Selling the house with/without a realtor

[landrun]

The bride and I are thinking about selling our house.

Frankly, I can't pay a realtor 6%. It wouldn't be worth selling.
My understanding is that if you work with someone who is employed by a broker then they can't really negotiate their commission percentage.

So, is there such a think as an independent realtor who can get our house listed in the MLS database. Or I was thinking about looking into something like this: http://www.fidelityflatfee.com/georgia/?gclid=CPr4pvezqaACFVJR2godCHVQZg

But I'm not sure how legit it is.

I would consider selling it myself but have never done that and am concerned it might be more legally complicated that I want it to be. But I have known people who have done it themselves and I'm WAAAY more intelligent than they are. :D So maybe it wouldn't be to difficult.

Anyone have any advice on how to see your house and keep as much of the money you make on it in your own pocket? (I apologize up front to any realtors in our midst. :O )

[yermom]

craigslist?

i'm sure some googling would turn up some stuff on doing it without a realtor. i'm pretty sure i'd go that route when/if i'm buying or selling again

my realtor was less than worthless

[1890MilesToNorman]

In Maine only a licensed Realtor can list in the MLS. Realtors bring in the buyers so it's more of a marketing problem. Start listing it in newspapers or on a website, you can even put it on eBay. At a minimum you need a lawyer or someone to cross the t's and dot the i's for your protection and to draw up a purchase and sale agreement. Be sure there are no deed issues or disputes with property lines and what-not.

Good luck.

[Crucifax Autumn]

Sounds like a nightmare either way.

[badger]

NP and I bought our house off of Craigslist. We still had people look through the paperwork, do inspections, and had professionals handle closing, except for the part where we read the dollar amount and sign our name.

Parents went through a realtor when they moved to Oklahoma back in 2001. Some prospective buyers wanted to know as they were touring if mom and dad would be willing to dump the realtor to get around that 6 percent commish. Parents weren't. That house stayed on the market awhile and we ended up settling for a lower offer.

Much like then, it is a buyer's market. When we were out house hunting, NP and I were turned off by realtors who were trying to push us above our price range constantly and not listening to us.

Advice: Try going it alone initially to see what the interest level is in the market. If you have "For Sale" signs popping up in your area, check and see what your competition is - what they want for their house and how good that house is compared to yours.

If you have a lot of competition or are seeing a lot of cheap houses in your area go on the market, your timing is awful and your only chance of sale may be a realtor. If the "For Sale" signs disappear quickly for good (i.e. HIGH) prices, then your timing is perfect and you should be able to get some interest right away.

Good luck!

[landrun]

WOW.... just got off the phone with a realtor asking about 4 houses my wife and I looked at this weekend. :mad:

Get this. 2 of the 4 houses (all in the same neighborhood) were foreclosures. And one has just gone under contract at about the same price the foreclosed homes are being offered by a 'motivated' seller. The prices were awesome on 3 of the 4. - now I know why!
The one that was high (relatively speaking) was being offered at $299 but they started at $398 losing almost 25% of it's value since they started trying to sell it last year.

I did some quick math, and if the price of my house has fallen in a similar proportion to these houses, it means I'm $20k under water on it. I just finished building it in Feb of 2008! My house has lost $50k of its value in 2 years! :eek:

Its impossible to sell your house anywhere near the market value when half the houses around town are being sold by banks as foreclosures. In essence, the market value becomes the price of foreclosed homes! I know of 1 house that was foreclosed on in our neighborhood. There have probably been more but this poor guys' lender had a public auction on the front steps of his house announcing it with a 8'X8' sign placed in his front yard a month before the auction. And he was still living there when they put the sign up! I thought the bank had no class when they did that but I'm sure there is another side of the story to justify what they did.

But that doesn't matter. Because I really like my house. :D I just didn't want to have to invest the money to fix the ditch that my builder screwed up and thought I could get a new house with a fence rather than having to have one installed myself.

My situation is livable. But if I HAD to sell my house.... What a mess! ;)

[badger]

Considering that, I have new advice to offer:

DO NOT SELL.

Wait until the market improves. It's the way of the economic cycles that things will get better eventually. Make do where you are for now and save up so that when the right time comes to sell you can get a good price and move to a better situation.

I would say that the bank has no class doing that as well, but hearing horror stories about foreclosures lately, the guy was probably defaulting for a long time before they'd sink to that. Banks have little sympathy for so-called deadbeats.