[golfnut]

As a previous poster said, in this market the goal is to sell the house, sell the house and negotiate the commission with the listing agent, which is usually half the total commission....gn

[getdul981]

Again, I want to thank everyone for your comments. I'm not sure I made myself clear. We are not trying to totally eliminate our realtor and are not going to do anything until we discuss this with her. The potential buyers DID come by before we listed with the realtor, but in all honesty, our house was not quite in the cleaned up and presentable condition that it is now. The potential purchaser used to be a realtor and could most likely handle all the paperwork herself.

It's quite possible that we'll have to give our realtor the 3%, and if that's what we have to do, then we will.

I guess I should have worded my subject line differently.

[kathyzapp]

getdul981,

Good luck with selling your house and moving to TV!

[graciegirl]

I am sure I don't understand. Is the 3% you mentioned the FULL commission for your realtor? Ours is 6% here in Cincy. We had a neighbors parents show interest in our house and asked the realtor for an exclusion in the contract listing them,(prior to our signing) and she refused.

We didn't list our home just because the evaluation of our house for any loan would be so low. I guess we will wait and see. We have a nice house here and a little but nice house there, so what more could you ask....except to live FULL time in The Villages.

Things are bad and not seeming to get better any time soon in the real estate market here. The banner headline on the front page of this morning's Cincinnati Enquirer was "One out of ten loans are behind in payments."

Not good at all!

[2BNTV]

Here in Connecticut, I signed a contract with a realtor for six months with a six month holdover clause. I was able to negotiate the holdover clause down to three months as six months is excessive. The holdover clause does not apply if I list with another realtor.

The holdover clause is to protect the realtor from someone waiting until the contract expires and selling without paying the realtor their commission.

IMHO - We are all looking downhill so the question becomes. Would it be better to sell and start living your dream or let money or other people stop you?

I wish you the best of luck in trying to renogiate your contract.

[getdul981]

Gracie - 3% is what the listing agent gets if someone else sells the house. If the listing agent sells the house they get the entire 6%.

2BNTV - I don't think our contract has a holdover clause. There is a blank space that could have been filled in to restrict sale after the contract expires, but it is blank. The contract doesn't expire until Jan. 2011.

We are to meet with the prospective buyers tomorrow and see what we can work out. Then we will call the realtor and see if she will work with us.

[golfnut]

hopefully u sold your house by now. FYI we added language to our sales contract that said we could opt out of the contract at any time with 7 days written notice. the agent had no problem with that, he said hey if you are not happy with my services then I'm not doing my job and you can void the contract, this was a remax office....gn