The most conventional and typical way to sell a house at full market price is listing with a licensed real estate agent. An agent lists your house on the MLS (multiple listing service). 90% of potential buyers use the MLS at their one and only stop when looking for a house. An agent can also help in pricing and marketing your house.
Of course it’s critical that you work with the best agent. Most agents don’t offer much value. Your agent needs to have extensive experience in your market and neighborhood.
Having the right agent is like an insurance policy. If things go wrong, which is not uncommon in real estate, the right agent can save you thousands of dollar.
The downside of using an agent of course is their sales commissions, which is normally 6% of the sales price. Also, depending on the house and market conditions, it can take a while to sell the house, and all the while the seller has to continue making monthly mortgage payments, paying taxes, insurance, utilities, and keep the house in show worthy condition for potential buyers.
For people with equity and time, this is normally their best option to sell.
We’re not real estate agents. We are investors and utilize strategies that most agents will not tell you about. We work with an affiliate real estate brokerage company that can assist you in listing your home for sale. These are the agents we use to sell our houses, and we only use the best.
When you call us to discuss selling your house, we will always talk to you about listing your home with our affiliated agents, and we will make you additional offers as well. We call this a “combo plan”. If you want one of our offers, great. If you want to list your home with an agent, no problem, you can still take our offer as a backup. And our affiliated agents will agree to let you sell to us at any time without having to pay them a fee.
Do agents always charge 6% to list a house?
Actually they charge 3% to list your house for sale, and you pay an additional 3% to the real estate agent that represents the buyer, for a total of 6%. That being said, discounts can sometimes be negotiated depending on the house and location.
What about companies that offer to sell my house for 1%?
You get what you pay for. The truth is that most companies and services that offer to sell your property for 1%, are actually costing you 4%, because you still have to pay the buyer’s agent 3% on top of the 1%. We call that bait and switch. Now 4% is still better than 6%, but then you have to ask yourself “if they only get 1%, how hard are they going to work to sell my house?”
Some real estate agents I’ve talked to have told me they already have buyers, is this true? And if so, can they discount the commission if they find or bring the buyer and that buyer is not working with another agent?
Well, they often imply they have buyers, but the truth is that it is very uncommon for the same agent to just happen to know the right buyer for your house. Don’t believe an agent that tries to convince you otherwise. If they do bring the buyer, however, it’s okay to ask for a discounted commission.
What about selling my house myself?
In the industry we call that “FSBO” – For Sale By Owner. Most people that try this are trying to save some money and, unfortunately, it rarely works. Most sellers overprice their house and ultimately get no offers or stay on the market so long that when they finally get an offer it’s far below what they could have gotten listing their house with an agent.