If you’re looking to sell your house or investment property in Phoenix without using a real estate agent, we can help.
Although we do cooperate with brokers, there are times when you should expect better outcomes without paying someone to be in the middle.
After all, paying 6% of the sales price of a property in a commissions plus other closing costs can mean a lot of money leaving your pocket. In certain situations, AZ brokers and real estate agents can be very useful and earn their commission. But not always. More on that later.
How Do I Sell My House Without An Agent in Phoenix?
There are a few ways to avoid paying high commissions in your AZ sale.
There’s a tricky custom that you’ll want to know about. Not a hard and fast rule, but an accepted norm.
In most sales in Phoenix, roughly half of the commission you pay as the seller goes to pay for the buyer’s agent.
Doesn’t make much sense, right?
Why should you pay for the agent on the other side of the table to negotiate against you?
Truthfully, it defies logic – it’s just how things are typically done.
You can use that to your advantage in a few ways.
First, factor in the commissions paid when you’re looking at the comparable sales in the area. If the properties similar to yours sold for prices that included commissions, take that into account – make a mental note to deduct this amount from your proceeds.
Don’t underprice your property – be aware that a savvy buyer may expect to take a discount too, especially in the face of uncertainty. If you’re doing the work of one agent, you can expect to save that money.
Sometimes buyers who aren’t represented by an agent won’t remember to negotiate the buyer’s side commission out of the price for themselves, so don’t remind them if you don’t want to pay them. Just don’t be surprised if it comes up during the negotiation.
You may want to consider offering 2.5% to buyer’s agents who will bring their clients to show your property. Sure, it’s a lot of money. But if you’re pricing your property including that commission, you can always negotiate a better deal for a purchaser who comes without an agent. Plus if an agent adds value to a transaction, it’s only fair they be compensated.
On the other hand, if you don’t leave room for the buyer’s agent’s commission, you’ll be excluding most of the buyers in the market in Phoenix.
Over 90% of transactions happen through the MLS – that’s the Multiple Listing Service. It’s the main database that all the brokers in Phoenix use to access information for their clients on the houses, condos, land and investment properties for sale, along with data on the sold prices.
Once upon a time, you had to pay a full commission to get your property on the MLS. Now there are a few brokers who will charge you a fee just to list your property on the MLS. Often, you spend a few hundred bucks and you only pay a commission if the sale closes.
Compared to the cost of a newspaper ad, the MLS is a cheap way to market your property to a very wide audience. And of course more people will see it online.
All the major real estate search sites like Realtor.com, Zillow, Yahoo Homes, etc. get data from the MLS. Chances are good that when you submit your listing in Phoenix to the MLS, information on your property will end up on most of the major sites within a few days.
Each of those sites sells ads. They’ve got packages that let you pay to enhance your listing, feature it at the top of the search, and a lot of other bells and whistles that might or might not get an interested buyer to buy your property.
Advertising is a gamble. Sometimes open houses in Phoenix AZ can be a great way to sell a property, and sometimes they’re a waste of time. Same with newspaper ads, craigslist postings, fancy signs – sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t. There are ways to skirt around that uncertainty, though.
To effectively sell your property on your own, you have to market it well.
Putting up fliers and signs around your neighborhood can generate some calls, and there’s a lot of free websites where you can post information. But often just putting up flyers and an open house isn’t enough if your house doesn’t appeal to the average home buyer.
In theory, real estate agents charge big commissions because they have to spend a lot of money up front to advertise your property. But that’s seldom the case today.
Certain properties might require thousands of dollars in advertising expenses before the right buyer happens to see the ad and call, others in strong markets essentially sell themselves.
If you want to avoid paying any commissions, you can also sell your house to investors like us for CASH
We offer fair prices for AS-IS properties – and we can close fast (in as little as 3-5 days if you need to).
Sometimes we’ll purchase Phoenix houses, fix them up, then rent them out… sometimes we’ll fix them up and sell them to other people looking for great homes in the area, and a lot of other reasons, too – but we love to hear from people like you who are thinking of selling anywhere in AZ.
We’re investors who care a lot about Phoenix.
We close fast and pay cash in as little as just 3-5 days. Give us a call now at (602) 888-3205 or fill out the short form over here.