Real Estate without Agents

duncan_m

duncan_m

Hi there,

On the radio (Adelaide 5DN) yesterday afternoon I heard Terry Ryder being interviewed about his new book "Real Estate without Agents", not sure if its a guide to selling your own home? But that was the gist of the interview..

He was awfully convincing and eloquent and made some excellent points. Caller after caller to the session reported great success with their own private sales.. an ex-Agent also called in and tried, vainly, to provide the other side of the story and was really quite decimated by Terry, he was particularly scornful of the advertising costs and commission levels and made the point that the person who fixes your car, or cuts your hair has generally undertaken much more extensive and intense training and that Agents get unleashed on the population after quite short training periods.

Has anyone read the book yet? Dymocks list it online, not sure how new it actually is..

Jenman (as much as I dislike the man) provides a neat little synopsis of the book.
 
Hi all

Its an interesting topic and should get some good debate on here. FWIW i have attempted to sell a property privately a couple of times with no luck.
But i knew a lot less than i do now and i hadnt read the book yet.
 
I've sold two properties without RE agents (but using settlement agents) and was surprised at how easy it is. It reinforced my opinion that RE agent commissions are way overpriced. I think fees should be lower, and fixed, as it is not necessarily any harder to sell a $100k property than to sell a $500k property, yet the fees are much higher on the more expensive property due to the % scale that agents use.
 
Easymonet said:
I've sold two properties without RE agents (but using settlement agents) and was surprised at how easy it is.
Ahhh - but did you get the best possible price?

As one more interested in $100k properties than $500k IPs, the percentage based commission system suits me just fine - the less the agent markets my type of property the better, as there'll be fewer (if any) competing buyers.

Regards, Peter
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Good for you Spiderman, if you are happy with the service and also with paying the commission, using a RE agent is clearly the right way for you to sell.
 
Private Seller's

Hi,


Personally, i love private sellers.

For example... my mate used to pick private seller signs up in teh front yards and walk into the property with a contract and negotiate directly with the seller and buy instantly. (* The seller's problem was that they didn't know their land was multi-unit land... so the buyer make a fortune.)

Then again... you can debate the positive and negatives forever...


Ross
 
I usually find RE agents argue strongly in favour of RE agents. That's to be expected. But if you do your homework and have slightly more than half a brain, it's easy to sell a property. The necessary contracts can be purchased for a few dollars from newsagents in WA, it may be similar in other states. in my opinion.
 
Hi...

Comment, "I usually find RE agents argue strongly in favour of RE agents. That's to be expected. But if you do your homework and have slightly more than half a brain, it's easy to sell a property."

Yes... i'm a licensed real estate agent. But i'm not a traditonal real estate agent... I normally buy for people (i.e buyer agent). So i'd prefer to deal direct with the seller if given a chance.


Private seller advantages
# 1 Some people prefer not to pay commission to agents
# 2 Some people don't like real estate agents
# 3 Some people like to do everything themselves
# 4 Well... i think the first 3 cover almost everthing !!!


Ross
 
Private seller advantage #5

The private seller might not know the true value of the property, and undersell it

#6

The private seller might expect too much of the property, and overprice it... becoming eventually a desperate seller, reverting to #5
 
Gday Easymonet,

If you could just indulge me for a moment ;

l want you to think about the type of person that can afford a 500k home.

Now think about the type of person that can afford a 100k home.

So other than these two people wanting to buy a home what else do you think they might have in common ?

Not much !

100k is at the bottom of the maket , beggers cant be choosers etc.

And in the market up to 500k there are many homes to choose from , our man may only need to spend 350k,400k,450k to get what he wants.

He can afford to be very choosy and if you treat him like a 100k buyer soon shall you see why only certain people have the ability to sell to people with lots $, and these people earn big commissions becouse they can get these type of people to buy.

Try sales for a month, it wont take that long to see the classes that exist in our society.

Regards Mitch.
 
I like private sellers too.

They often fall under the same old quote about people who defend themselves in court......

Remember, if you sell your own place there is less of a decision-making buffer between you & potential buyers.

You substitute the agent's time for your own. If you save $5K but it takes you 100 hours, that means you're 'paying yourself' $50 per hour - how much is your own time worth?

If you appoint an agent you don't necessarily get someone with little training - you can CHOOSE someone with 20 years experience.....whereas YOU are likely to have little sales training!

The decision to me gets down to:

1) How good am I at selecting employees?

2) How competent am I at sales & marketing?

3) Do I want to spend my time on this activity?

Cheers,

Aceyducey
 
Hi All
No thanks, don't like doing business with amateurs.
If you think you can service your own car, go right ahead. But I wish I didn't have to share the road with you, and I'm fussy about who I get a lift with.
cheers
crest133
 
Aceyducey said:
If you save $5K but it takes you 100 hours, that means you're 'paying yourself' $50 per hour - how much is your own time worth?
Click to expand...

You can't quantify in dollar terms what your time is worth. For example, if you take your salary (if you're a salary earner) and say that my time is worth $40 an hour, you're fooling yourself because your employer is only paying your for your 40 hours at work every week. Your time outside of that is worth nothing really, at least in the sense that I am talking about. Effectively, during your "down time" you may as well do something productive, like, say, sell a house.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it is not right to say that because my employer pays me $40 and hour, every hour in my life is worth that much.

Chris.
 
I dont think there is a problem getting the value of your property wrong as a private seller. RE agents do it all the time. They either get it wrong or tell the vendor a listing and/or selling price that will be to their own advantage.
Either by 'buying the listing' to get it in the first place and do the conditioning thing or by undervaluing if they want a quick sale and therefore a quick comission. We all know agents do this, lets not ignore it.

And it doesnt take more than half a brain to get a few agents 'appraisals' and then to get a valuer in to value the property.

And the other half of the brain will know if the property is priced right it will sell, if it isnt- it wont. Very simple.

If you want to save many thousands of dollars, this is the way to go these days i reckon as there is much more info out there now for private sellers than when i attempted to almost 20 years ago.
 
Hiya

Interesting post.

Im a scientist by background and regard myself as a pretty good direct sales person ( big head and all).

On average I suspect a good agent will get more for your property than than an AVERAGE owner seller can, and more than cover their comm. Simply I think this comes down to marketing and negotiation skills, something the average vendor has little of, and a good agent has a lot of.

ta

rolf
 
djsherly said:
You can't quantify in dollar terms what your time is worth.
Click to expand...
Of course you can.

If you don't know what your time is worth, how can you prioritise how you spend it?

Whether you assign a dollar value or not, I'm sure that you, like the rest of us, allocate certain tasks to others & are happy to pay them up to a certain amount to do those tasks....but if they charge you more than this amount, you do those tasks yourself rather than spend the money.

Whether you acknowledge it as such or not, you are assigning a financial value to your time.

Cheers,

Aceyducey
 
Hi all

In reading all your posts about this book, I can't help noticing that no one says they have read it.

Well, I have read it. In the last batch of material sent to me from Australia, it was the piece I chose to read first. The striking cover (and the title) got me!

I have to say that it's magnificent and it really opened my eyes to a lot about real estate. Had I not read it, then I may well have had the same opinions as many of you about needing an agent.

However, I have to admit that the author makes a compelling case. The book is beautifully written, very encouraging and lays out the process in simple (and brilliant) points.

I do feel it is among the best books I have ever read on real estate - and I have read heaps in the past few months.

Hope this helps.

Best regards

Jane
 

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