That's some difference ,,

[buteman]

My wife and I just sold our two bedroom condo. we are both working full time hours at present and just couldn't squeeze the time to sell it without the services of a realtor.

In hindsight that was a mistake using a realtor but that's the price you pay ( pardon the pun ). Our home sold in two days, realtor's time etc. no more than six hours actual work, their fee, $ 11,100.00.

We purchased our neighbour's condo ( more square footage ) for $ 4,900.00 more than we sold our home for. My neighbour sold his home without the services of a realtor, he used a notary his cost $ 2,590.00.

This is not complaining about the ridiculous real estate fee, the realtor did what was required, they sold our home. I'm simply pointing out the difference between using a realtor and not using a realtor.

[spooker]

You did well to sell in 2 days ... current average is 51 days on the market ... and your neighbour made a good choice for the situation too ...

I've always used a realtor (3rd property, not greatly experienced) and went back and forth over the fees that are charged ... I think of it as insurance, the fee won't change no matter what the agent has to do ...

You pay for their experience, their connections, their association memberships ... and as a real estate agent it can easily be feast or famine ... not a lot in the middle ...

I'm not trying to defend the fees, or the agents ... but if they didn't prove their worth to the average buyer/seller they wouldn't have survived as an industry ... we need all the options

[Jflem1983]

So easy to sell privately . U would be 5 k to the good and be in your new place. Too bad some leech got paid

[youjustcomplain]

I think you got ripped off. Not because of their fee's, but because 2 days suggests that your place was listed too low. If you had listed for $20,000 more, you might have sold it in 2 days still, or maybe in a month or so. You might still feel the agent didn't work all that hard for the $11,000 of your equity, but at least you'd be up from where you are now.

I'm with you though. I'll use an agent when I sell my place. But, I will shop around and get a few of them to assess the value of my home before any of them list it.

[Bpeep]

You pay for their experience, their connections, their association memberships ... and as a real estate agent it can easily be feast or famine ... not a lot in the middle ...

You don't pay a cent for their experience or connections. Many of them have none of either but their listings sell just as quickly.
The only benefits of a realtor is that your property goes on mls.
It doesn't take much for brains and it takes no experience or connections to write a listing.

[Bsuds]

If a property sells that fast then the Realtors involved should have to take a reduction in fees. They didn't spend near as much in advertising as a listing that goes on for months before selling.

Also don't forget that the purchasers Realtor get's paid out of that as well. It does not all go to the sellers in most cases.

[RVThereYet]

Realtor commissions are negotiable, they don't like to admit it, but they have to tell you that they are. They'll give you every reason in the book why you shouldn't try sell at lower fees, the biggest one being that the selling realtors may not show your property to their clients if the commissions aren't at the standard 7% (on the first $100K) and 3.5% (on the balance), but in this market, who cares! There isn't enough inventory to sell, so realtors should be happy to have listings to sell, even if its at reduced commissions. I've both bought and sold privately, and recently sold using a realtor and I did negotiate both the listing and selling portion of the real estate commissions on this last deal. The place sold within hours of being listed at 99.9% of list price ... I probably could have sold it privatively, though likely not quite as fast and maybe not for as much, who knows? In the end the realtors did a good job, but did they "earn" $20,000+ in commissions? I don't know... likely not, but what's done is done.

ETA - I raised the asking price considerably from what the realtor recommended to list at to cover some of the commissions I'd be paying.

[Glacier]

You don't pay a cent for their experience or connections. Many of them have none of either but their listings sell just as quickly.
The only benefits of a realtor is that your property goes on mls.
It doesn't take much for brains and it takes no experience or connections to write a listing.

Nope, it goes on Realtor.ca. Remember how the courts ruled a couple years ago that private sales can go on mls if they're willing to pay a fee to the Realtor association? Well, the Realtors promptly shut down the website, and came up with a new one called realtor.ca that looked exactly the same, but is no longer called a "multiple listing service," so therefore only registered real estate agents (Realtors®) can post to it.

Anyway, as for the frees, my house was a flat rate set up by the seller (I didn't care because I was the buyer). Both realtors were paid $9,000 no matter if the house sold for $5 or $5,000,000. Given the final selling price, that's 2.4%.