed daily because of the proving grounds. Your windows shake often-even this far away.


We did too. I have high hopes for the last BRAC that went through but such it is. The house served it's purpose. We brought our twins home to it in 2011, it will always be a special place for us. But we are where we want to be now.

I've told my wife many times, the next time I move, I'll be in a bag.

We haven't experienced any of the tremors from APG in North East, but they were certainly a regular occurrence in Aberdeen being just a mile or two from base.

 

[AZjeff]

Take a drive around your neighborhood and/or section of town. Who has the most signs up? Look on the multi-list, who has the most properties similar to yours? Your property is upmarket, you want a successful agent who drives a Lexus or Escalade, not a 10 year old Crown Vic.

Your no sign requirement might get some push back, agents want their name out there, especially with a SOLD sign on it. That's your quirk, the neighbors are going to know it's for sale anyway and will know the asking price from Zillow or whatever, do you want to limit your agent's ability to market in other ways besides the sign or let him/her do their thing?

Agree with keeping is a business transaction, you're not making a BFF, you're looking for the best person to sell your property. They do their job they make money you make money.

 

[AirgunSavant]

Here is the place on 2.5 acres- long private drive.
The outside picture is a few years old and I redid the driveway, many trees were removed
that were too close and I updated all the doors, decks, and windows. The garage is a 3 car oversized affair- all new insulated doors- powder coated tracks and the quiet German made door openers. House has all Trane AC-Propane x2- No propane scam here- I bought the 1000 gallon tank. Last fill I got was 67 cents a gallon- That saves $1000's there.
Got a huge basement to store your oil reserves... lol

 

[Kestas]

6% on my home would be at least $30K in realty fees. I know how hard I work for $30K, and my job requires a degree that is very hard to obtain, plus I use expensive equipment in my job.

I just don't see $30K worth of work from a realtor who is looking for an easy job that requires no education and doesn't get their hands dirty. Basically, the MLS does a lot of the work for them. The MLS database isn't that expensive to maintain.

 

[AZjeff]

Most people don't have the ability to market and sell a property for it's market value. If you can sell within $30k of a $500K market value property do it, money in your pocket. Most buyers think FSBO = under market. If the normal rate is 6% and you negotiate something less you might get less than their best effort.

 

[AirgunSavant]

Agreed! Like you really can't sell a car for much over $10K on your front lawn. You need the dealers with the banking connections.

Originally Posted By: AZjeff
Most people don't have the ability to market and sell a property for it's market value. If you can sell within $30k of a $500K market value property do it, money in your pocket. Most buyers think FSBO = under market. If the normal rate is 6% and you negotiate something less you might get less than their best effort.

 

[Nate1979]

For those have read the book Freakonomics know that Real Estate agents really don't have an incentive to get the best price.

http://freakonomics.com/2011/07/22/want-to-jump-start-the-housing-market-get-rid-of-the-realtors/

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: bepperb
You have some control over your seller's agent's cut, the buyers's agent percentage is usually written into the MLS and needs to be reasonable or it sends a signal you're not worth dealing with (and I would agree). Around here the traditional 3/3=6% is the norm 2.7/2.7 is common and 2.4/2.4 I saw a lot of too.

I listed FSBO and sold (I've done that 3 times) with 2.7 for the buyer's agent and got a few calls from buyer's agents looking to come through, so obviously that isn't too low around here.

FSBO is a lot of work.


Originally Posted By: AZjeff
Most people don't have the ability to market and sell a property for it's market value. If you can sell within $30k of a $500K market value property do it, money in your pocket. Most buyers think FSBO = under market. If the normal rate is 6% and you negotiate something less you might get less than their best effort.


I sold my previous house in Irvine, CA by FSBO with virtually no works at all.

I had my house listed with an agent, the commission was 4% if he has buyer and 5% if buyer has his/her own agent.

The contract was 3 months and extended another 3 months. The first period we had few offers at 15-20% less than asking price of $1.5M, the second period we had few offers at 12-20% less.

After 6 months I didn't renew the contract and listed my house on a free website FSBO, within 2-3 weeks I had numerous phone calls from buyer's agents to inquire about the house and they even propose "no commission", I think they would get commission from buyer purchase price. The game was, buyer offer X dollars they would submit 0.95X or 0.97X or whatever percentage, this means with lower price I paid commission(indirectly).

I turned down all of them (I didn't let them see the house).

I also had more than 10 individual viewers and had 3-4 offers, I accepted the next to highest offer(about $100k more than the best offer I had while it was under the listing with my agent). The reason was this offer with 80-85% down, and they intended to heavily remodel so I didn't have to do any repair(after living in the house for 17 years many things were needed to replace/repair).

The escrow was very simple and easy. Buyer didn't have any problem to secure a loan of less than 20% of the value. I only need to pay for termite repair because it is the law in California.

I save more than $150k by selling the house myself, I got higher price plus didn't pay 5% of $1.3M selling price.

PS New owners spent more than $300k to remodel the house, it is looking much nicer than it was when we live there. It should be because their house value is more than $1.8M now.

 

[MNgopher]

6% is standard on most typically priced properties, with the typical split being 3/3 Buyers agent needs to be above 2.5% or you will end up restricting the pool of realtors willing to work with you quickly.

Don't like the rates, then do it yourself and deal with all the fun yourself.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: AirgunSavant
Here is the place on 2.5 acres- long private drive.
The outside picture is a few years old and I redid the driveway, many trees were removed
that were too close and I updated all the doors, decks, and windows. The garage is a 3 car oversized affair- all new insulated doors- powder coated tracks and the quiet German made door openers. House has all Trane AC-Propane x2- No propane scam here- I bought the 1000 gallon tank. Last fill I got was 67 cents a gallon- That saves $1000's there.
Got a huge basement to store your oil reserves... lol

Very nice house. If this house(with 1/2 acres) is in Orange County, CA within 4-5 miles from the beach it would be multi-millions.

We don't have many houses on a lot larger 1 acre. Actually, less than 0.1% of the houses in Orange County within 10 miles of the ocean have 1/2 acres lot or larger.

 

[PandaBear]

Typically 6%, but they also pay for staging and hosting open house, etc. Some legendary ones are very good at finding filthy rich buyers from out of state and help the buyer find lender, etc.

Or you can go look for an agent that charge much lower rate and you do all the work yourself (but may not look professional and won't get a good deal when you are negotiating).

 

[AirgunSavant]

Thank you. You had some great info there! I was not familiar with all the fsbo issues.. I appreciate info from guys like yourself that just went through it. The same for all you other folks.

A 12 acre lot I purchased in Florida last year was 8.25% commission. I was shocked by that.....



Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: AirgunSavant
Here is the place on 2.5 acres- long private drive.
The outside picture is a few years old and I redid the driveway, many trees were removed
that were too close and I updated all the doors, decks, and windows. The garage is a 3 car oversized affair- all new insulated doors- powder coated tracks and the quiet German made door openers. House has all Trane AC-Propane x2- No propane scam here- I bought the 1000 gallon tank. Last fill I got was 67 cents a gallon- That saves $1000's there.
Got a huge basement to store your oil reserves... lol

Very nice house. If this house(with 1/2 acres) is in Orange County, CA within 4-5 miles from the beach it would be multi-millions.

We don't have many houses on a lot larger 1 acre. Actually, less than 0.1% of the houses in Orange County within 10 miles of the ocean have 1/2 acres lot or larger.

 

[Mr Nice]

Where in Florida did you buy land ?

 

[AZjeff]

HTSS_RR, you real estate market in SoCal is a bit different that the rest of the country.

 

[AirgunSavant]

Right outside of Palm Coast.


Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Where in Florida did you buy land ?

 

[Wolf359]

Real estate broker here. Commissions vary by the area. In our area, it's typically 5%, but certain areas where there's lot of discount brokers, the commission is 4%. There's one broker that advertises 3% commission. I think the lowest we've done is about 3%, normally we try to get at least 3.5-4% if we're forced to discount. Usually we only do that if the house is over 500k so there's at least a little meat on the bones so to speak. When you do 3.5%, you end up with 1.5% as the listing broker and you offer 2% to the buyer's agent. Otherwise yes, it makes the other agents mad. I've done fsbo's before and I really pound them. Remember, the key to hard nosed negotiations is to be willing to walk away from the deal. A real estate agent is only too happy to walk away from a FSBO which is why it's not always a good idea. All the tricks and things you say to another agent doesn't work, but it does on a fsbo because they don't know any better. They also work on some newbie agents. I've seen a lot of them blow up too, either due to financing or inspection.

 

[hatt]

Originally Posted By: MNgopher


Don't like the rates, then do it yourself and deal with all the fun yourself.
People love beating themselves in the head. Just today I called a FSBO to see if he'd let we show it to a few buyers. It's a hot market for lower priced homes. Had almost identical house listed last month. Under contract in two days. Multiple full price offers, and a wait list of people wanting in. Here dude sits getting no activity. He was nice enough to offer me $1000 if I brought him a buyer. LOL. I was only going to charge him 3%($3600) since I have interested buyers lined up. He just likes beating himself in the head dealing with lowballers and people that can't get financed to buy a Snickers. We'll see if I can change his mind next week.