Selling a House/No Realtor

[AnnaS]

My husband and his brother owned my MIL's home. The brother passed before my MIL.

When my MIL passed, we were approached by two buyers days later - but because there were some issues with the sister-in-law (the wife of the deceased brother), we preferred to go with a real estate agent so she did not think there could be any funny business (she is out of state). We also had it in the contract that we could bring our own buyer.

Get an appraisal and/or you can do some homework yourself checking Trulia/Zillow, etc., homes for sale in the area and what they have sold for. Of course, consider shape of the house, year, location, etc. etc
If you want it to sell, be reasonable/realistic or it will sit.

The house sold the same week it was listed, we had buyers before we had the Open House that weekend.

It was sold as is, but after house inspection, we did fix two things. We actually had a buyer that came in "through us" and not the agent. She took less commission.

My mom's house we sold without an agent. My mom moved into my brother's house when she was sick and could not stay alone. We had a tenant who wanted to buy the house. We agreed on a price. It was very reasonable. He lived there for about 5 years and never bothered us with any issues. He even made improvements on the house. We did not have the house empty at all/losing rent etc. We were not inconvenienced showing the house, no real estate fee. We each got real estate attorneys and all was taken care of. There was nothing for us to do but show up for contract and closing.

 

[tvguy]

I good lawyer and an appraiser can do all.of those things for you and a fraction of the cost of a real estate agent.

If you don't need to market the property, there is no reason to get a real estate agent involved.

Certainly depends on the property and circumstances.

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

So you've really got 2 tasks involved in this potential sale, first is finding your selling price, you can do that yourself by researching the comps, given that you said the other houses in the area have been updated, you can drop the price a bit from the comps just to account for that, however, keep in mind the majority of updates are going to be cosmetic, unless they're tearing down walls and redoing structure, then you're not talking tens of thousands. As long as the bones are good, then you're in good shape. You can get an appraisal done for $100 or so and they'll give you an expert opinion on how much not being updated will impact the value of the home.

The second task is getting all the proper legal processes followed for the buyer's mortgage company and clearing the title. That you can do with a real estate lawyer just as everyone else has said. It's absolutely doable, you'll just end up doing a little bit more legwork, but even then, not a lot since you wouldn't be marketing the house.

 

[clutter]

Why don't you reach out to a couple agents now? They would be able to give you their estimated list price, because if this falls through you will have to list it anyway. If you tell them you have a potential buyer, they might be willing to handle that for a discounted (1% or 2% v. 6%) rate. It also assures that you will be getting closer to market rate for the house, as they may have other buyers wanting the property. Since you live out of town that might be convenient, and less expensive, for them to handle the sale, rather than a lawyer You will need an attorney (escrow agent) for closing, but that's usually a flat fee.

 

[SteveH]

We bought our first home without an agent, worked with an attorney, no issues. We'd toured everyone home in the area and felt the price he offered (specifically without an agent) was a good deal. Whole process was very easy.

When my father passed away my brother wanted to try listing without an agent, I didn't have much hope. Low and behold we had a full price offer within a week. The attorney that was handling the estate had a partner that did real estate. Whole process was a breeze.

I cringe at the thought of paying 6% for a real estate agent as home values have gone up so much it seems totally out of line now. An real estate attorney can help you throughout the process, appraisal info, etc.

 

[Sinderelly]

We’re going to have to sell after owning our townhouse only 8 months. We did a lot of work and now it’s move in ready. My husband now has medical issues that require no stairs. It seems according to the agent that we had when we bought that we can’t get our money back AND pay realtor fees. How/ where do you advertise your home to get as much exposure as listing with an agent? Also, we can’t list until we buy another home. We can’t afford for our home to sit on the market very long as paying two mortgages very long will be a hardship

 

[tvguy]

We’re going to have to sell after owning our townhouse only 8 months. We did a lot of work and now it’s move in ready. My husband now has medical issues that require no stairs. It seems according to the agent that we had when we bought that we can’t get our money back AND pay realtor fees. How/ where do you advertise your home to get as much exposure as listing with an agent? Also, we can’t list until we buy another home. We can’t afford for our home to sit on the market very long as paying two mortgages very long will be a hardship

It's the pits that you have to move so soon, but no refunds since it isn't the Realtors fault. You might check with a tax expert if there is any relief in that situation. My daughter just bought a house and from a buyer's standpoint, she only looked at listings that had been up only a few hours. She was the first to look at two places, including the one she bought. But the housing market here is red hot, not uncommon for a house to sell hours after being listed.

 

[barkley]

it costs nothing to get a couple of realtors to take a look at the place and make a pitch to you to list it. a good realtor will be upfront on listing as is vs. putting in minor repairs/improvements to net a larger price. as far as paying for someone to appraise the home-an appraised value isn't nesc. what a home should be marketed at and it can fluctuate wildly depending on when it's done (the ones we've had done were required to only use comp sales w/in a so many day period whereas sellers list based on average sales prices w/ some give and take if its a slower period of sales vs. hotter/mortgage rates are better vs. worse).

one direct advantage of the last agent we used was his ability to get tradespeople in for minor jobs-it would have taken us months of waiting to get someone to come out whereas he had his connections w/the local trades to get in and done so that a sale could go through on schedule (and they would wait until closing to get paid which was convenient).

 

[Sinderelly]

It's the pits that you have to move so soon, but no refunds since it isn't the Realtors fault. You might check with a tax expert if there is any relief in that situation. My daughter just bought a house and from a buyer's standpoint, she only looked at listings that had been up only a few hours. She was the first to look at two places, including the one she bought. But the housing market here is red hot, not uncommon for a house to sell hours after being listed.

We of course aren’t looking for any type of refund. What I meant by getting our money back was not losing money when we sell, just getting what we paid plus the cost of the renovations.
I was looking for suggestions on where/how to effectively list so it doesn’t just sit on the market. Any tips on creating flyers, where / how to distribute them, tips on holding an open house etc.

 

[_19disnA]

We’re going to have to sell after owning our townhouse only 8 months.

Once you close on a house, the contract with your realtor is done. However, it might not hurt to ask the realtor you previously used to see if they might offer any discount if you list the property with them. Part of what you pay a realtor to do is list your house in places where many other realtors can also have access to it. What it might now list/sell for partly depends on the real estate market where you live.

A lot of people think by selling on their own they will be able to avoid the realtor fee AND sell it for a much higher price then it is worth. If you overprice you home, it won't sell and will sit for a long time on the market where people won't even bother looking at it. Part of what you pay a realtor relates to all of the things involved in selling which the average home owner most likely has no experience in those areas.

 

[tvguy]

I know when I sold my parents house in 2013 my Realtor was a Godsend.
We got a couple of funky offers. One a full price offer, with a specific person kicking in 1/2 the money, and a "person to be named later" kicking in the other half.
The other, wasn't a complete offer. Realtor said 'I have to present these to you, but they are bogus offers"

 

[Moliphino]

I was looking for suggestions on where/how to effectively list so it doesn’t just sit on the market. Any tips on creating flyers, where / how to distribute them, tips on holding an open house etc.

In the two years we were looking we only ever searched through online listings (Zillow, Realtor.com, etc). I had Zillow set up to email me whenever there was a new listing that matched my criteria.

 

[Lilsia]

We bought our first home without an agent, worked with an attorney, no issues. We'd toured everyone home in the area and felt the price he offered (specifically without an agent) was a good deal. Whole process was very easy.

When my father passed away my brother wanted to try listing without an agent, I didn't have much hope. Low and behold we had a full price offer within a week. The attorney that was handling the estate had a partner that did real estate. Whole process was a breeze.

I cringe at the thought of paying 6% for a real estate agent as home values have gone up so much it seems totally out of line now. An real estate attorney can help you throughout the process, appraisal info, etc.

The average local commission here is 7%. Total greed. So a person would pay $7000 to the agent on a $100,000 home sale. That can end up being whatever equity you have in the house or even loosing money on it just because of the commission fees. As I said in my other post, there are companies out there that just charge a flat fee to do the exact same thing that an agent does. I will never use a real estate agent at those prices. They are ripping people off.

 

[Lilsia]

We of course aren’t looking for any type of refund. What I meant by getting our money back was not losing money when we sell, just getting what we paid plus the cost of the renovations.
I was looking for suggestions on where/how to effectively list so it doesn’t just sit on the market. Any tips on creating flyers, where / how to distribute them, tips on holding an open house etc.

Your best bet is to do everything online. Take pictures of your house and post them on Zillow and other sites like that. People shop for homes online now. In the past, real estate agents where the only ones to know about what houses were for sale through their internal MLS. They would then pick and choose what house to take you to see and most of the time they took you to houses that were for sale with their agency so that they got both the buyer's and sellers commission. Now with the internet, people can see all of the houses that are for sale. I would see if there is a company by you that can help you list your house for a flat fee. The one by us is called FSBO Homes.

 

[disney junky]

Just an FYI, commission is negotiable. It's set by the broker, and not usually the agent, so asking the agent won't likely get you an immediate response. There is no set commission by anyone besides the broker, and brokers can't collude on what is common "locally." That's violation of real estate law.

Not sure why 7% is total greed because 7% of 100,000 is a lot less than 5% of 300,000. Just saying. Selling real estate is not for the faint of heart. And it's nothing like HGTV.

 

[Deb & Bill]

We had a big sale at our house before we moved from Montana. Whenever anyone asked about the house, my husband told them it was for sale, too. One lady who bought our baby furniture said she had a friend who was interested in buying a house with land and asked if she could bring her over. She did and we sold her friend the house. The lady who came to the sale was an attorney, so we paid her to do the paperwork for us and we got it done.

 

[mnrose]

Also an FYI....with rare exceptions, you are VERY unlikely to get back 100% of what you spend on renovations. There's a ton of websites out there that give you a ball park estimate on what percentage of remodels (minor and otherwise) you get back when you sell. Here's one: https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/home-renovations-that-return-the-most-at-resale/. When you factor in paying a real estate commission, you definitely will not get back what you paid + the cost of renovations....unless you are in a very hot real estate market where things have been escalating in price at least as much as the average real estate commission (which in my area is 6%). You could try a FSBO, but on average, those take longer to sell AND sell for "less" than you would have gotten with a realtor. Plus, of course, no other real estate agent will show your property to their clients unless you pay the buyer's agent a commission (usually about 1/2 of normal). Very difficult to "break even" on a house that you've owned for only a short time.

Our experience in selling a house in 2018. We finished off the portion of the lower level (walk out) that hadn't been finished when we bought it. It cost us roughly 23K to do that. When we sold, we probably got about 20K more than we would have without the remodel. However, it was still 'worth it' to me because we were able to sell the house faster as a 4 BR than we could have as a 3BR. But from a purely financial point of view, we probably "lost" money on the remodel.

 

[jsmla]

Thanks all,

We will have to get an agent if this doesn’t work out, neither of us is local. Definitely not doing any renovations, the plan is to clean it up and sell as a fixer.

 

[disney junky]

Thanks all,

We will have to get an agent if this doesn’t work out, neither of us is local. Definitely not doing any renovations, the plan is to clean it up and sell as a fixer.

There's no wrong option!