Selling house yourself

Mr Bump

Some advise please,
I am putting my home up for sale in the next 5 days, I have had the house valued by 4 estate agents, also went over with each one what they where going to do for me in terms of selling it, not one of them could tell me anything they where going to do that I am not able to do, and for this they charge between 1-1.5% of the sale of the house,
I am thinking of selling it myself as I can advertise it, take the calls, do the viewings etc, this will save me approx 5k,
Am i missing something here with regards to the estate agents,??? I cant see why i should pay them 5k to do something I feel I can do??
Have any of you guys done this before??? is it better to use the estate agent and if so why?? or sell it yourself and save the 5k????

Bigcheeze

One thing you can't do is run any sort of bidding process. If people think some EA's are dishonest imagine making a bid to the owner and then the owner calls back an hour later saying someone else has bid 5k more. Even if the bid is genuine, an owner has zero credibility in this situation and the process is dead before it starts.

So you could negotiate with a single bidder but you're screwed if there's lots of interest in your house.

Also no one will pay you a booking deposit nor will they pay it to your solicitor.

People don't want to deal with the owner even if you know more about the property, the neighbors etc. they want to be able to say to the agent, this place is a kip etc, without someone emotionally involved being there.

Also EA's will often have a database of people registered with them who are interested in your type property. Particularly in settled Dublin areas.

2rkehij30qtza5

Just my tuppence worth but I think you are going to cut yourself out of a lot of potential buyers. I wouldn't buy unless from an estate agent but that's just me.

volauvent

I say go for it. If you are an assertive person it should be fine. I'd prefer not to deal with ea as are spoofers.

keith16

Bigcheeze wrote: »

One thing you can't do is run any sort of bidding process. If people think some EA's are dishonest imagine making a bid to the owner and then the owner calls back an hour later saying someone else has bid 5k more. Even if the bid is genuine, an owner has zero credibility in this situation and the process is dead before it starts.

Can you expand on this? Why would the owner care about their credibility if they have a genuine bid? If you know anything about negotiation, then you are more than capable of carrying out this part of the process....I'm not sure what you mean by the process being dead before it starts....if the seller is getting bids then surely the process is working

Bigcheeze wrote: »

So you could negotiate with a single bidder but you're screwed if there's lots of interest in your house.

Why would you be screwed? Surely this is the best situation for a seller to be in and maximise the sale value?

Bigcheeze wrote: »

Also no one will pay you a booking deposit nor will they pay it to your solicitor.

Why?

Bigcheeze wrote: »

People don't want to deal with the owner even if you know more about the property, the neighbors etc. they want to be able to say to the agent, this place is a kip etc, without someone emotionally involved being there.

Also EA's will often have a database of people registered with them who are interested in your type property. Particularly in settled Dublin areas.

There are plenty of people who don't want to deal with EA's either. There are plenty of ways to negotiate with a seller and even an EA without saying the "house is a kip", nobody will be interested in hearing that, private sellers and EAs alike.

Sure EA's have a database, but buyers and sellers also have this huge database called "the internet". Any leads and EA are practically meaningless when you can advertise your property to a huge audience for next to nothing.

And if you are a buyer and you are relying solely on an EA to sell you a property and don't use the internet, then you are seriously limiting yourself.

magicbastarder

keith16 wrote: »

Can you expand on this? Why would the owner care about their credibility if they have a genuine bid?

the 'if' is crucial here.
i would not even contemplate making a bid on a house if it was the owner controlling the bidding process (assuming a competitive bidding process)
@OP - you mention it might cost you 5k to go through an estate agent. so say your house is worth 300k, extrapolating from the percentages you've been quoted.
do you really think selling on your own will get you to within 5k of what an estate agent would get; they have access to customer databases, footfall and (yes) credibility you don't enjoy.

you'd save yourself 5k on fees, but you'd lose tens of thousands on the sale price.

keith16

magicbastarder wrote: »

the 'if' is crucial here.
i would not even contemplate making a bid on a house if it was the owner controlling the bidding process (assuming a competitive bidding process)

you'd save yourself 5k on fees, but you'd lose tens of thousands on the sale price.

Why not though? Sorry, not being smart, genuinely interested.

Depending on the situation, the seller has access to the house sale register and should know what similar houses in the area have sold for recently?

Can EA's really add tens of thousands to the value of a house?

magicbastarder

keith16 wrote: »

And if you are a buyer and you are relying solely on an EA to sell you a property and don't use the internet, then you are seriously limiting yourself.

people don't go to an estate agent and say 'sell me a property', though.
and the 'for sale by owner' market is so small that it's not worth the extra hassle and uncertainty pursuing it for most people.
from my experience, people generally look for houses on daft and myhome.ie, visit estate agents, and drive around the areas they are looking in, looking for for sale signs.

but the point is that you only need an estate agent to perform 1.5% better than you can to make it profitable to you. and they're (generally) much better at it than you are.

i'm not saying all estate agents are honest (and i could say a few things about some i know which would probably not last too long on a public forum), but selling a house yourself would be a prime example of penny wise, pound foolish.

magicbastarder

keith16 wrote: »

Can EA's really add tens of thousands to the value of a house?

i'd say so. the market has been sluggish, don't forget, with lots of uncertainty, so you can't necessarily point to a benchmark price which is a handy flag to wave.

i would say that if i saw a FSBO house, i'd be willing to make a bid on it, but once the owner started to ring me back with 'i have someone else who has bid 5k more than you', i'd bow out.

an estate agent would add value with bringing a bigger pool of potential customers, and some level of 'officiality' to the sale. yes, people don't trust estate agents, but some estate agents have better reputations than others, so that can be mitigated with careful selection of a good agent. with an owner, trust is a complete unknown.

magicbastarder

i should mention that in the last year, i have both sold a house and bought one. so i'm going by my own experiences and thoughts.
we had a few visits from estate agents when we were considering selling - one of them (a nationally known organisation) were so bad it was eye-opening - but they did not contradict what i'd heard about them.

keith16

magicbastarder wrote: »

i'd say so. the market has been sluggish, don't forget, with lots of uncertainty, so you can't necessarily point to a benchmark price which is a handy flag to wave.

i would say that if i saw a FSBO house, i'd be willing to make a bid on it, but once the owner started to ring me back with 'i have someone else who has bid 5k more than you', i'd bow out.

an estate agent would add value with bringing a bigger pool of potential customers, and some level of 'officiality' to the sale. yes, people don't trust estate agents, but some estate agents have better reputations than others, so that can be mitigated with careful selection of a good agent. with an owner, trust is a complete unknown.

As a buyer, however, that could work to your advantage. Would it not be worth entertaining them for a little while, as you say, final sale price could be 10s of thousand less were an EA involved?

magicbastarder

that is one potential advantage, yes.
but not good for the OP.

when we were looking, i don't recall seeing a single FSBO property around the areas we were looking in.

one thing worth mentioning; when we were selling, there was a half percent difference between the charges of the most expensive and least expensive estate agents (the least expensive were actively advertising themselves as a low cost solution). sounds fine, but the commission works out at €1000 cheaper per €200,000 sale price; and they didn't seem to offer as good a service. so don't jump at the cheap option simply because it's cheap.

Mr Bump

I have had 4 EAs out, none of them give me anything better then we will charge you for putting it up on Myhome.ie & Daft, etc, I can do this, ie blast it all over the internet (only thing i cant do is get the house on Myhome.ie as it is for EAs),
With regards to the price, well its simple i will look for the max, and if a good offer comes in i either say yes I accept of no I want 5k more, when the price is agreed the purchasing person pays deposit to my solicitor, and the process starts,

The reason for me asking the question is, "I see it as that simple", and save 5k, if I get an EA to do it I can tell myself i got more and it paid for the EA fees, but to me that makes no sence, what ever I get for the house will be the price, I will not sell it any lower then what i am looking for so weather its me or the EA in my mind its 5k,

Last week my friend had a viewing on his house, he was in the house at the time and the guy viewing it with his wife pulled my fiend aside and gave his number and said cal me, he said I would rather deal with the seller then the EA, thats what got me thinking, also I know the guy was thinking I will get it cheaper or at least share the cost of the EA, so why not sell it yourself in the first place,

All the comments are very valid, after reading them all, I still at present cant see why I sould not sell it myself,

P. Breathnach

magicbastarder wrote: »

...
i would not even contemplate making a bid on a house if it was the owner controlling the bidding process (assuming a competitive bidding process)...

I don't get this. The owner does control the process, even when working through an EA.

When there is an EA involved, there is some scope for a game of "good cop, bad cop". The EA can seem to side with a potential buyer, saying things like "I agree that your offer is good, but I can't convince the vendor that it is good enough. I'm pretty sure that if you could find another €5k, I could push the deal through.". In effect, the purchaser is playing a game of bluff with two opponents, even if the EA purports to speak for both.

Personally, I would also give some weight to the amount of foot-slogging a good EA puts in.

ted1

Do you work in sales?
Have you experience extracting more money out of people? This is what they offer, the ability to have no dignity and getting money out of people.

Here's an analogy, 2 garages in the same road selling the same cars, one is successful one isn't. That is down to the individual salesman

keith16

ted1 wrote: »

Do you work in sales?
Have you experience extracting more money out of people? This is what they offer, the ability to have no dignity and getting money out of people.

Here's an analogy, 2 garages in the same road selling the same cars, one is successful one isn't. That is down to the individual salesman

Yeah, that means both the buyer and the seller in this case. Often, EAs will sell based on what's acceptable to them, and not the home-owner.

The garage analogy doesn't work as they are selling the cars themselves, not on behalf of someone.

ted1

keith16 wrote: »

Yeah, that means both the buyer and the seller in this case. Often, EAs will sell based on what's acceptable to them, and not the home-owner.

The garage analogy doesn't work as they are selling the cars themselves, not on behalf of someone.

Comission based so higher sale price higher comission

keith16

ted1 wrote: »

Comission based so higher sale price higher comission

Not at the expense of a long lead time. There is an opportunity cost here too. Sure the EA could hold out for longer for a higer price but why would they? The cost involved in keeping the house on their books for a longer time means the additional returns of a higher sale price are diminished.

It's in their interest to get it off the books quickly, it's not always in the interest of the seller to sell quickly however.

Bigcheeze

keith16 wrote: »

Can you expand on this? Why would the owner care about their credibility if they have a genuine bid? If you know anything about negotiation, then you are more than capable of carrying out this part of the process....I'm not sure what you mean by the process being dead before it starts....if the seller is getting bids then surely the process is working

I'll try and clarify what I mean. Put yourself in the position of being the bidder. Say there are no offers and you offer 200k to the owner. The owner says let me think about it and calls back an hour later saying someone else has bid 205k. What do you do now ? Is this a real bid or negotiation ?

You could say an EA could do the same but 5k in price to an EA is 50 quid in commission but its 5k to the owner running the process. In summary, the owner has massive incentive to use phantom bids. The only real incentive an EA has to use phantom bids is to get the price to somewhere where the seller will consider. The incentive for the EA is to get a sale closed because thats when he gets paid.

Bigcheeze

keith16 wrote: »

It's in their interest to get it off the books quickly, it's not always in the interest of the seller to sell quickly however.

Depends on what you mean by quick. If there aren't offers within 6 weeks the EA has probably over valued the property. (at least in the parts of the market where there is some activity)

Bigcheeze

Mr Bump wrote: »

Last week my friend had a viewing on his house, he was in the house at the time and the guy viewing it with his wife pulled my fiend aside and gave his number and said cal me, he said I would rather deal with the seller then the EA,

That would ring alarm bells for me to be honest. I'd immediately be thinking this is some sort of messer.

Mr Bump

Bigcheeze wrote: »

That would ring alarm bells for me to be honest. I'd immediately be thinking this is some sort of messer.

It all seemed fine, my mate called the guy, he put in a good offer, it was not accepted, he came back with another offer (10k short of where my mate wanted it), so the couple have asked to come back again and view the house and have a chat, so it is working for my mate, if the offer goes up another 5k he will take it,

P. Breathnach

Mr Bump wrote: »

It all seemed fine, my mate called the guy, he put in a good offer, it was not accepted, he came back with another offer (10k short of where my mate wanted it), so the couple have asked to come back again and view the house and have a chat, so it is working for my mate, if the offer goes up another 5k he will take it,

So the EA did the work of finding a purchaser, and is now trying to cut the EA out of the deal and avoid paying the fees due. Put simply, that's fraud.

true

ted1 wrote: »

Here's an analogy, 2 garages in the same road selling the same cars, one is successful one isn't. That is down to the individual salesman

It could be down to lots of things...I bet the more successful of the two garage-owners would not waste money foolishly on paying another salesman 5k commission on every item he/she sold.

I know one house recently which was almost sold, but the estate agent concerned sold the potential buyer a slightly more expensive property ( belonging to a friend of the estate agent ) and convinced the buyer it was a better buy. Anyone who gives a property to an estate agent to sell is throwing away money.

Mr Bump

P. Breathnach wrote: »

So the EA did the work of finding a purchaser, and is now trying to cut the EA out of the deal and avoid paying the fees due. Put simply, that's fraud.

Yep i dont disagree with you,

Lyn256

As a buyer, I'd be delighted to see a house that I wanted 'for sale by owner' because I'm confident that I could get them to sell it to me for less than I'd have to pay an estate agent
(I've 15 years sales experience and am a reasonable negotiator and if I feel that the seller was a Joe Soap-I'm confident that I could sell the idea to them that I would be a better buyer-unless there was a LOT of interest in it)

I'm not a fan of EA's but a good one will def get you more for your house than selling it yourself unless you (seller) have strong sales, communication and negotiation skills

As another poster said . . . save a 2/3k on EA but cost yourself 10/15k by not being able sell and negotiate . . . .

magicbastarder

not that i know anything about what 'rules' estate agents work under, but i'd be very surprised if an estate agent would be comfortable with the seller attending a viewing.

plus, the seller in the above instance is running a big risk of the estate agent finding out the sale went through behind his/her back - if they introduced the buyer to the property, they are legally entitled to their fees, and there are numerous precedents set for this.

magicbastarder

true wrote: »

Anyone who gives a property to an estate agent to sell is throwing away money.

yes, you're going to hear stories about dodgy estate agents. which makes picking a good one important, but it comes down to this fact - to be worthwhile to you, you've to get within 1.5% of someone whose job it is to sell houses, and has greater resources to draw on than you, and will be trusted more than you. and whom people come to looking to buy a house.

btw, can someone confirm that you can only list on myhome if you're an estate agent?

StillWaters

As a buyer I would be very reluctant to hand €5k deposit over to a Joe soap who is not regulated at all. I would steer clear of any house for sale by owner. I would think if they are scrimping on this, what other corners have they cut?

true

StillWaters wrote: »

As a buyer I would be very reluctant to hand €5k deposit over to a Joe soap who is not regulated at all.

you would hand it to the solicitor / let your solicitor deal with the sellers solicitor for the conveyancing etc of the property.

15 and 25 and 35 years ago people went through travel agents to buy airline tickets. Travel agents took a percentage, just as estate agents do. Now many if not most people deal direct with the airline. The internet has made many people confident about buying and selling - think of donedeal, ebay, adverts etc. There is more transparency in buying and selling direct - thats why its increasing. Online websites means both buyers and sellers know what properties cost.

Geuze

Mr Bump wrote: »

Some advise please,
I am putting my home up for sale in the next 5 days, I have had the house valued by 4 estate agents, also went over with each one what they where going to do for me in terms of selling it, not one of them could tell me anything they where going to do that I am not able to do, and for this they charge between 1-1.5% of the sale of the house,
I am thinking of selling it myself as I can advertise it, take the calls, do the viewings etc, this will save me approx 5k,
Am i missing something here with regards to the estate agents,??? I cant see why i should pay them 5k to do something I feel I can do??
Have any of you guys done this before??? is it better to use the estate agent and if so why?? or sell it yourself and save the 5k????

The mere fact that estate agents have existed for decades indicates that they can add value and do more............


...sure if they couldn't, then nobody would hire them..............




................ but people do hire them, every day, so they must add value.

QED.