The correct answers are No, No and No. Sorry, the old saying "There is
no free lunch" is alive and well in real estate. Let's take a look at
discounts and FSBO's and find out a few of the reasons why you might want to not
go that way.
Discounts: "E-Realtors" who will rebate you something at closing
seem to be the latest rage. You can even use their search engines and e-mail
updates to find the home you want. It sounds good but did you know: It might be
a problem seeing more than a few homes. It might be hard to schedule
appointments. It might be difficult to get answers, advice and counsel. And
your agent might be new and inexperienced. Why all these problems? The
"e-Realtors" are all on a modest salary, not commission. They have
little incentive to "go the extra mile" to get the job done for you.
In order to make money (after paying the rebates) they need to deal in large
volumes of customers, not in quality service, assistance and details. So, is a
small rebate worth the chance of less than adequate representation? Probably
not.
FSBO's: The biggest problem with a For Sale by Owner is that both buyer and
seller think that they will be saving money by avoiding a Realtor's guidance,
expertise and cost. Unfortunately, somebody usually gets burned. Lack of knowledge
and information combined with greed, leads sellers of most FSBO homes to
overprice them. Worse; buyers tend to be uninformed, unprepared and
unqualified. For the seller this can result in the home not selling at all or
an unqualified buyer trying to buy it (unsuccessfully) and wasting the seller's
time. For the buyer it can lead to paying too much or buying a home with one or
more unrecognized problems. In either case someone loses. Do you want to be
that someone in the hope of "saving" a few dollars? Probably not.
So, if discounts and FSBO's don't work, how do you save money in real
estate? The best way is to find an honest, experienced Realtor and follow her/ his
sage advice and guidance. You will save in the long run because that Realtor
will earn his commission the old fashion way: by working long and hard for it.
2 comments:
nice
Great insights on saving real estate commissions. The idea of a zero commission realtor is intriguing and could be a game-changer for both buyers and sellers. It’s worth exploring how much more you could save by cutting out the commission costs entirely.
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