Selling a house

claymore504 · May 5, 2009

My renters are moving out in August and I am looking at just selling the house. Would it be a wise move to try to sell it myself? I have a realtor who will sell it for me, but I am looking at saving around 4,000.00 doing it myself. Anyone gone through this?

Shorts · May 5, 2009

If it were me I'd use a seller's agent. While 4k is nice, your agent will deflect and take the majority of the work out of the process, especially if you're busy with other parts of life (work, school, etc). If you're unfamiliar with TREC rules/laws, hand it off.

kingofwylietx · May 5, 2009

Plus, a good agent will greatly reduce the hassle, time, and paperwork for you. $4k is cheap, right now, most agents are offering to sell your home for anywhere from $500 up to 1% commission if they can take the full 3% on your purchase. It's just something to consider. Today, you shouldn't have to pay full commission on a sell if you are using the same agent for your purchase.

JKTex · May 5, 2009

Actually, buying or selling isn't that bad. Agents are way over-rated in many cases. Some cases they'll save your life. but rarely.

The house we're in now, we bought from the owner directly. We found it so fast, I put our other one up for sale on a Friday morning with a nice metal For Sale sign from Home Depot. Had 3 offers by Sunday and it sold to the 1st one.

The key is to find a title company and asked there advise. They will likely provide you with all the docs you need, including contracts. I got that advice from the guy we bought from and it worked like a champ. The title company does most of the work.

Our buyer had a buyers Agent I regret cutting her in on a small commission (she paid a near equal amount into closing out of her personal account) with her promises of taking care of everything making it a breeze for us. There wasn't really anything she did that we didn't have to do anyway.

The $$ was a wash but I wish now I would have told the buyer to keep her Agent away. We would have made more on the house with the 2nd offer anyway. He wanted it bad.

That's good advise, don't jump on the 1st offer too fast unless it's better than you're planning for. Especially if you have any other interest.

That was 12 years ago so maybe that's not such good advice in this current climate. :cool:

claymore504 · May 6, 2009

Thanks for the info yall! Anyone looking for a house in the Katy/Cypress Texas area!!!?? LOL

DCortez · May 6, 2009

I've never sold one myself. However, I'd say it boils down to how much time do you have to deal with the sale.

On a side note, I would not sale. It's a buyer's market. If you can hold on a bit longer, I would.

kingofwylietx · May 6, 2009

DCortez said:
On a side note, I would not sale. It's a buyer's market. If you can hold on a bit longer, I would.

It depends on your situation. If you are moving up to a larger, more expensive home....this is the time to do it. If you are downsizing, it is a little better to wait.

The reason is very simple. First, our market isn't that bad, not near as bad as you hear on the news. New home inventories have been greatly reduced. If, for example, home prices are down 10% (the more expensive homes have taken a bigger hit than smaller homes), then if you go from a $150k home to a $250k home....you'll come out ahead. Why? Well, if your $150k home is down 10%, that is $15k. But, the bigger $250k home is down the same percentage, which is $25k. You are essentially getting a $10k discount on the larger home. That is for moving up. IF you downsized in the same market, you would actually lose $10k over a flat market. The final advantage, in the DFW area, is that smaller homes are still selling pretty well and most have not lost more than 3% value, but you can go out today and get minimum 10% lower price on larger homes with a little negotiation (in this same example, you would save about $20k over a flat market).

Upsize in down times, downsize in up times.

My wife and I have been looking for a home the past several weekends. So, if you're trying to find a very nice 3/2/2 w/study in Wylie.........or want to sell a 4/3/2 or larger within 20 min of 75...........we should talk.

navyguy · May 6, 2009

If you've got the time and diligence to do the research as well as the marketing activities involved, selling on your own is doable. You'll need signs, maybe ads in the paper and you'll have to be available to walk people through at their convenience.

A couple of points though. Realtors working with buyers are reluctant to show FSBO's. They will if the buyer spots one and asks to see it, but they usually avoid them. buyers working with realtors are usually prequalified by the realtor before they will spend time hauling them around to houses. Sell on your own and every and you don't know what you will get prancing through your house. You might spend a lot of time with someone just to find out they've not got two nickles to rub together,
Lastly, realtors don't get paid until they sell, and the more they can sell you house for, the more they make. You just might get 4k more for you house through a realtor.

That said, we sold two houses some years ago (in Chicago area) and they went quite well. One we sold basically over the phone from Texas. Worked out okay.

Shorts · May 6, 2009

Well the tough part is losing the renters. So that right there is a big monthly cost that just came back. And from Clay's other post, he's got some other irons in the fire with the job situation.

If he can get out from the house that may be the better move for him even if he does take a bit of hit on the house. He won't have an ongoing flood trying to drown him.