As I pointed out in my recent blog post “When is Selling Your Home Without a Realtor Easier in Phoenix?” (or “… Portland?”), working with a realtor is just that – a lot of work! And expense and time on your part, especially compared with accepting an offer from a cash buyer without fixing or preparing the property.
What are the costs and risks of selling your house through a realtor? A reputable, professional realtor has their place in the housing market, and many do an excellent job of putting home-buyers in house of their dreams. But if you just want to sell your house as-is, without marketing to buyers expecting a move-in ready house, a realtor has costs and risks that are important to consider.
Significant costs include:
- The realtor’s commission is the highest direct cost, customarily 6% off the top of the sales price. Regardless of whether you sell at a profit or a loss, the realtor gets the contractually-agreed 6% of the sale.
- Once you add closing costs of 3% to 8% of the sales price, the total cost with realtor’s commission can be up to 14% of the sales price.
- Marketing to buyers wanting an attractive, move-in ready home without major issues can mean costs in the thousands to prepare the house for sale through a realtor.
A major risk to the seller is the unknown amount of time it takes to sell through a realtor.
- Average marketing time is often about 120 days, with another 45-60 days for closing.
- If you have made high-dollar investments in preparation and staging and your house sells in as little as 30-60 days, you are still waiting for 2 months, often much more, until closing.
- The longer the time to close, the more likely market prices and interest rates can change, affecting the entire selling strategy and your final closing proceeds.
- The longer the time to close, the more chance for something to go wrong with the house that is costly to fix, and may affect the sales price or selling strategy. You can fix a water heater and go on as you were, but a major thunderstorm that washes away half the yard is another matter.
- While you are waiting you must continue to make the mortgage payments, as well as meet the other ordinary expenses of upkeep.
Time, in short, represents an important risk – a risk markets and interest rates change, demand changes, the house needs a costly repair, and of course continuing to pay interest and principal on your mortgage loan. Added to the costs that are already part of a realtor contract, working with a realtor can be quite costly with no promises for your dreams of “top dollar” on your sale.
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Question or Prompt for Response – open ended, relevant
What is your greatest concern if it takes longer than you expected to sell your house?
Call to Action
Do you have real estate (house, lot, or land) you’d like to sell fast? Fill out our Sell Fast Form and get a cash offer within one hour of us viewing the property. https://pdxrenovations.com/sell-house-quick/we-buy-homes-bring-us-a-deal/
