Owner's testimonyI would recommend this service to anyone that is trying to sell their home. We received excellent suggestions and service from our representative John Babic, who not only provided us with ample signs and support, but also the opportunity to place our home in a local paper at a reasonable price.
The greatest thing about this process is that the seller not only saves money, but also the buyer. We had numerous, and I mean numerous realtors approach us and offer to sell our house for between 220 000$ to 240 000$. One thing you must realize is that many realtors will quote you an unreasonably high sale price as a means of "buying" your listing, only to have your house sit on the market while others sell. Others will give a more realistic quote knowing that the house will sell faster, in our case $229 000 was about the right ballpark. This being said, a realtor would have to sell the house at the asking price in order to amount to our actual sale price of 217 000$. Being that most agents realistically said that the house would sell for between 225 000$-220 000$, we then realized a profit of between 4000-9000$ from if we had used a realtor. Being that most realtors charge a 5% comission, that means they simply inflate the price by 5% of actual market value, so in selling the home yourself the buyer is paying actual market value and not an inflated price.
I would also like to clear up common misconceptions that a realtor will try to use as a means of attaining your listing:
1) Your home will not get the exposure needed through Bytheowner.com. With the internet, most, if not all buyers find the homes they are looking for through web searches and newspapers. The realtor realistically only accompanies buyers to homes that they find through these resources.
2) Going through the offer process is difficult. Nothing can be further from the truth!! It is actually easier then through a realtor, instead of sending offers back and forth, going through the annoyance of offers and counter offers, all you do is verbally negotiate, then once terms are agreed to, the buyer fills out an offer sheet with the agreed upon terms and you both visit your lawyers to concrete the offer. No matter what, both seller and buyer will need to take the offers to a lawyer, so realistically all the realtors do is slow up the process by filling out numerous offer sheets, going back and forth.
3) It is inconvienient setting up house showings. Absolutely not!! This is the most convienent part of the process, you make the decisions when someone can see your house and you are the ones showing it. Who knows the upside of your home better then you?
Overall, this is a great process and much more rewarding in the end. Knowing you saved 5, 10 or 20 thousand dollars is a great feeling. All it takes is some patience, diligence and thick skin when dealing with realtors. Once people become more comfortable with this process realtors will thankfully become a thing of the past!!
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