I'd like to discuss selling Real Estate and Realtors for a bit if you'll indulge me. We'll do the sale side first...
In the last 6 months I have sold two pieces of property, both for over a half million dollars each...and I didn't pay a dime in Real Estate commission. Each deal was done on a 3 page contract between the buyer and the seller closed thru a title company, and the only fees paid were some doc fees to title company and buyer's and sellers title insurance. It CAN be done...
When I stuck the For Sale sign out by the highway for the house and posted it for sale on Zillow, I was inundated with cold calls from Realtors. For the most part I was cordial with them, but in a few cases I had to tell them to just get lost. I did have a high end Realtor call me because she had a client that saw it on Zillow and wanted her to show it to them. I obliged her even though she made me fill out and sign a 6 page Seller's disclosure form beforehand. This freaking form wanted me to admit to anything and everything that had ever been done to a 19 year old house...all the way down to if there had ever been any pets living in the house and if so, how many and what kind. The State of MO only requires a seller disclose two things, has Meth ever been manufactured in the house and has there ever been any lead paint in the house. Other than that, everything else is buyer beware... The 50 some pages of legal ease the Realtors make you sign to let them sell your house are for the Realtors themselves only...period.
She showed the house to her clients for over an hour and a half...and they walked away because the bedrooms were too small.
It's a 3200 sq ft 4 bedroom house and they were empty nesters... Oh well, I wish them luck finding what they want, it doesn't exist. The Realtor was cool though, we talked for almost an hour after the showing and she had great feedback and was genuinely interested in helping sell the house if she could.
We should talk about Zillow as well... Realtors like to say Zillow is the devil, the Zestimates are always way low and sellers are leaving money on the table if they try to use Zillow to sell their home. In reality...Zillow is just one of many tools for both the buyer and seller to use when searching for or selling real estate. Are the Zestimates wrong, oh yeah... Zillow had our house zestimated at $375,000 when I listed for sale for $639,000. Check out what the sale price on the house shows now...
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2...66396085_zpid/
I did this on purpose... I'm the one that put the sale price in and Zillow has zero ways to correct, amend, question or change that sales price amount. In fact, because the buyer paid cash and no mortgage is involved, the warranty deed recorded for the sale with the county says "$10 and other considerations" so even the county won't find out what the actual sale price was.
Anyway, that's my story. Selling real estate on your own probably isn't for everyone and different situations require different methods...but just know that it can be done, successfully as long as you prepare yourself and your home properly first and realize exactly what you are getting into.