selling a house, fees?

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Cameron

Working in finance I have seen many good MLS ads and many more poor ones.

I'm a true beliver in a 1% agent!!!

1% isn't realy 1% it is $6900.00 for houses under 600000.00 and 1% + 900.00 for houses over 600000.00

so on a 100000 buck house they are 6.9% and are actualy more expensive that a normal realistate agent which would be at 6% (in BC)

so while it sounds good they dont realy make a differance on houses under 120000.

If you read 1% FAQs they say that other agents cooperate and are happy with the 3000.00 share they get.. I can tell you this is wrong, most realistate agents will discourage you from looking at 1% listings and use tactics like if you buy a 1% house you have to make up the differance in commision they would lose. I told my agent flat out there is no way I will pay a comission as a buyer so we didn't look at 1% houses. I called my long time realistate agent back in victoria to ask about this as it didn't sound right to me and she said ti was very common for buyer's agents to ask for there loss to be made up, weather you aske for it in the offer so they seller still pays it or you pay it yourself. and my mom, who ran 3 royal lepage offices in Edmonton confirmed this all also..

now while I think commisions are to high for what the agents do, I do agree that a buyers agent works a hell of a lot harder than a sellers agent. So I have a little empathy for the buyers agents issues with 1% relaity. take my most recient sell and putchase.

my selling agent came to my house (we previously bought the house through her) had tea and we figured out what to list my house for and did all the paperwork. took about 2 hours and I am assuming there was about 1 hour or so for her to get all the paperwork ready and submissions and such. then a guy came out to the house and took pictures. so now nothing till we get a offer and about 1or 2 hours of work for that. now that offer fell through as the people in edmonton thought there house was worth more than it was and couldn't get the financing. to bad nice people. the agent went to my house after that and met a friend there and tidyed up the house as it had viewings booked alreays ( we were in kamloops hunting for a house as my house was sold and we left the day befor the day all the restrictions were to be lifted) so there was some tidying that needed to be done, don't know many agents that would help out with that. anywways next day we have another offer but this one took a bit more work so we'll give her 4 hours. so including meating you to get the keys and such I'll give 10 hours.

now my buying agent is a different story. we had a Dad and daughter team, befor we listed our house we had come up to kamloops on a ong weekend and looked at about 25 houses, so there was about 18 hours of the agents time there, we came up for another weekend so about 10 more hours, then I came up for my house hunting trip and did another 20 hours looking, and about 5 hours of negocieating. now this doesnt take into account all the phone calls, the time for him to print off every listing and find them for that matter and so on. so say 10 hours for all that. so 63 hours they spen on me. that is basicly 8 full work days from 1 person. Oh and out of his commision he had to give my selling realistate a commision as she referd me to him and his daughter.

just funny how the person that hardly works makes more money. now there is also the type of house where the owner thinks it is worth more than it is or is competing in a market with tones of houses and it isn't quite up to there level.. the seller does have there work cut out for them in these ones, and they have to deal with sellers who just don't get it

Steve