Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Best MLS and VLS agents
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Old 09-12-2014, 07:42 PM
Advogado Advogado is offline
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Have you considered "None of the Above"? Rather than pay the usual 6% commission, you can either (a) sell it yourself or (b) pay a flat-fee listing broker (about $300) to put your house on the MLS system and numerous websites and give you some advice on selling. I would wouldn't recommend either approach, however, unless you are somewhat familiar with real estate transactions and/or willing to do some homework.

With a flat-fee broker, you reserve the right to sell your house yourself, in which case you pay no commission. If a realtor sells it for you, you pay whatever commission you stipulate when you list. The usual is 3%, which you would probably be wise to pay in order to incentivate realtors to show the property. But paying either 0% or 3% is a lot better than paying 6%.

In either case, you will have to do some work and line up a title company to handle the closing. I happen to think that flat-fee brokers are probably the wave of the future. In reality, with the advent of the internet, a listing broker generally doesn't do much for his half of the standard 6% commission except put the house on the MLS and websites and hold a few open houses, with the open houses generally attracting more curious neighbors than serious shoppers.