How to cut real estate fees when selling your home : Toronto Star
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Posted on: 03-09-15 10:06:38
Quote:
Originally posted by tamilkuravan
MLS was having monoploy in which they do a lot of house selling and that they will have data on the price for which the meighbouring house was sold.
So for example, MLS used to say that if your neighbour sold the house for $ 419K, this information will be very useful to determine your house price.
Is there a way in which we can find this out or it canot be found out?
Murali
http://www.realmarketwatch.ca
A chinese guy has started this site. Use google translate and its not t hard to figure it out. MLS is trying to sue this guy.
It tells you the FINAL selling price of the house, NOT just the listing price or asking price. It actually tells you, how much it really sold for in the end. So you will know, the EXACT price ! MLS tries to keep this secret !
Based on this, you can know if so and so house sold for 95 % of the asking price or 105 % of the asking price.
Disclosure: I am a Realtor
With the house prices being what they are, it's easy to understand consumer frustration over "high commission vs amount of effort put in by Realtors" but I hesitate to brush all Realtors with same brush.
During my Realtor career, I've worked with clients who could absolutely list+sell their home themselves however I've worked with larger number of clients who felt intimidated by the whole process and therefore required professional Realtor services/hand holding. 5% commission may have been a common practice in the past, based on lower/steady home values, however I agree that it needs to evolve where it's justifiable with actual work effort and provides a measurable value to consumers.
Based on my experience, here are my personal observations:
- Consumer should not be afraid to negotiate the commission
- 5% commission is not relevant anymore
- A Realtor must prove beyond doubt why they are charging a particular commission amount
- Consumers have options on listing the home on their own and should explore these options.
- Once the consumer is better educated on available options, he/she can determine if they are able to invest the time/effort required or whether they should work with a professional Realtor
- Newer Realtors are adopting to current market reality and are more flexible with commission structure in line with value they provide
Just wanted to air my opinion and not everyone has to agree with them.
Commission is unavoidable in RE . (and of course outrageous!)
While selling on your own , you still have to pay for the commission of buyer's RE agent else looking for a buyer who also will not have RE agent is like reducing the selling potential by 90%. Selling on own is not a pleasant experience at times, with the way system is built,primarily to regularise and avoid frauds / theft. It is not impossible also, requires loads of patience.
Quote:
Originally posted by san-hugo
Commission is unavoidable in RE . (and of course outrageous!)
While selling on your own , you still have to pay for the commission of buyer's RE agent else looking for a buyer who also will not have RE agent is like reducing the selling potential by 90%. Selling on own is not a pleasant experience at times, with the way system is built,primarily to regularise and avoid frauds / theft. It is not impossible also, requires loads of patience.
san-hugo, I agree that in most cases, there is some type of commission tied to even private sales. However, as a well informed consumer, one should be able to negotiate that as well.
Once again IMHO, thanks to tech and all the disruptive changes in Real Estate (and every other industry), the consumer-Realtor business relation will change where a Realtor must show real value to their work or become irrelevant.
In the end, it a customer service based industry and must me first priority.
Quote:
Originally posted by Agent Raj
Quote:
Originally posted by san-hugo
Commission is unavoidable in RE . (and of course outrageous!)
While selling on your own , you still have to pay for the commission of buyer's RE agent else looking for a buyer who also will not have RE agent is like reducing the selling potential by 90%. Selling on own is not a pleasant experience at times, with the way system is built,primarily to regularise and avoid frauds / theft. It is not impossible also, requires loads of patience.
san-hugo, I agree that in most cases, there is some type of commission tied to even private sales. However, as a well informed consumer, one should be able to negotiate that as well.
Even a well informed customer ( seller) cannot avoid buyer agent's commission. There is no opportunity to negotiate here.
In other private sales there is generally one sales agent , here there are two to eat into your well earned equity.
For you I 'll talk facts.
In my last 2 RE transactions , the RE agents have charged me 45k in commission without bothering whether I gained or lost in the deal and that too when I negotiated to bring total commissions to 3% instead of 5%. My supposedly gains were all eaten up by commission and closing cost. WTF !
Quote:
For you I 'll talk facts.
In my last 2 RE transactions , the RE agents have charged me 45k in commission without bothering whether I gained or lost in the deal and that too when I negotiated to bring total commissions to 3% instead of 5%. My supposedly gains were all eaten up by commission and closing cost. WTF !
Once again, I agree and have made my stance clear that commissions are high and do not align with today's real estate market conditions.
Listing agents have been improving their end of the commissions however progress is very slow on co-operating side commission which is still in 2.25 - 2.5% range. In UK (I lived there for a while) it's 1% for each agent, which is a lot more reasonable. HST is enforced by government regulations therefore Realtors should not be faulted for that.
From my own experience, , I've seen commission negotiated down to 1-1.5% for private sales therefore it certainly is possible however you are right that it may not happen in every case. Sometimes the Seller doesn't negotiate commission out of fear of losing the deal.
I don't doubt your facts however if approx 4% (3% commission + 1% closing fees) wiped out all your gains, then perhaps it wasn't a prudent decision to sell a home that had only appreciated 4-5% in value. However I do understand that unfortunately sometimes our circumstances force us to sell when we don't want to.
If not using a Realtor, there are several great "For sale by owner" options available to home sellers but they need to spend time to research and decide which suits them best. Time is money, to everyone.
