http://idx.seattlehome.com/srch_mls/detail.php?mode=&LN=27136672&t=Fremont&l=

Bought mine a year ago for $475.

This house was on the market for 4 weeks. The similar one next to it sold in a week.

I think the point that should not be lost is that people buy a home for reasons other than “I’ll make so much money on the sale.” There are many examples I personally know of where acquaintances and former clients are getting quite the financial education. It is not a joyful thing to watch the fallout: strained marraiges, for example. If people move forward with a purchase as a fully informed consumer both financially and understanding market dynamics, then I think it is great. There is a lot to ownership that makes sense.

Tim, go for it. You probably already have several thousand potential customers reading this blog.

But really….I believe Tim might try to buy a home on his own, with an attorney by his side, OR he’ll go with Redfin.
ANY question you have, one of your readers will know the answer, or we’ll know where to get the answer for you. It’s the least we can do for you, seeing as how you’ve kept this blog going for us.

The Tim can do it all himself relatively easy. It is not difficult to find a house, set up a showing, and do the negotiating if you have half a brain. The system is set up so that even realtors with no more than a high-school education can do this without screwing up. The bonus is that when you are doing all this yourself, you don’t have the incentive to screw the buyer, like an agent does. We negotiated much harder than a realtor would have and paid much less for the house when it was all said and done–and we even kept all of the buyer’s agent commission to boot.

By the way, now that this long-time bear has capitulated, there should be no more obstacles to calling the Seattle market top in Aug/Sept.

I’m shocked whenever I run into an agent who won’t budge on the full 6% when there’s no agent on the buyer’s side. It goes against all reason and is flat out offensive in my view.

However, as you implied, it’s the seller’s problem and not yours. Well, I should say it’s the seller’s problem assuming the buyer will walk if he doesn’t get the price he wants. Otherwise, the buyer is definitely paying the commission.

Personally, I feel a Realtor’s value is in the negotiation of the deal, rather than market advice.

Rob Dawg will certainly be my next Realtor®. Buying a rental for $220,000 I can get early data, better data and offer to “do all the hard work” for only a few thousand bucks. I win-win-win.

I would contact a good attorney instead. Saving tens of thousands of dollars is worth any slight inconvenience there may be. If any listing agent refused to show me a house, I would contact the owners directly and notify them of the situation.

I have used Realtors in the past and have been underwhelmed with the value they brought to the transaction. Even if you do use a Realtor to buy, you are a fool not to pay the several hundred bucks it costs to have an attorney give the paperwork a once-over.

“My experience teaches that most agents don’t have the gall to look their seller in the eye and say no, I won’t give up anything because I’m entitled to the full 6%”

Marc -

Looks like we did find one such agent. I am going to let
the sellers battle it out with him :)

I want a realtor who isn’t afraid of writing lots of offers and “insulting” the sellers. In return, I am willing to guarantee my business to the agent I am working with, and even work out a fee for their trouble in helping with so many offers, assuring them they will get something for their trouble.

List it on the MLS for free using Iggy’s House. Cleane the place up. Rent some nice furniture. Hire a professional photographer for a couple hundred bucks. Put up flyers and a sign. Buy some AdWords. Put up a website. List on craigslist and other FSBO sites. Hold an open house. This all can’t cost more than a grand or two.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/070920/washingtonstate_housing.html?.v=5

my impression is in line with the consensus here, that none of this adds up to being worth $12k (3% of $400k).

you still pay other people for inspections and estimates with or without the realtor.

what is the probability that a realtor will save you $12k worth of mistakes?

as for using a realtor to sell, it is a slightly different question:

what is the chance that the realtor will increase the sale price by 3% and how do you value your time that would be spent staging and selling the property

considering that any realtor is externally incentivised to sell or buy quickly, I would have to be convinced that I had found a realtor who is strongly internally incentivised to sell or buy well. I would have difficulty judging this, so I would tend to avoid using one at all.

my impression is that The Tim would consider the decision in a similar way.

However, as an attorney, I routinely represent buyers without an agent in making offers on both FSBO and MLS-listed houses. For MLS houses I insert contract language whereby the parties and the listing broker agree that the buyer will get the buyer’s agent portion of the commission since they are not using an agent. If agreed to, this essentially results in a modification of the listing agreement, thus, it requires cooperation from the listing agent. That is to say, the listing agent has the legal right to refuse to give up any portion of the total commission. My experience teaches that most agents don’t have the gall to look their seller in the eye and say no, I won’t give up anything because I’m entitled to the full 6%.
Buyers should be aware that everything is negotiable if you’re willing to stick to your guns. In a buyer’s market, using an agent to buy a house is a sucker’s bet. As for getting in to see listed houses without an agent, it ain’t that hard.

My understanding was that when the listing is entered in NWMLS database they have a field for SOC which needs to be filled out. This field shows the % that will be paid out and is often misused by agents to show properties that will pay them the highest.

This % is not public info but a realtor has access to it if I am right. Any realtors here who can confirm/deny ?

“That’s correct. When you agree to use the realtor for your listing, the commission is also determined. 6% is 6% with you being represented or not.”

This again brings up something that I have been thinking about. Not only are we seeing a decrease in real estate related employment, but how big will the migration be away from using the old Realtor model (3% Buyer/Seller Commission).

Any guesses???

We met her purely by chance, stopped by a “First Time Homebuyer” workshop she was having at the Ballard Library. We actually already had a house in mind to buy, but it was a major fixer-upper, and we knew we’d need some help figuring it out. We ended up getting rehab financing, which required 3 bids on every job and tons of hoop-jumping…she was with us every step of the way. She worked her butt off for us, for probably the lowest commission she’d gotten in that year (98).

Since then we’ve referred her to probably a dozen friends and colleagues. All were impressed with her knowledge and negotiating savvy. Several worked with her again as they moved up or moved away.

We bought our second house last year. Again, we’d targeted the house and wanted her to take care of some tricky negotiations. Again it was a fixer-upper…she thanked us for our continued support by (a) buying a new water heater, (b) hiring a plumber to install it, and do several other repairs, (c) bringing her truck over to help us with a couple of dump runs, and (d) spending nine backbreaking hours on a Saturday hauling out debris and old carpet and prepping the living room floor for refinishing. Zoink!

She’s also given us great leads every time we need some kind of professional service (plumber, tree service). Altogether a great person and a terrific resource.

I gather that we completely lucked out. The only thing I’d recommend to find someone just as good is to make sure you’re working with someone who positions themselves as a buyer’s agent. Offering no-obligation informational workshops might be a good sign, too.

It is interesting that this topic came up now because we just made a “self-represented” offer on a house last week. We are still far apart from the price but i wanted to share an interesting side note here about the 6% commission scam.

We made it clear to the listing agent at the outset that he does not represent us. Our fair expectation was that the 3% SOC would be discounted due to this. But what happened was that he told the sellers (or atleast they claim) that they still have to pay the 6% because the listing agreement leaves the split to be worked out later and there is no need for him to discount it. Thoughts or comments ?

Problem there is getting in to see the place. Realtors still have a chokehold on showing. But I’m beginning to think that may be different in about 24 months when I’ll be ready to look at buying.

Second choice is Redfin, because their model at least treats you like you are an adult who can use the web.