My sister in law went thru this on a desirable New England lake where property inventory is limited. So many people “interested” in her attempt at Fsbo but lots of wasted weekends self showing and it got listed finally with realtor. Sold after a few weeks at about $25k more than what she expected.
Advice on selling a house by owner
- Thread starter HonorAndHonesty
- Start date
I'm no fan of RE Agents, but I'd never SELL a house without one. They do do a LOT of paperwork and such. Honestly, I can't figure out how the little agents make it. On a $300k house, the AGENT or salesperson gets $4500. Their boss/broker/firm gets $4500 and the other side gets $9k to split.
That $4500 for the sales agent may sound like a lot, but in most cases, they have worked for a month to get it. Then that's gross pay. Those of you who don't pay attention, about $1400 of that $4500 goes to the government. Then there's insurance/etc. They need to close on about 4 of these a month to make it. That's one closing a week...that takes up time from going to a listing, potential listing, showing houses, etc.
The people that "make money" in the RE business are the brokers who have 8-10 agents under them...and the brokers who have rental property....
That $4500 for the sales agent may sound like a lot, but in most cases, they have worked for a month to get it. Then that's gross pay. Those of you who don't pay attention, about $1400 of that $4500 goes to the government. Then there's insurance/etc. They need to close on about 4 of these a month to make it. That's one closing a week...that takes up time from going to a listing, potential listing, showing houses, etc.
The people that "make money" in the RE business are the brokers who have 8-10 agents under them...and the brokers who have rental property....
Advice from, of course, a realtor!
We seriously considered it, it's simply too far from town for us and the work that the house needs we could not really afford to do if we paid market value for the house.
UPDATE AND CONCLUSION
We showed the house to the interested party I knew and while they loved the house and property, they faced a similar dilemma as us if we were interested in purchasing the property, that being the purchase price was at the high end of what we could handle and with the work the house needs (carpet, flooring, deck) and will likely need in the future (22 Year old hvac, though works perfectly) , it simply wouldn't be a wise move for them.
We didn't end up contacting the home builder/developer, likely the price would have been lower, although it surely wouldn't have hurt, and my mom didn't want to stick it to her neighbors by having him throw 3 or 4 more homes in there. I do question if we should have at least gotten an offer from him, but its done now with a good end result.
We ended up listing the house with a realtor and the interest was immense as expected since properties like that at that price point are rare around here. House went live on a Friday and by Sunday there had been numerous showings and many offers, one of which was accepted though contingent. It was a great feeling being having something highly in demand and being able to look thru the offers and simply rejecting the ones that were not even close and had to many demands right out of the gate. No counter offer on those, just a simple offer rejected and on to the next one!
A few weeks later there was a slightly lower though non contingent offer placed on the house which was accepted. The offer was AS-IS, no inspection though we welcomed an inspection if they had so chose. Everything we knew the house needed was disclosed, mainly the deck needs repair or a rebuild.
The people buying it are immediately going to gut the kitchen and possibly the baths, sounds like before they move in. It sounds like they are going to take the house to the next level and I have no doubts if they follow thru and invest the money, time and work into it they will have a 500k property when they are done.
It was hard for me because there was so much more we wanted to do to the house and property, but since my father passed there is no way we could continue to help my mother and maintain our place. I was basically maintaining two homes and properties and not doing a very good job on either one since I was burning the candles on both ends.
I am relieved to an extent since we can now focus on our place 100 percent and figure out our next move.
If we had the luxury of time, I would have considered placing the house on the MLS by owner, but time we did not have, we cut it close with rising interest rates and slowing housing market.
Although this house had a lot of interest since it was wooded acreage, livable clean house that is in good condition with great "bones" and didn't have to be completely gutted for a price many can afford around here, I believe it would have been an easy sell if you were able to sift thru the dreamers, Ne’er-do-wells and clowns. In the end the commission was worth it not to have to deal with a bunch of people contacting us asking if we would rent it, sell on contract, sell them and acre, sell them just the house and an acre ect......
The Realtor we used is a true professional and completely exceeded our expectations.
We showed the house to the interested party I knew and while they loved the house and property, they faced a similar dilemma as us if we were interested in purchasing the property, that being the purchase price was at the high end of what we could handle and with the work the house needs (carpet, flooring, deck) and will likely need in the future (22 Year old hvac, though works perfectly) , it simply wouldn't be a wise move for them.
We didn't end up contacting the home builder/developer, likely the price would have been lower, although it surely wouldn't have hurt, and my mom didn't want to stick it to her neighbors by having him throw 3 or 4 more homes in there. I do question if we should have at least gotten an offer from him, but its done now with a good end result.
We ended up listing the house with a realtor and the interest was immense as expected since properties like that at that price point are rare around here. House went live on a Friday and by Sunday there had been numerous showings and many offers, one of which was accepted though contingent. It was a great feeling being having something highly in demand and being able to look thru the offers and simply rejecting the ones that were not even close and had to many demands right out of the gate. No counter offer on those, just a simple offer rejected and on to the next one!
A few weeks later there was a slightly lower though non contingent offer placed on the house which was accepted. The offer was AS-IS, no inspection though we welcomed an inspection if they had so chose. Everything we knew the house needed was disclosed, mainly the deck needs repair or a rebuild.
The people buying it are immediately going to gut the kitchen and possibly the baths, sounds like before they move in. It sounds like they are going to take the house to the next level and I have no doubts if they follow thru and invest the money, time and work into it they will have a 500k property when they are done.
It was hard for me because there was so much more we wanted to do to the house and property, but since my father passed there is no way we could continue to help my mother and maintain our place. I was basically maintaining two homes and properties and not doing a very good job on either one since I was burning the candles on both ends.
I am relieved to an extent since we can now focus on our place 100 percent and figure out our next move.
If we had the luxury of time, I would have considered placing the house on the MLS by owner, but time we did not have, we cut it close with rising interest rates and slowing housing market.
Although this house had a lot of interest since it was wooded acreage, livable clean house that is in good condition with great "bones" and didn't have to be completely gutted for a price many can afford around here, I believe it would have been an easy sell if you were able to sift thru the dreamers, Ne’er-do-wells and clowns. In the end the commission was worth it not to have to deal with a bunch of people contacting us asking if we would rent it, sell on contract, sell them and acre, sell them just the house and an acre ect......
The Realtor we used is a true professional and completely exceeded our expectations.
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