Does it really cost $60k to sell a house?

[Anonymous]

I saw this on Zillow for a house in my neighborhood that recently sold for $750k. Our house is worth about $800k. Does it look right? I guess I never knew it would cost this much to sell and move houses. Was it always this expensive?

Agent commission 6% 45k
Selling commission. 4.5k
Closing fees. 4k
Taxes 3.5k

Total. 57k

[Anonymous]

I thought you were taking about painting

[Anonymous]

If you -even- have to pay 6%, which is unlikely ... the 6% is split between the Seller's Agent and the Buyer's Agent

(and each of those, split their commission again between themselves and the company that employe them)

true?

[Anonymous]

I just looked at settlement docs, we paid $37K on a $700K sale. 5% commission

+ the $20K we put into prepping the house for sale.

[Anonymous]

I hope that by the time we need to sell the realtor profession will be made obsolete or have lots of competition that drives the commission way down. They don't deserve more than 1-2% max

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope that by the time we need to sell the realtor profession will be made obsolete or have lots of competition that drives the commission way down. They don't deserve more than 1-2% max

You’re free to sell it on your own whenever you want so that it will make no difference to you whether realtors are charging 1% or 10%.

But, no, you’ll hire a realtor because you’re too lazy to learn and do everything needed to sell a house for the highest profit — and then you’ll just whine about how expensive it was.

I’m not a realtor so I have no skin in that game. But I am a salesperson in another industry, and it’s amazing that some people think there are undue profits in sales jobs especially considering that commissioned sales positions, in particular, have something like a 95% failure/turnover rate.

[Anonymous]

^what other sales-style industry have price-fixing like rules like NAR’s buyer broker commission rule? Give me a break. Realtors are on borrowed time. They need to charge hourly, and the buyer has to pay them separately from the price of the house. I can’t wait for NAR to go down in flames and buying and selling becomes easier

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you -even- have to pay 6%, which is unlikely ... the 6% is split between the Seller's Agent and the Buyer's Agent

(and each of those, split their commission again between themselves and the company that employe them)

true?

My understanding as well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^what other sales-style industry have price-fixing like rules like NAR’s buyer broker commission rule? Give me a break. Realtors are on borrowed time. They need to charge hourly, and the buyer has to pay them separately from the price of the house. I can’t wait for NAR to go down in flames and buying and selling becomes easier

Right on. The percent based fee is outrageous. One agent gets 30k for selling a typical house in this area. Don’t know how it is split up between the agent and their bosses, but they only work like 10-20 hours to sell a house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^what other sales-style industry have price-fixing like rules like NAR’s buyer broker commission rule? Give me a break. Realtors are on borrowed time. They need to charge hourly, and the buyer has to pay them separately from the price of the house. I can’t wait for NAR to go down in flames and buying and selling becomes easier

Right on. The percent based fee is outrageous. One agent gets 30k for selling a typical house in this area. Don’t know how it is split up between the agent and their bosses, but they only work like 10-20 hours to sell a house.

Sounds like you’ve discovered a great business opportunity where you can earn $30,000 / 20 hours = $1,500 per hour! That’s $1,500 x 40 hours per week x 50 weeks per year = $3 million per year – wow! Before anyone else finds out about this fantastic opportunity, go get your realtor’s license ASAP and please report back to us in 12 months on all the millions you’ve made. Deal?

[Anonymous]

You can negotiate down the 6%. We offered 2.5% to the buyer's realtor and paid our agent 1.5%, which included him paying to stage our house, prof photos, printed flyers and a virtual tour. Houses were selling in a single weekend (in bidding wars) and are super expensive in this area so the compensation to the realtors was plenty to induce them to work on the sale. No regrets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^what other sales-style industry have price-fixing like rules like NAR’s buyer broker commission rule? Give me a break. Realtors are on borrowed time. They need to charge hourly, and the buyer has to pay them separately from the price of the house. I can’t wait for NAR to go down in flames and buying and selling becomes easier

Right on. The percent based fee is outrageous. One agent gets 30k for selling a typical house in this area. Don’t know how it is split up between the agent and their bosses, but they only work like 10-20 hours to sell a house.

Sounds like you’ve discovered a great business opportunity where you can earn $30,000 / 20 hours = $1,500 per hour! That’s $1,500 x 40 hours per week x 50 weeks per year = $3 million per year – wow! Before anyone else finds out about this fantastic opportunity, go get your realtor’s license ASAP and please report back to us in 12 months on all the millions you’ve made. Deal?

NP and two things can be true at the same time that realtors don't make a lot of money but the service provided is overpriced for what it is. Agree we need to move to a model where buyers agents are paid hourly by the buyer.

OP there are discount brokerages that will list your house in the MLS for a flat fee, I'd look into those.

[Anonymous]

We just spent nearly $40k getting the house ready for sale. So yeah, I guess I could say we’ll be over $60k when all is said and done.

[Anonymous]

We did 4% total commision (1.5% selling agent, 2.5% buying agent), plus taxes, fees, etc that were a few thousand. We did spend several 10 to 20 thousand getting the house ready (replacing flooring, fixing a few things that were broken, etc.).

[Anonymous]

I've been advised in the past to estimate 10% of the sale price in transaction costs -- a combination of realtor fees, closing fees, any prep to get the house ready to sell, and moving costs. The last 2 moves I had ended up around 8%, so I came out slightly ahead of my planned reserves.