You got ripped off, lady. Most people have been paying between 4-5% in the past 3-5 years. |
It sounds like you had a bad realtor. Was she a friend of a friend? We interviewed three agents and they came in with their marketing plans and comps and sample materials. This was on a $650K house, so it wasn't like we were high end clients that they needed to impress. |
This is why people need to interview agents and ask about homes that they have recently sold. You can find this info on Zillow, btw. For every agent that we interviewed, we searched on Zillow to see what houses in our area they had recently sold. We looked at the quality of photos, staging, the listing and sales price, days it took to close, etc. We did NOT go with "my friend's sister's best friend who is an amazing real estate agent". |
Mine got us way more for our house than we were expecting. The value in someone good is not in the physical activity they do per hour but for positioning your house well, negotiating on your behalf, getting the right people in to help, and minimizing your risk. It’s a big transaction, and for us is worth the commission vs going with some Redfin agent who wants to slap your home on the MLS and sell it at any price. |
People have been paying 5% a lot longer than that. When we bought our first condo in DC in 15 years ago we paid 5% and the realtor we chose told me no one was paying 6% these days (15 years ago!). |
Odds are good you'd have gotten the same price with a terrible agent. They don't really negotiate but review the offers and best and final offers with escalation clauses. I'm sure she did a decent job staging if it didn't cost you money but staging is meaningless to me. A good RE transaction lawyer can minimize risk for you by reviewing the contracts. The simple reality is that RE agents are in a precarious position because much of their old value is now replaced by the internet and the comps data is available to everyone at their fingerprints and all it takes is a few decisive changes to wipe out the profession. There's no reason why a mortgage company can't offer RE transaction services and prepare the offer for you and review the contract for you before you sign to it, all for a few hundred dollars. There can be a place for a RE agent with a first time buyer to walk them through the process and to help them understand comps, and ditto for some sellers who can't understand why their old kitchens and worn bathrooms mean the house is worth 200k less than the one next door that sold with a fully remodeled kitchen and bathrooms, but for experienced buyers/sellers, RE agents are useless and very much a cartel that needs destroying. |
"but for experienced buyers/sellers, RE agents are useless and very much a cartel that needs destroying."
+10000 And by "experienced" pp means those who have 1 buy/sell under their belt. |
Who punches windows to test their strength??!! Did the buyer pay for it? How did that happen? |
3.5-4% in DC area. |
5 percent |
Yours was just terrible.
You can't paint an entire profession because you had a bad practitioner. I've had horrible Dr's, teachers, therapists, hairdressers and nail techs, lawn care services, etc. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I've also had wonderful services from each of these professions. I don't understand why people make such vast generalizations....... |
You had a bad agent. Agents i know would have dealt with the repair. Made sure the virtual staging was good. And negotiated in this market to get you a high price. |
How much profit did you clear on your $1.2 million house? |
Part of the reason was because their cartel fixed prices for generations. So there was no price competition. Makes it easier so start to see them all as the same. |
Hi desperate real estate agent. You know that many of us have had this very experience. In my life I have worked with 7 different agents. Only one was worth the money. At least 3 of them were shysters. I spent a lot of time vetting these agents. You really don't know what they're going to be like unless you actually work with them. |