Home purchase question for everyone

[Miller]

Ok, I'm a broker and I can tell you from the Austin area the Realtor bonus won't do that much for you. If you have a house in a good location, that shows, well, and is priced right it will sell. You could put a $20,000 realtor bonus on a overpriced, poor showing home and it will do you no good. Most realtors just do what we do and credit that bonus to our buyers or knock it off the sales price. Price usaully cures all. Go with the lower price like mentioned earlier. If someone needs help with closing costs they will ask for that in the contract.

As for throwing the name Realtor under the bus earlier. You should go look up the Realtor Code of Ethics. It's pretty stern and if you don't meet the requirements you can come under some pretty harsh penalties. Most of us are motivated in doing our job right and exceeding the expectations of our clients.

[Throwin Darts]

if you are wanting to entice buyers, i would drop the price $5000. if you are wanting to entice agents to generate more traffic, i would sweeten the buy side commission.

if your house has been getting a lot of looks but no offers then it sounds like the buyers need the enticing.

[Bullydog]

[QUOTE=Bill in San Jose;656567]
Clean out everything from the house, put your extra furniture in storage at a friends if necessary. All dead animals and religious art away, it's called staging the home- there must be a bunch of web sites on what to do.

Also go out and buy new toilet seats at Home Depot, it makes the bathrooms look newer.

Bury a status of Saint Joseph head down in the lawn, and it's supposed to sell faster. Why not?

http://www.catholicsupply.com/christmas/stjoe.html

Welcome to my world.....Still hasnt helped and we lowered our price today....and added an cash incentive to buying realtor...

I guess we need to bury ANOTHER saint in the back yard

[Sticks&Strings]

Do what Bill said and pay a $5000 BTSA.( Bonus to Sellers Agent) It will really drive up the traffic. I'm in the Home building business and it is our main tool we use to sell a house.

[Bill]

Miller (I hate addressing you by your last name as it sounds rude), my intention was not to defame any individual Realtor. I was stating the basic, business facts of life. Truth be told, I took the Cali RE course and passed the test while I was out of work (my Sabbatical on my resume) in 2003-04, and interviewed with several local brokers. It was those brokers who told me about why there were open houses (he said what I'd do when I started was conduct the open houses for the top agents, so they did not have to and I could in exchange start to build a list of people who were looking to buy, and probably sell also from the open houses). My wife worked as an office manager for a law firm specializing in real estate law for 8 years, and I've heard some hair-raising stories- but she'd have to kill me if I repeated them.

I picked up on $5k for the bonus because you said $5k. I don't know what the "right" amount is. Assuming a 50/50 broker/realtor commission split (Miller, is that about average in Texas?), on a 6% home sale commission, the buyer's agent get's 1.5% of the selling price of the home (his broker gets the other 1.5%, and the seller's broker and agent get 1.5% each). if that's the case, the buyer's realtor would make $2,250 commission. A 'reasonable' bonus would be less than that, doubling how much he/she made on the sale would get most people's attention. I'd tie a stipulation, however, that the home had to sell no lower than a certain price for the bonus to be paid.

BTW, out here the math for Realtors is different, % is the same, but houses have 3-more OOOs on the end of the price tag. Not worth that much more, just cost that much more.

In my experience, I've never heard of or seen a 100% commissioned salesperson turn-down legally obtained money such as the BTSA. But....my experience has been in Cali and formerly in NJ, not Texas.

God bless and good luck on selling your home. I would not try to do it myself, it's very difficult to effectively negotiate for something that you're emotionally wrapped-up in the sale of.

[Miller]

I wasn't really talking about the open house subject. Your actually right on there. I personaly believe in most cases that's a way of the past. I think before the internet they probably helped but that's really before my time so I wouldn't know for sure. I'm totally against them for reasons you stated. They really don't help the seller out and theft is a huge issue. More liability I don't need.

I was really commenting more on the motivation part. Some or most of us really don't work only on motivation from the greenbacks.

As for the bonus. My point on that is you can offer as big a bonus as you want if the house isn't that great or overpriced it won't matter much. People are going to buy what they like. You could get all the traffic you want from a bonus but what good is traffic if they aren't going to make an offer. Now if you offer bonus and have a nice house, priced right maybe it will help but I'll contend you wouldn't even need to offer the bonus. Now on new construction that's another ball game.

As for turning down the bonus the only way we and a lot of Realtors I know will even consider taking it is if it comes right out of the Listing agents pocket. Otherwise your really just costing your buyer more money. I'm sure there are some that wouldn't though. The bonus can't hurt anything but personally I think a price reduction would be money better spent.

As for the broker/agent split I really see it higher in Texas for the most part. 70-80/20-30.

Sorry, I definitely know that there are instances when Agents deserve the reputation they get. That said Realtors really do have high standards these days. Plus, a Realtors whole livelihood is built on his reputation. You won't make it far in this business in todays world with a bad rep. Word travels really fast now.

I do understand that you Cali people have a whole different ball game. We have a lot of you moving to Austin and it blows us a way when we hear what they are selling their homes for.

[Atfulldraw]

I do understand that you Cali people have a whole different ball game. We have a lot of you moving to Austin and it blows us a way when we hear what they are selling their homes for.

As if I really needed ANOTHER reason to avoid Austin.

[Mister Bubba's bulletman]

Usually any bonus I earn as a buyers broker I credit back to my buyer to lower the loan amount or sales price depending on the closing.

Bonuses are nice but I'll take a good happy client any day.

Tell your agent to run the comps again and let you know what they think it will really sell for this weekend.

If a price is too high the agent can't hold a gun to someones head and make them buy it.

I won't take a listing at a higher price than my comps point to.

I miss a lot of business but I sleep well and get to go hunting and not look over my back all the time.


If it's too high and your agent is a good seller they will sell several houses off yours before they can convince you or you become convinced the price is too high.

Don't waste time. Get the price right, sell it and move on.

[BigL]

Listen to Bill. When I was selling my previous house the activity was slow until I offered the buyer's agent an extra $3000. I paid 1500 and my agent paid 1500 out of his commission. Once we put that $3000 extra commission in there, the activity really picked up at the house.

[Shortbow]

Pallen, if none of the above info seems to help, go to plan B. The next time an agent brings someone to your house for a showing. Fall down on the floor wrapping your arms around the buyers leg while starting to cry. Look up at them and start saying "PPPLLEEAAAASSSEEEE BBBBUUUYYYY MMMMYYYY HHHHOOUUUSSSEE! PLEASE!"

Oh yeah, be sure you video tape it so we can all watch and laugh later.

By the way, I am not meaning to making a joke about your house not selling, so please dont take it that way. If I can help with any advise let me know.

https://www.AllmanCompanyRealtors.com