Hellobee Boards

Commission is a standard percentage in any case I've seen, they don't really vary on that part. As to finding one you like, I would ask amongst your friends and family for recommendations first, do some research on the suggestions, then call and talk to the ones that stick out.

The 4 times we've bought and sold, we've used the same guy, but he comes over and takes a look. We go over things we need to do, what is required, what is nice to do, what isn't necessary; then talk price estimates then go from there.

@LadyDi: for my area I would say yes, but it probably depends on how saturated your area is with Realtors 🤷‍♀️. Do you anticipate needing to do anything major that could take months to do? Or is it mostly decluttering, painting, and minor repairs?

If there is anything major, I'd maybe contact late September?

We interviewed multiple realtors and each one will give you what they think you could list it for. Be careful of any that promise you wayyyy more money than it's actually worth bc they are just trying to land your listing. They will tell you their fee up front as well. Most in our area were 3-6%. They will also tell you anything they think you should update or change. We met with them way early on and it gave us time to repaint the entire house, replace carpet and do a few other little things they suggested. I think it all depends on the market in your area.. if it's a sellers market you might not even need to do a thing!! However, if there are lots of like homes at a similar price you'll want to do somethings to stand out and hopefully sell.

We recently almost listed our home but backed out at the last minute. We had a real estate agent look through the home and she gave us what she thought we could get based on different levels of repairs. Like minor repairs vs more substantial updates. We also tried a Zillow offer and were very impressed with that experience. They do an evaluation and give you a final walk-away sum. No worrying about what it may or may not sell for, and no showings. Also no updates on your part. It was competitive enough that we were going to take the Zillow offer before we decided not to sell. The one thing is that we had like 2 weeks from when they made the offer to when we had to make a decision so I wouldn't contact them until you're ready.

There is a major over-supply of realtors and I think a lot of them honestly don't have much in the way of relevant expertise.

In our market realtors will sometimes give a rebate on their commission, i.e. typically the buyer's and seller's agent each get 2.5%, But may rebate back .3% of the sale price.

We went with a realtor, both for buying and selling, who was a former construction supervisor. This was SO useful. For buying, he could instantly point out all the places where corners had been cut that would cause problems down the road. All sorts of important stuff about construction I would have never dreamed to pay attention to. For selling, he told us exactly what renovations would pay, which painter, plumber, etc, would give a good price while doing quality work, and supervised all the details of it.

The other thing that was great about him was that he was very social and plugged into the realtor community. So he could talk up our property to his friends before it was even listed, and heard about properties for us to see before they came on the market. In many states you should be able to look up online all the properties where a realtor has been a buyer's or seller's agent in the past X years, and I think you want someone who does a decent business.

We got a 0.3% rebate from him. Had another agent offer a much larger rebate, but after seeing a couple of properties with her I realized she was not very knowledgable and offering a large rebate because she was desperate for business.