I’ve bought and sold 4 houses in the last 7 years. Agent fees are absurdly high for what value they actually bring. Maybe 20 years ago or in a slow market, but really there is little they do that you cannot do yourself for significantly less money.

I’d recommend using Keyzio or Redfin. The flat rates are much more reasonable. 6% is absurd, really. But one thing you will not avoid is paying buyers agent fees. That’s nearly unavoidable. You can say up front that you aren’t gonna pay any buyers agent fees but you basically won’t get any buyers.

We just bought a house this week without using an agent and the seller didn’t have one either. It was the easiest transaction ever. The paperwork was minimal, no agents mucking everything up. It was great.

I'd really like to see the listing once it's up as a FSBO with a notice that agents aren't welcome without a penalty fee.

Well here's my deal, I've only bought one house in my life, and it turned out to have some very significant electrical issues and we should have never been allowed to take possession of it as it was. And I place that blame squarely on my buyer's agent. She recommended the inspector, and then the electrician that made some repairs, and I know that between the two of them, one, if not both, were aware of the other issues. There's no way they could have not been as the electrician was working in the same area they were in, and for whatever reason, they were swept under the rug. I put my trust in her and I got ****ing burned badly. Hell we're lucky the place never burnt down because of them.

So no, I don't hold realtors in very high regard. I know it's wrong for me to base my opinion off of one bad experience, but a home is the single biggest purchase most people make in their lives. And we did everything right that time, and still got screwed.

Yeah that's a bad experience, but honestly that's a worst case scenario. Yes, you and your wife got screwed.

How did you guys come around to choosing that particular agent?

Recommendation from a family member. :shake:

About 10 years or so after we moved in, I lost power in about half the basement. 15-20 minutes of digging around revealed this:


http://oi65.tinypic.com/kbem82.jpg

That makes it even worse.

My open-ended advice to the OP or whoever would be to leave all the options on the table. Yes paying fees sucks, but it may or may not be in your best interest. Talk to some agents, than talk to some people who have hired that agent and get a figure that said agent would see as realistic target price point for your property. Look those agents up online.

If I have that much money on the line, I'd absolutely be completely exhausting every possible avenue to where I at least could say to myself that I did everything I could in the situation. I'm honest here when I say if I am not completely satisfied, I'd fire the **** out of whoever agent. I evaluate people working for me very strongly and am anything but scared to make a change.

I'm not a super genius or anything close to that, but I'm just naturally apprehensive in nature and I always evaluate everything to death and while it's helpful it can also be a curse.

I hear you. Good luck with it.

The agent I used gave me a list of inspectors with prices and an average of how long it takes for them to work me in their schedule. I then called each of them, told them I would be there and would want to know about everything that they find and they would have to show it to me as well as explain to me why it is not correct or up to code. I explained that I would get in the crawl space and attic with them as they did their inspection and would have questions as we went along too.
I ended up going with the person that didn't mind that idea at all and understood that this was probably the largest investment that I was going to make in my life and I wanted to be fully vested with knowledge as well as financially.
It turned out that the home inspector was also the city building inspector.

That was 20 years ago, and I didn't have the knowledge I do now so I had to put my trust in them. I mean I could have poked around myself, but I didn't feel like I should have to anyway. But believe me, next time around things will be a lot different. I probably won't even bother with an inspector, I'm pretty sure I know more than most of them.

Some of them want the close too badly. Or more than the best interests of their client. On my Florida home, I didn't like when the realtor got all huffy when I wanted to use an inspector. She actually told me that they weren't used in Florida. I ignored her on it but still, it caused me concern. I didn't get screwed though. Home passed inspection just fine.

It should be practice now that a scrupled realtor offers multiple providers for anything that comes up as a consequence of buying or selling a house.