Realtors

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: dareo
Realtors can get you higher and better offers and take on some liability in transactions so they definitely have their place. I am surprised that the technological age we live in hasn't found a good way to whittle down their commissions from the expected 6% to maybe half that.


You need to shop around. Most places around here just do 5% max and in some places it's 4%. There's a couple places that advertise 3.5%, but they don't do that much for you.

 

[CKN]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: dishdude
I'm on house #4, wouldn't consider buying or selling one without a Realtor. Most people are clueless to buying or selling something as simple as a dresser on Craigslist, I wouldn't deal with someone directly on a house sale.

I'm glad that you wasn't my buyer when I sold my Irvine house by myself 2 years ago.

When I listed my house on "Sell By Owner" website I had many phone and email from real estate agents representing buyer, they told me I didn't have to pay them commission, their clients would pay them.

I refused to let them and their clients see the house, I only allowed buyers see the house by themselves, no realtors were allowed inside my house.

I sold my house directly to a buyer without paying any penny to a realtor.



Yes-but Orange County is in high demand----as your post demonstrates. You can't do what you did in many parts of the country and have ANY HOPES of selling a house. I'm an ex-Southern Californian myself. I sold a house in Chino Hills 4 years ago-with a Realtor. It sold in two days. Most folks don't have all the knowledge needed to buy a house, there are those that think they do, but in reality they don't. Realtors are still worth some compensation. Maybe not the 6% they try for-but they still provide value added-IMHO.

I don't expect anybody who provides a service for a fee to be treated favorably here on BITOG.com Not when you have people drive to a certain auto parts stores within a 200 mile radius to buy oil at .25 cents a quart.......

 

[Mr Nice]

OT:

My older sister was looking for a house and the realtor spent her time and energy looking for the 'perfect' house.

Eventually my sister found another house from a Buy Owner but felt the realtor spent lots of time showing them houses. Sister gave realtor a $1000 check for their time even though realtor could not find what she and husband wanted.

I think that was fair...

 

[PandaBear]

As stated before, buyer agents actually would help draw people to your home because they actually look at the listing sites full time for their clients. If no buyer agent allowed, then those buyer agents will steer the buyers away from your listing.

Now in a high demand area that gets lots of traffic, that's ok, but you may never know because the buyer agents may convince the buyer to put down a ridiculous high bid, or able to draw a foreign buyer into area that he'd never considered before.

A couple famous seller agents know a lot of buyer agents that get a lot of foreign cash buyers, and constantly sold houses for 25% above listing (that's around 200k above listing here). In those situation it may not be wise to list it yourself.

If you want to save money there are lots of discount agents that refund 30-65% of their commission back to you if you do all the works (visiting open houses, getting finance, showing the house, staging, prep work, flyers, etc).

 

[SeaJay]

Originally Posted By: Wolf359

You need to shop around. Most places around here just do 5% max and in some places it's 4%. There's a couple places that advertise 3.5%, but they don't do that much for you.


I only charge 2%. I will do little, if anything for you. But my price is lower, so you will save big if you hire me as your realtor.

 

[zzyzzx]

Originally Posted By: Wolf359
There's a couple places that advertise 3.5%, but they don't do that much for you.


They all pretty much don't do much for you.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
There's a couple places that advertise 3.5%, but they don't do that much for you.


They all pretty much don't do much for you.


Well the only thing they really need to do is to get to the closing. That's all you're really paying for, anything else is extra.