Sell Privately or with an Agent

[shirink]

We are expecting our new home to be built and ready for closing for the 26th of November 2012. We are currently preparing our house for sale and trying to decide if we should attempt to sell our house ourselves (Grapevine) or go with a real estate agent. Any recommendations?

We have never sold a house on our own. So, this will be our first if we do. We don't have much experience selling a house. Should we try selling our house ourself first and if it doesn't work out then list with an agent?

What's the going rate for a real estate agent these days?

Thanks!

[good2know]

I've sold several privately. It works if you have the time.

A full service agent commission is 5% of sale price.

[shirink]

We are not familiar with the selling process so we are worried we might mess things up and cause more trouble for ourselves. Any tips for a private sale?

[Irene]

Go with the Property Guys - they give you a full run down on what you need to do.
I sold 'on my own' with them (last year) and ended up selling to a couple who found the house on MLS and convinced their agent to show them the house. That agent ended up doing pretty much all the paperwork and I ended up paying a total of 2.25% - thus I saved 2.75%, which is quite a bit when you start thinking of all the costs that will come your way once you move into the new place!

Originally Posted by shirink

We are not familiar with the selling process so we are worried we might mess things up and cause more trouble for ourselves. Any tips for a private sale?

[shirink]

Thank you! I will check them out.

[lovedesign]

Originally Posted by Irene

Go with the Property Guys - they give you a full run down on what you need to do.
I sold 'on my own' with them (last year) and ended up selling to a couple who found the house on MLS and convinced their agent to show them the house. That agent ended up doing pretty much all the paperwork and I ended up paying a total of 2.25% - thus I saved 2.75%, which is quite a bit when you start thinking of all the costs that will come your way once you move into the new place!

What about comfree, I like their professional photos. Any thoughts?

[Dennis&Sarah]

Originally Posted by shirink

We are expecting our new home to be built and ready for closing for the 26th of November 2012. We are currently preparing our house for sale and trying to decide if we should attempt to sell our house ourselves (Grapevine) or go with a real estate agent. Any recommendations?

We have never sold a house on our own. So, this will be our first if we do. We don't have much experience selling a house. Should we try selling our house ourself first and if it doesn't work out then list with an agent?

What's the going rate for a real estate agent these days?

Thanks!

So since you're in the Ottawa area, I suggest you list with GrapeVine since that's the main Ottawa private sales channel.

My neighbour attempted to sell with ComFree, and the paid extra money to have their listing placed on mls. At the same time, the listing is also placed on OREB (Ottawa) or TREB (Toronto) since this is the site that real estate agents actually look at for homes. For some reason their posting was put on TREB instead of OREB, which attributed to the fact the hardly had any showings. Not sure if that was something they made the mistake of doing, or was an issue with ComFree. Anyway they tried that for a month or so, then they went with a real estate agent and sold the same day.

I read somewhere that selling on your own, you have to be patient since it may take up to 2 months to sell. When we sell next year, I think I`m going to put it up on Grapevine first, then if that doesn`t work out after 2 months or so, we`ll probably hire an agent.

[oakvillehomeowner]

Originally Posted by Dennis&Sarah

then they went with a real estate agent and sold the same day.

we'll that's a red flag if i ever saw one! when that happens you have to ask yourself a few questions including - did one of the agent's friends buy it below market price before anyone else saw it? did a buyer's agent refuse to show him the home until he had a guaranteed commission? did the selling agent just pressure the seller to underprice the home for a quick sale?

[HowdyNeighbour]

We sold our single family Barrhaven home this spring by listing with grapevine and paying $200 to have it listed on the mls (oreb) site. By listing on mls you must agree to pay agents 1.5 to 2.5%.

In our view, this was the best of both worlds. We had the exposure we needed, which resulted in lots of activity. Fortunately I am on mat leave so was able to allow agents in during the day...and there were lots of them.

I should also add that we paid for the top level grapevine package, and we were happy for it. The pictures weren't great, I could have done better if I had a wide angle lens, but the support received was great. Loved our sales rep.

It took three weeks to sell. I was starting to get nervous. In 2008 I sold my townhome through grapevine alone within 24 hours, but it was centrally located in Ottawa and a different market/economy.

We had a couple of private buyers make low ball offers, and surprisingly We received a low ball offer from an out of town couple with an agent, but in the end, it was the couple who bought it. (I think the agent was embarrassed by their offer but he was very professional in representing his clients. We sent him packing and essentially told him to bring back a serious offer, and back they came.)

Also, I did not advertise on grapevine that we were working with agents, since I was concerned buyers would knock off the commission and negotiate from there. The aware ones would know it was on mls anyway. I also did not tell anyone, including neighbour's that we had bought another house for fear of low ballers.

My two cents.... If you have any questions, please do not hesitate.

[Juglans]

We sold our house with an agent in one day.We put it on sale on thursday n sold thw house on friday.got 3 offers on single day
We were thinking of putting house on sale privately but then changed our mind.
We sold the house on listed price
I would say agent is a safer way to go