I will pay your closing and only take 3% -Picking an Agent ??

We are done with our RA and luckily today is our last day in contract with her. Agents have been calling and wanting to list with us. But now i am scared to get stuck with someone for another 3 months who does one open house and sits on her ass. We have an apt with a new RA who promises the world, including paying our closing cost and commision of only 3%. Not sure what the catch is. I really want to SELL, how do you know who to sign with ? What questions should I ask. This is TORTURE. I am 99% sure we are going to lose the house we want bc it is taking so long to sell this one

Re: I will pay your closing and only take 3% -Picking an Agent ??

Here are a few things I would look into:

1) If the agent says she'll take the listing for 3%, find out what % commission she will be offering out to cooperating agents on MLS. If you are on Long Island, most listings offer out at least 2% to a selling agent. If less is offered out, then it's unlikely that other agents will want to bring their buyers to show your home. At the very least, you will be at the bottom of the list of homes agents want to sell. This could hinder the sale of your home by decreasing exposure to buyers.

2) If she plans to offer out 2% and only keep 1% for her side (which will then be split with her broker), I would find out exactly what the agent will be doing to work on the sale of your home. The listing side incurs all of the marketing costs -- with no guarantee of recouping them unless the property sells -- so usually the listing company wants to get at least as much as the selling side (that brings the buyer). So I would ask for specifics about what types of advertising will be done (how many websites will your home be on, which ones, other types of marketing). How much time will she be willing to put in? How often will you hear from her? Will she be at all inspections, appraisals, etc. when the home sells? Because the listing agent's job is not just to market your home to get it sold, but also to manage the whole sale process for you, and represent your interests throughout.

3) If you are concerned about the agent following through on promises, you can ask her to sign a detailed, written account of what she will do, with the understanding that you can "fire" her if she doesn't follow through. Keep in mind also that you sign listing contracts with a broker, not an agent (unless the individual agent is a broker/owner of a company), so if you feel like your agent isn't doing his/her job, you can always go to the broker to complain and ask to have another agent assigned.

There is no set service fee -- real estate commissions are negotiable. But I think a lot of times you get what you pay for in terms of service.

When choosing an agent, it is always to the seller's advantage to think in terms of who can net them the most money and provide the most valuable service. That is not necessarily the agent who charges the lowest fee. I am sure you'd rather have someone charge you 5% and get you $325K for your home, for example, than work with an agent who gets you $300K and charges only 3%. You make out better with the 5% agent, especially if the 5% agent is there throughout the process, helping coordinate all of the pieces and safeguarding the sellers' interest!

Good luck with your decision. Hope you get a quick sale!

Re: I will pay your closing and only take 3% -Picking an Agent ??

I would be weary to work with an agent like that -- you don't know what the person will be doing to sell your house.

DH & I interviewed 4-5 agents before deciding on the one we chose (who helped us buy this house and is handling the buying of our second house). She is a bit of a bully, but got our house 3 offers within 3 months on the market (last one being a full price offer), while other agents we met with told us we would be lucky to sell in 6 months for no more than 15k less than what we ended up selling for (based on "comps" from the neighborhood that were different style homes that were not as nice as ours). Getting an aggressive "bully" type person might work to sell quickly, but I've had other issues with her recently...

I agree with Christine -- if they are taking 3% and offering 1% out, you probably won't have much traffic. I tend to enjoy bigger companies for this or agents who have been doing this for a long time.

Interview a bunch of people -- ask them a lot of questions --

1. How will you market our house?
2. What do you think our house will sell for?
3. How long do you expect our house on the market and how did you come up with that?
4. How many open houses will you have?
5. Do you have anyone you're working with that you think would be good for our house? (This is how we wound up with our third buyer and not only did we get a full price offer, she was able to drop commission to 3% because she was the buying and selling agent)
6. How long of a contract is this and can I fire you if I feel you're not doing a good job?

Find someone you like and can call with as many questions as you need!! Good luck!!!