If you’re looking to sell your house or investment property in Metro Detroit without using a real estate agent, we can help.
Although we do cooperate with brokers, sometimes it’s best to avoid paying someone to be in the middle.
After all, paying 5-7% of the sale of a property in a commission is a lot of money. In certain situations, Michigan brokers and agents can be very useful and earn their commission. Not always that is the case.
How Do I Sell My House Without An Agent in Metro Detroit?
There are a few ways to avoid paying high commissions in your Michigan sale.
First, there’s a tricky custom that you’ve gotta know about.
In most sales in Metro Detroit, roughly half of the commission you pay as the seller goes to pay for the buyer’s broker. Meaning, the buyer’s agent who brings the actual buyer.
Doesn’t make much sense, right?
Why should you pay for the agent on the other side of the table?
Truthfully, it defies logic – it’s just what’s typically done in real estate world of agents.
You can use that to your advantage in a few ways.
First, factor in the commissions paid when you’re looking at the comparable home sales. If the properties similar to yours sold for prices that included commissions, take that into account, so you understand what the seller actually netted from the sale price.
Don’t underprice your property – be aware that a savvy buyer may expect to take a discount too. If you’re doing the work of one agent, you can expect to save that money.
Sometimes in Metro Detroit, 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. Just know that when you offer anything less than 3% to these agents, they will not be so excited to show your property to their buyers. Sure, it’s a lot of money. If you’re pricing your property including that commission, you can always negotiate a better deal for a purchaser who comes without an agent.
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 Metro Detroit.
Over 92% of transactions happen through the MLS – that’s the Multiple Listing Service. It’s the main database that all the brokers and agents in Metro Detroit use to access information for their clients on the houses, condos, land and investment properties for sale, along with data on the sold and pending prices.
Once upon a time, you had to pay a full commission to get your property on the MLS. Now in Metro Detroit, there are a few brokers who will charge you a flat fee just to list your home 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.
All the major real estate search sites like Realtor.com, Zillow, Yahoo Homes, Redfin, etc. get data from the MLS. Chances are good that when you submit your listing in Metro Detroit to the MLS, information on your property will end up on most of the major sites within 24-48 hours.
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 a potential buyer to buy your property.
Advertising is a gamble. Sometimes open houses in Metro Detroit Michigan 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. In the end it’s all about understanding who your end buyer is and what they will desire in your property, to then matching their desire to your property by making improvements and or reflecting lack of improvements in the price.
To effectively sell your home 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 websites where you can post such 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. Or your end buyer is above average and wants everything brand new depending on the price point of your home.
In theory, realtors charge big commissions because they have to spend a lot of money up front to advertise your property. By advertising lots of properties at once, they expect to get more phone calls – and obviously, they’ll make good profits by selling lots of houses.
Certain properties might require thousands of dollars in advertising costs before the right buyer happens to see the ad and call. Here is another article on 5 Ways You Can Sell My House Without An Agent.
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 houses – and we can close fast (in as little as 7 days if you need to).
Sometimes we’ll purchase Metro Detroit 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 our area, and a lot of other reasons, too – but we love to hear from people like you who are thinking of selling anywhere in Michigan.
We’re investors who care a lot about Metro Detroit.
Fast Home Offer Guys is locally born and bred, and offers a personal touch that the big tech companies don’t have. Our Cash Offer Program is a great way to sell your house fast. We buy houses directly from people like you each week here in Metro Detroit.
If you need to sell your house quickly and without any hassle, we’re your local solution! We understand the area well and can make you a fair, cash offer for your home as-is. You won’t have to worry about us changing our minds or trying to lowball you later – what you see is what you get with us.
Give us a call now at (248) 590-3040 or fill out the short form over here.