MsElui

We may have a relo in our near future - so whilst mucking around on Zillow- my husband marked our house as 'make me move'. We have had a realtor round who i felt gave us 'reasonable' advice and price and we were going to sign up with her as and when the relo became a reality.

Then last week- another realtor contacted my husband and said - i saw your property on zillow - are you really selling as he had clients looking for property in our town and not finding much in our price range. (this actually matches what the realtor lady told us when she came round). We told them it wasn't 100% happening yet and the house wasn't 'show ready' and we are waiting to see if they come back and we need to talk again. However - part of the conversation involved this new guy saying -'' i dont normally do the 'selling' part - but if this happens and my clients end up liking your house etc etc - i could do both parts and only charge 4% total''..


Clearly that would save us 2% - which is quite a bit of this house price. Howvere- im guessing there are going to be pitfulls in doing this - as we would need to be sure he represented OUR interests.

Should we avoid this like the plague (may come to nothing anyways) or go along and see what happens if they come back to us? We had an independent realtor give us a guide price so we know what we would be 'asking for'. it would almost be like doing a private sale.

Michael

Prior to the housing crash, I used to get calls weekly from agents claiming that he had people lined up at his door wanting to buy my home at any price. It's usually a gimmick to get you to list with him and all of a sudden, no one is any longer at his door.

I wouldn't be too concerned that the buyer and seller are using the same brokerage as long as the house is listed on the MLS and they hold open houses to get bidders from all. You don't want to give a brokerage an exclusive listing only to that brokerage since it will be difficult to determine the market value of the home.

If your agent is reputable, he should go over each of the offers with you and point out the good and bad points of each offer.

You may want to look at a discount broker such as ZipReality to see if you are trying to save money on the commission.

Sally Redux

Yes, we get a number of those. I don't think they're real.

I think there's a significant conflict of interest if the realtor is handling both sides.

sir_eccles

Or is he saving the buyer 2%? Conflict of interest.

Pulaski

I've bought using only the seller's agent, and I'd do it again, but I'd be a lot more wary about selling using only a buyer's agent, and would want to be absolutely comfortable that the final price is consistent with the market price. There is no point in saving 2% on the commission if you lose 5% on the gross price!

Jerseygirl

We get mail shots and phone call from agents saying they have buyers too.

Exactly.

lansbury

We saw the house we have now online when we were still living in the UK. We didn't have a realtor working for us and the sellers realtor offer to help us. I say help because he made it clear he was employed by the seller and his first obligation was to their interests. In your case if the realtor has already been retained by the buyer he is working for them. In our case I believe the realtor gave the sellers a rebate on his comission as he didn't have to share it with a buyers realtor.

It work out well for us and I thought we got the necessary help, with writing up the offer etc, without being told anything that would have been detrimental to the sellers interests. We received help from another source with the valuation of the house.

Poppy girl

Makes me laugh the % they charge in the US to sell your home in the UK its more like 2% max I am paying my 2 different realtors 1% who ever gets the deal done!

Sue

We had the same realtor. The buyers of our house saw it online and did not have a buyer's agent and contacted our realtor directly and our realtor represented us both. However she was totally upfront about everything and made it very clear regarding her obligations to both parties, but the whole process was very smooth and in some ways helped as there wasn't an extra cog in the wheel.

I think at the end of the day you need to feel comfortable with the agent.

RoadWarriorFromLP

What I'm about to suggest isn't typical of house sales, but it's something that I've done with commercial real estate deals as a principal (I'm not a real estate broker):

Sign a one-party agreement with this 4% guy. In other words, your deal with him applies only to the one buyer who he has (supposedly) identified. That person will need to be named in your agreement.

Your agreement with the other agent should be written so that it excludes this one buyer. In most cases, listings are "exclusive" (your listing agent gets paid something, no matter who finds the buyer), so you'd need to amend this agreement so that this one specific purchaser becomes an exception.

That way, you have the best of both worlds. If Mr. 4% is full of it, no big deal. But you're not relying upon him for marketing your property to a wider audience, either.

Rete

Since your move is not 100% guaranteed, it is assumed that you listed your home to get a feel of the market and the selling price. Is your house offered for below market price? Or is it priced correctly?

My sister just sold her home without an agent. It was FSBO and it was two attorney's dealing with each other instead of realtors. They purchased their new home again with realtors involved and just the builder and the mortgage company.

We bought our home with just one realtor (ours) since it was a MLS listing.

Tarkak9

... if that agent is doing both sides, the fee s/he is proposing can still be further improved ...

If one is doing both sides, then you can't have that agent represent your interests. Agency relationships vary from state to state so its important to understand them and under what sort of scenario. Eg, if you list with X and have an exclusive right and the buyer's agent also works in the same office, what happens to your representation? Its only somewhat recent where some states retain the representation and other states may have to have a change of status where no party is technically represented.

Sites like Zillow are lead generators. "I have buyers ..." often legit but also a script so if you're not listed, you're being subtly solicited to list! Sent a letter explaining a buyer wants to buy your house? - have them pay for a meal to discuss things further, then you'll see who may be sincere or not as chances are that an agent isn't going to waste their time and money in such manner if they didn't have a client).

In many markets right now, there is a shortage of suitable inventory. Don't do anything in haste; the price is the backbone to a sale so definitely do the homework on the potential market value of your home.

cluedweasel

We had one of those in California. We expressed an interest in selling our house. We were going to list it with someone, then the realtor who sold us the place showed up claiming she had a buyer who was ready to buy it and if we went with her, the fee would be 1%. Surprisingly enough it was true. They bought the place for our full asking price and our fees were 1%. We were lucky in hindsight that it all went smoothly as the realtor was definitely only interested in the buyer, not us.

Giantaxe

The problem I have with transactions like this is that you really don't know what the market value of a house is until you put it on the open market and see what interest there is. You might have got your "full asking price", but how do you know that that price is what it's market value was? Obviously you can do comps and get realtors' opinions etc to give you a good idea, but without market visibility I would be concerned that I was saving money on commission but potentially losing money on sale price.

Rete

PS ... that is without realtors DUH!