When I sold real estate in Hernando County in the late 80's I worked at ERA Hedick Realty in Spring Hill, our advertised commission rate was 4.8%. We were the number 1 listing broker in the county with usually about 250 listings on the board. Prudential, Century 21 and Remax were the next largest and they all showed our homes. If we sold a home listed by another broker, we still split their 6% commission. At this time the average home sales price in Hernando County was $66,000. A new masonry home with a birdcage pool with 3 BR 2 BA and 2 car garage was about $100K - $115K.so you can see the cost of living was much lower 30 years ago on the Gulf coast of Florida north of Clearwater.
My specialty was vacant land, what you would call residential lots, for which we charged the going rate of 10% commission. I loved vacant land, no keys, no inside photos, no viewing appointments and usually I carried a few signs in my trunk which I just stuck on the lot, homes required a large ERA sign post that had to be installed with a post-hole digger by someone else.
You could show clients many lots in one day, however in most cases buyers would just see your sign themselves and called and bought the land after getting the details. My broker paid for 500 mailings per month, so every month I would send out 500 letters to owners of vacant land who had an out of state address. I would just say, would you like a market analysis of your property. I would get about 40 replies every month and about 20 listings a month from those.
