Real Estate

[Guest Sundancefisher]

Everyone is complaining about the cost of gas, or the cost of housing, or the rising cost to do pretty much anything but little has been said about the skyrocketing realtor fees.

 

In 1996 an average house in Calgary was $138,000. At the standard realtor fee of 7% on the first $100K and 3.5% on the balance...the total fee was $8,330.

 

Today that same house would run you closer to $490,000. At the standard realtor fee of 7% on the first $100K and 3.5% on the balance...the total fee was $20,650.

 

That is an increase of 250%! Are we getting the value?

 

This is what I did you get our house ready to sell based upon the advice of our realtor (and I should say I like the guy a lot cause he is nice, friendly and low key).

 

We repainted the whole house ($2000), cleaned the carpets ($450.00), removed most of the stuff from the house (decluttering took in excess of 30 man hours), general repairs around the house ($2000), and now we spend greater than 10 hours a week on general cleaning and with 3 kids in the house it is a chore! Our reward for all our hard work is to pay the realtor once someone sees the MLS and decides to buy the house.

 

What does the realtor do for $21,000? They list the house on the MLS, take calls requesting showings, fill out the paper when an offer comes in, does the occational open house (of which they detest and are not afraid to voice there opinion).

 

I believe the whole realtor fee system is outdated in today's price environment in Alberta. What says you all?

 

Cheers

 

Sun

[SanJuanWorm]

I think realtors take too much but I feel its a necessity to have one. I bargained with my realtor to lower her fees last time and she did. But i've sold 2 houses with her.

[walker1]

I also felt these rates were to high also for the amount of work involved. However, as with many things there are choices and competion.You can try bargaining. What about WE LIST? I do not have the answers but the commisssion is crazy! IMO

[Red]

I group Realtors and Lawyers together. Both are just middlemen and neither are worth what you have to pay them. We're selling our house now as well, and I'm having a real hard time seeing the justification for the $20,000 fee we'll be paying them.

 

What was that Taco said about Leeches?

[Guest Sundancefisher]

The only value they have is in the MLS. Some ways to get on with minimal cost but is it worth it? If one is not in a hurry WELIST or similar may work but I feel 90% of prospective buyers do not watch FSBO's sites. That is the biggest problem.

 

What would be nice is if the realtor would have people to come through, declutter the house, paint the walls, clean the carpet, do minor repairs, clean the floors and windows and also sell the house in general all for that fee than I can accept paying that amount inorder to one stop shop. But really...right now as it stands, we have done 97% of the work to sell our own house. For the we pay a glorious fee of $20K?

 

Argggg.

[ladystrange]

i dont know much about the topic but i know that the selling realtor has to split the fee earned with the agent of the buyers. what that percentage, i have no idea.

 

i'm going to be selling in the near future and i'm not thrilled about the commission part either

[Nick0Danger]

Just bought a home paid 415 000.00$ The day we moved in we had 2 realators, come and say the house is work at least 20,000 more for it.

 

But what else you get is little BS. I would never sell without.

 

That said they do get a lot of commissions. They are the feast and famine type generally, when they have it they spend it, when they don't they starve.

[Weedy1]

Hire a real estate lawyer for $600-1000 to do the deal and sell it yourself. Ultimately that's who does the real work not the realtor.

 

I sold my last house in 2002 in about 8 hrs. I had it evaluated by 3 realtors then took 3% off the price. Guess what? I ended up getting 5% more than I wanted. It was a good market though to sell in at the time.

 

I don't know how many homes are available in Calgary right now but if it's anything like Edmontons market it may be tough to get top dollar right now without a lot of marketing.

 

$20000 does goes a long way in doing your own advertising though.

[Saltamontes]

Went through this a couple of years ago. Mom passed away and dad decided to move into a smaller place. I asked around about what was required to sell privately and told dad I would give it a go for a couple of months. I had the property appraised by a realtor, she did not charge this service, but I agreed to list the property with her if I my private sale dealing did not work. I sat at the computer, wrote up all the specks of the house (sq. ft, property taxes, you name it) and ran 100 copies of it and handed them out when I ran two open houses in a month, had numerous offers, even had realtors come by and whisper in my ear that if I wanted they could get me a buyer (of course they expected some kickback, and rightly so), I thanked them but told them I would try it solo first. Within a month I had a solid offer ($500 off the asking price, no conditions). Sold dad's house in a month, paid about $800 for lawyer fees, $50 for advertising (newspaper) and stationary, $50 for a couple of "open signs" that I strategically placed around the neighborhood. The house was empty, come in have a look, check whatever you want, take a copy of the specks, coffee was on, timbits on the table, thanks for stopping by.........I saved dad about $17 k. In turn, voluntarily dad insisted in paying me some cash ($3000) which by the way I did not want to take for getting the deal done. I had a blast, what a rush, the adrenaline ran pretty high anytime someone wanted to sit down and talk numbers, poker face here, did just fine.

Realtors provide a service, and they are compensated for it, but at times it is well worth it to try something new for yourself.

[walker1]

Good for you. It is nice to pass that savings on to your DAD.