The value of a "good" real estate agent cannot be emphasized more especially in todays market. Selling techniques used 3 years ago and the days of simply listing on MLS for $120 and waiting for the buyers to show up are gone. Agents will show their own properties or other agent properties first even if you have a 3% sellers commission listed.
WE tired to sell our house in N Va (about 30 mies south of DC) starting in Februray 2007 using Help-U-Sell for for a flat fee the agent would list the house on MLS, for sale by military, Zillow and other web sites but I would hold my own open houses. For 8 months we had plently of traffic comming thorugh...alot of neighbors and others that either were not qualified or primarily had another house to sell. Few offered ridiculously low prices while agents brought a few people through the house. WE then changed to a full service broker but now the market was in deeper trouble with foreclosures poppig up all over the place . NOw your competition was now only other houses on the market but short sales and bank forclosures and prices again dropped considerably.
Only through the efforts of our agent did he find a qualified buyer who came through an open house he held...but he alos had a house to sell. WEll any contratc on our house was delayed clsoe to 4 months for our buyer house had 2 contracts on his property that fell through at the closing table becasuse the bank wanted more money up front from his buyers an thye did not have it. The surprise acme as a result of HIM having a poor Real estate agent who did not follow through. SO finall our eventual buyer hired my agent to represent him to sell his house and it when it was sold we got a contract on our place....a full 18 months from when we first listed the property.
It took a long while and it was a total hassle having your house staged for 18 months to sell with open houses on weekends etc and our cuorse we took a beating on teh rpice.....BUT we sold, left immediately for our home in THE VILLAGES (which we bought in late 2006 with no discounts no furniture package, no bond reduction, NOTHING) and never looked back. Certainly glad we sold when we did for I agree with a previous poster, I dont think we will see real estate at the levels of 2005-2006 any time soon.!
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