Inexpensive Way to Sell Your House
We all try to find coupons and bargains on day to day living costs so doesn't it make sense to find an inexpensive way to sell your home? Using the services of discount real estate brokers may be no more radical than buying clothing from a discount retailer. Flat-fee listing services might just be the home seller's equivalent of clipping those cents off coupons for groceries: it just makes good sense. It is more involved than buying shoes, however. Still, compared to the time spent shopping for a few dollars off on normal living expenses, self-education on real estate matters can be more cost effective.
What's the most time the average person spends gathering coupons and perusing grocery store flyers for the best weekly buys? Multiply that by the number of weeks that are spent in a home before selling it. Did that number come to an hour per week for say five years? If so there has been 260 hours spent on grocery savings while in the home. If an average of $20 per week was saved from all that careful grocery shopping then about $1040 per year was saved. So over the five years of careful grocery shopping $5200 was saved. That's great but why stop there? The same 260 hours of work invested into actively finding ways to save money on a real estate sale can yield even more dramatic results.
How much can be saved? Well if the home is to be completely sold by the owner without any help from a real estate company the savings are very high. When a $450,000 home is listed and sold by a full service real estate broker the commission can be as high as
$31,500. Now how long would a person normally pay monthly installments on a family car in that price range? Right. Even after saving a good down payment there is still another agonizing five years or more of payments on that vehicle. In very real terms the For Sale by Owner (FSBO) sign can save the equivalent of five long years of payments on a new car. In other words: it's worth the effort!
Of course the question, "Is this the best way to sell my house?" is going to stay firmly planted in the minds of most people. No it isn't for everyone. Some people don't have the time to clip coupons on groceries, mow their own lawns or clean either. This is a labor intensive concept to be sure. But there are some mid-level options for those who want to save money without becoming self-educated real estate agents.
Contacting a flat fee listing service may be the comfort level for most of us. It will yield great savings while still involving the services and advice of real estate agents. This will generally allow the home to be included in a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) catalogue which can help attract both sellers and real estate agents who will show the home to their existing clients. Then any offers on the home will be made through that real estate agent and the closing will be handled by him. This can help significantly to address any fears that the seller may have had during the listings phase.
This process can be inexpensive without being terrifying!
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