In today’s troubled Salt Lake real estate market if you’re a seller you are probably asking how can you compete with the short sales and banks? We’ll if you have been following you blog posts on pricing a home you have to look at the absorption rates of a market and price in the % of homes being looked at by buyers. 30 homes on the market from $100,000 to $160,000 of similar qualities and area and 3 to 5 selling a month you would have to being the best 15 house for bang for the buck of a buyer. How do you do that if your let’s say on South mountain and your own $230,000 on a home that you bought in 2004 that was appraised for $290,000 in 2006 for your no-cash out refinance to remove your mortgage insurance. You think Ok my home is not worth $290,000 but it worth $260,000. We’ll in reality the bank owned and the short sales are selling for $230,000 at $80 a SQFT. You’re priced at $86 a sqft and your not getting any showing. Worst off if you sell for the $230,000 you will have 6% commission and title fees of $2,300; you come out of pocket with $16,100 to move. We’ll the sobering fact is that selling a home isn’t only about exposure to buyers, that just gets buyers to your home. Ok once they’re there you still have to have the best bang for the buck home no home buyer wants to pay top $ for a nice paint job. Everyone what to think their home is the nicest in an area it the best kept staged etc. Those aspects don’t matter to buyers, period unless you’re also the best buy!
How do you sell in the above scenario and keep it affordable or even viable? You do a Flat fee listing and you get aggressive and you market the home on www.ksltv.com and http://saltlakecity.craigslist.org yourself to avoid the buyer agent commission if you can. Why not just go the For Sale by Owner rout, because it just doesn’t work in the market we’re in. Flat Fee Listing is the new Form Sale By Owner program that actually works and gives you the best of both worlds. Buyers are working with agent looking at the short sale and the bank owned property and not the for sale by owner property. In a good market 2 or less month’s inventory it works great over that it loses effectiveness to almost 0% sales. You pay a buyer’s agent 2.5% or $5,750 and you pay a flat fee listing agent like my company http://forsalebyownerhelper.com a fee of $399. You’re at $8,449 and coming out of pocket with a manageable amount of saving to sell. You may get lucky and find an unrepresented buyer and have just the flat fee and title closing cost.
What can you really get for $399 silver Flat Fee service? The news paper charges $1,800 for less service then my flat fee companies do. So what does it get you? We’ll your on the MLS agent call you to set up showing or hear a recorded message to get 
instructions. You get a secure MLS Keybox that only agents can open you get a market pricing analysis on the market that will give you the price for aggressive to conservative sales approaches. You get the # 1 virtual tour Obeo.com, shot by the best virtual tour photographer in the valley, allowing for 130% up and down viewing of the virtual shots. You can have up to 8 virtual shots and 25 still photos. Your home is syndicated to over 40 of the top real estate listing services.
Where else does the MLS show up we’ll every major companies web site has every listing on it you as a companies have a choice of all the listing or just your companies listing so you ch
ose all the listing. So it will show up on the entire MLS search site everywhere. Yep Prudential, Coldwell Banker’s, Zip Realty every single major companies web site for listing. That is thousands of sites for thousands of agents. That’s 2.5% well spent. What really makes a difference in selling a home #1 MLS an agreement to pay a commission to an agent do not list with a lower then 2.5% Buyers agent commission it will effectively reduce your showing to 0. # 2 Price your home as the market needs to be aggressive. #3 Your professional virtual tour a must! #4 your home has to be shown at a minutes’ notice. You have to have a MLS Keybox on it. If your not willing to show a property when a buyer wants to see it please don’t list your home! #5 Syndication to public home search sites like Zillow. Those will be 95% of the tools that can make a difference in selling your home.
How about contracts and the all important negotiation? All agents are licensed to fill in the blanks on contract not write them. Now some of the blanks can mean the different of a lot of money and some are not too difficult. If you just read the contract you will get what is included and what is not and how much you may pay for a home warranty and when the dates of closing, due diligence “Inspection”, appraisal, financing etc are. None of this is rocket science. In negotiation that is easy if your way off make a bottom line offer if they take it great if not you don’t waste anyone’s time. You see agents and buyer who have looked at 10 to 15 property like your home know what they are worth maybe they have put in offer and list out to other buyers. Your property will sell for what it is worth and I hope you have it listed for that price. I have had seller get an offer where I said it was worth they listed high for wiggle room and they countered a few thousands lower than the full price and the buyer reject the counter and went and bought another property. Know what your property is worth and believe the comparables. You home is worth wanted similar most recent homes have sold for period. The whole concept of negotiation is funny to me we advise and you decide and we write it up and we fax or email it to an agent. I have had agents till me my client won’t sell for a particular price what out even asking them. That’s a bad agent!
With our Flat Fee service you get contract explanation and options, a net sheet showing the cost of the contract with a sample counter offer. Important things to know are if the buyer has to sell a home to qualify or what type of loan is the buyer getting. We ask those questions when an offer comes in. You also need to know the general time lines for contingencies. The closing is 30 to 45 days in most cases. Financing approval is usually less than 25 days for any loan. Appraisal is between 8 to 15 days as are home inspections. So if the due diligence is 15 days and the financing and appraisal deadline is 25 days it pretty standard. What can happen is the homes appraisal comes in $10,000 low 5 days before closing can cause lot of problems and time delays. That is the nature of the new financing business. What happens if you’re told a new disclosure has to be sent and you must wait 7 days to close? We’ll that is a ligament new law and you roll with the punches. The best thing an agent can do is to be a clearing for the seller and keep them focus on the goal, not the blame game. The blame game has killed more deals and cost seller lots of money in my experience; stay away from it at all costs. The realty is not very many buyers will pay more for a home then it is worth and you can’t make them, even if the appraisal was after the dates. In my last convention sale the appraisal come in $8,000 low on a $130,000 price. It was a major problem for the seller I represented but it was in line with the price I gave her when we had our price evaluation conversation. It’s the nature of the lending appraisals are much more scrutinized. If you can close in 4 days after the original date because of a national disclosure law you extend it. Cooler head prevail and you roll with the punches. I have had client take someone earnest money thinking they would get another offer and end up selling for $20,000 less for a $1,000 earnest money. Maybe it was karma but if you can work it out you do especially in this market.
So what is the bottom line on selling with a flat fee listing as opposed to a full service? We’ll honestly not much the only thing you don’t get is a little evaluation on the market and hour long conversation on why your home isn’t selling. Open houses that the agents hold to find buyers they can work with, that’s about it. You as the owner can hold open houses and if the buyers don’t have an agent you will save the buyers commission. Your down side is ongoing market evaluation and agent feed back after showing. Which to be honest a good agent can tell you what buyer will say, on the staging appointment they do with the clients.
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