Sans Agent

I have nothing against real estate agents, they definitely have their place in helping to buy and sell houses, but I just have to say how nice and refreshing it has been to sell my house without working through an agent or two. I met a great young family on Monday as they came to look at my house and they chose to make an offer. We were able, without any faxing back and forth and delays of having an agent write up an offer which is delivered to another agent who delivers it to the other party to review and counter, to work out an acceptable agreement whereby my house will no longer be mine in the next few weeks. We have not yet signed the formal contract, but we quickly went through the negotiations without having any go-between and because we are not paying any agent commissions we both had the flexibility to arrive at a contract price that was mutually beneficial.

When I receive a written contract (probably tomorrow) it will not have any significant surprises for me because we have already agreed on the concessions necessary to make this deal work and so I will be able to sign it quickly and move this process along so that I am free to buy my new house and be back to living in my own space. I’ll know what address to give people without wondering if it will still be the right address six weeks from now.

Based on my experience I would suggest that even if you want or need to use a real estate agent to buy or sell a property, if it is at all possible you should get the actual buyer and seller to work directly with each other until a broad agreement is reached, then let the agents handle the minutia for a smooth transaction.

9 Comments

  1. I managed to skirt the thugocracy once in buying my house, now I have done so in selling it – and I hope to do so again in buying my next house. I’m just not one of those people who needs the assistance that an agent can offer – maybe if I were buying or selling while living in a different state I would need to use an agent.

  2. Thugocracy indeed. Nice job David!

    Congratulations on selling. Now you get to be on the fun end of the market. I can’t believe how many houses are for sale right now!

  3. There is certainly lots to look at. We narrowed down our desired price-range, a relatively narrow geographic region, specific requirements on beds, baths, yard size, etc. and there were still 5 houses that met all the criteria that really caught out attention. As a buyer you could hardly go wrong.

  4. Not using an agent is all well and good if everything works out fine its when it goes all wrong that you need profesionals.

  5. What’s going to go wrong? All the protection that I need is written into the contracts. The professionals can do nothing more than invoke the clauses of the contract – and I can invoke those clauses as well.

  6. Thats fine David and I wish you all the best but by making it sound real easy like anyone can do it I was just concerned that other people perhaps not as familiar with legal speak as yourself may become victim of unscrupulous developers or vendors.
    To invoke clauses one must firs undersyand them.

  7. Very true, but it is as easy to find an unscrupulous real estate professional as it is to find an unscrupulous vendor or developer. Agent or not I would feel foolish if I entered into a contract with understanding the clauses of the contract or at least having someone I trust implicitly who did understand them.

  8. Both points are valid and of couse there are real esate proffesionals who are disreputable but at least with that option there is someone to drag into court and depending where you are and I mean that on an international level the level of control on estate agents in some countries does give a lot of protection not like in the uk or the us.

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