Selling Your House Without Using a Real Estate Agent
Last updated on July 17, 2018
So you want to sell your house without a real estate agent? You would like to sell your house fast in Omaha or the surrounding area without paying the costly 7% real estate commission and additional closing costs. You don’t want to do the costly repairs to get your home ready to sell. And you would like to sell your house without open houses or having family after family walking through your house telling you what is wrong with your house.
Selling your home or investment property in Omaha, Council Bluffs, Lincoln or the surrounding area does not have to be an inconvenience. NOT using a real estate agent can financially advantageous. There is no need for long drawn contracts that are hard to read and meant to protect the real estate agent and broker. Not knowing when and if you will be getting an offer from a potential buyer. Then not knowing if the buyer can qualify for financing. Lastly, waiting months to close on the loan. You are at the will of the closing company. All of this is extremely stressful and can be avoided.
We avoid working with real estate agents and brokers if possible. We find the process much easier, faster and less confusing by eliminating the middleman. By eliminating the middleman (real estate agent or broker) you eliminate the need to pay the costly commissions, closing costs, repairs needed to sell your house and being able to sell your house quickly. In certain situations, real estate brokers and agents can be useful and earn their commission.
Dealing with home buyers like Harter Investments can take the stress and hassle out of selling your house. Companies that buy homes pay all costs associated with purchasing the home. There are no expensive and unnecessary commissions to pay. You do not need to make any costly repairs, you can sell your home “as is” with no contingencies to companies that buy homes directly from the seller. And close on your terms in as little as seven days.
Avoid Paying High Commissions When Selling Your House
When signing a contract to sell your house through a real estate broker the seller will be agreeing to pay a costly commission of 6% or 7%. This commission price comes from the sale of your property. So if you sell a $200,000.00 property you will be paying a minimum $14,000.00 just in commissions to your agent not to mention additional closing costs plus the costs of getting your home ready to sell. Usually, these commissions are never explained how they are paid or who they are paid to. When using a home buyer such as Harter Investments there are no commissions or closing costs involved.
What is really amazing is that roughly half of the commission you pay goes to pay the buyer’s broker. It really doesn’t make sense, why should the seller pay the buyers agent? This defies logic but this is what is typically done.
You Can Use That To Your Advantage
First, factor in the commissions paid when you’re looking to sell your house against other comparable sales. Comparable sales should be within the last 90 days, same neighborhood, comparable square feet, bedrooms, bathrooms and garages at a minimum. If the properties similar to yours sold for prices that included commissions, take that into account.
Don’t underprice your property – be aware that a savvy buyer may expect to take a discount too. Remember you can always lower the asking price of your home. It is almost impossible to raise the price of your home. Be careful not to price your home out of the market you are selling in otherwise you will have no interest in your home from potential buyers or agents. If you’re doing the work of one agent, you can expect to save half of the commission that you are paying the realtor. In the example we used earlier that would be a savings of $7,000.00 for a house that sold for $200,000.00.
Sometimes buyers who aren’t represented by an agent won’t remember to negotiate the buyer’s side commission out of the price of the home for themselves when buying your home, don’t remind them if you don’t want to pay them. Just don’t be surprised if it comes up during the negotiation.
You may want to consider offering 2 or 2.5% commission to buyer’s agents who will bring their clients to show your property. Sure, it’s a lot of money but the buyer’s agent needs an incentive to show a potential buyer the house you are selling. In pricing your property make sure to include the commission in the price of your home, you can always negotiate a better deal for a purchaser who comes without an agent.
You need to leave room for the buyer’s agent’s commission, Otherwise, you’ll be excluding most of the buyers in your market.
The majority of the houses being sold on the market are listed on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). The MLS is the main database that brokers and agents use to access information regarding houses for sale. The Multiple Listing Service also lists the sold properties and prices. Agents will also use the Multiple Listing Service when looking for the FMV (fair market value) of your home to research comparable houses that have recently sold.
In years past you had to pay full commission to get your property listed on the MLS. Today, there are only a few brokers who will charge you a fee just to list your property on the MLS. Those are probably real estate brokers you want to stay away from. Often, you spend a few hundred bucks and you only pay a commission if the sale closes.
Compared to the cost of a newspaper ad, the MLS is a cheap way to market your property to a very wide audience.
All the major real estate search sites like Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, Redfin and Yahoo Homes, etc. get data from the MLS. Chances are good that when you submit your listing to the MLS, information on your property will end up on most of the major sites within a few days.
Each site has an opportunity for you to upgrade your as for an additional price. They’ve got packages that let you pay to enhance your listing, feature it at the top of the search, and a lot of other bells and whistles that might or might not get an interested buyer to buy your property.
Advertising Is A Gamble
Sometimes open houses can be a great way to sell your property, and sometimes they’re a waste of time. Same with newspaper ads, craigslist postings, fancy signs – sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t.
Marketing Is The KEY to Selling Your Home
Putting up fliers and signs around your neighborhood can generate some calls, and there’s a lot of free websites where you can post information. Unfortunately just putting up flyers and an open house isn’t enough if your house doesn’t appeal to the average home buyer.
In theory, real estate agents charge big commissions because they have to spend a lot of money up front to advertise your property. By advertising lots of properties at once, they expect to get more phone calls – and obviously, they’ll make good profits by selling lots of houses.
Certain properties might require thousands of dollars in advertising expenses before the right buyer happens to see the ad and call.
Avoid Paying Commissions, You Can Sell Your House Fast For CASH To Harter Investments
So if you are looking to sell your house fast without a real estate agent, you will save thousands of dollars. No Commissions, No closing costs, No repair costs getting the house ready to sell, No more utility bills, taxes, insurance to pay while waiting for the house to sell. Harter Investments will pay fair prices for properties – and we can close fast (in as little as 3-5 days if you need to).
We purchase houses, fix them up, then rent them out… sometimes we’ll fix them up and sell them to other people looking for great homes in the area, and a lot of other reasons, too – but we love to hear from people like you who are thinking of selling anywhere in Omaha, Lincoln, Council Bluffs and the surrounding area.
Harter Investments is a local, family-owned real estate investment company who care who care about the seller. We are cash home buyers, buying homes as is with no contingencies, closing fast on your terms.
We close fast and pay cash in as little as just 3-5 days. Call our office at 402-939-6556 or visit us at www.harterinvestments.com
Sell Your House Fast – Get A Cash Offer Today
