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Is the realtor a dying profession?

B

bignateyk

Lifer
I've used a realtor to buy both our houses, and sell our last house, but I'm starting to wonder why. Whenever I'm looking at houses, I go and look on Zillow/Trulia/etc... to see what's on the market. I can email or call a seller to set of a time to come look at the house if they provide that info.

Realtors are a complete ripoff. 6% commission is ridiculous for the amount of work they actually do. I wish people would start swaying from the idea that you need a realtor to buy and sell a house.

With the internet, the realtor is no longer really necessary for showing and advertising a house. A buyer is capable of negotiating on their own.

I think all you really need is a lawyer to give your contract a once over and to help facilitate the closing.

It seems to me that people use realtors just because that's what society tells them they have to do to buy and sell a house.
 
Bought my house without a realtor. I agree with you they dont seem to be needed. The only thing is they can help filter out homes for the buyer. But really, is that % worth it?
 
bignateyk said:
I've used a realtor to buy both our houses, and sell our last house, but I'm starting to wonder why. Whenever I'm looking at houses, I go and look on Zillow/Trulia/etc... to see what's on the market. I can email or call a seller to set of a time to come look at the house if they provide that info.

Realtors are a complete ripoff. 6% commission is ridiculous for the amount of work they actually do. I wish people would start swaying from the idea that you need a realtor to buy and sell a house.

With the internet, the realtor is no longer really necessary for showing and advertising a house. A buyer is capable of negotiating on their own.

I think all you really need is a lawyer to give your contract a once over and to help facilitate the closing.

It seems to me that people use realtors just because that's what society tells them they have to do to buy and sell a house.
Click to expand...

To sell a house? Yeah, it's much more needed. You need to shout the word out - and getting it out to people on Facebook isn't going to be enough.

To buy a house based on specifics that you define that you know of? Yeah, I can see going without a realtor.
 
Genx87 said:
Bought my house without a realtor. I agree with you they dont seem to be needed. The only thing is they can help filter out homes for the buyer. But really, is that % worth it?
Click to expand...

But Zillow and other sites have great filters. I can narrow by lot size, square footage, #bedrooms, and many other categories.
 
bignateyk said:
I've used a realtor to buy both our houses, and sell our last house, but I'm starting to wonder why. Whenever I'm looking at houses, I go and look on Zillow/Trulia/etc... to see what's on the market. I can email or call a seller to set of a time to come look at the house if they provide that info.

Realtors are a complete ripoff. 6% commission is ridiculous for the amount of work they actually do. I wish people would start swaying from the idea that you need a realtor to buy and sell a house.

With the internet, the realtor is no longer really necessary for showing and advertising a house. A buyer is capable of negotiating on their own.

I think all you really need is a lawyer to give your contract a once over and to help facilitate the closing.

It seems to me that people use realtors just because that's what society tells them they have to do to buy and sell a house.
Click to expand...

I hope the realty profession goes the way of the dinosaur. 6% for doing fuck all other than having access to their MLS is a scam.
 
s0me0nesmind1 said:
To sell a house? Yeah, it's much more needed. You need to shout the word out - and getting it out to people on Facebook isn't going to be enough.

To buy a house based on specifics that you define that you know of? Yeah, I can see going without a realtor.
Click to expand...

The last two houses I've bought I found them on Zillow and told the realtor I wanted to go check them out.
 
A LOT of people on both the buying and the selling side are clueless and really need the help of a realtor. But if you're smart, do a LOT of research and legwork, and have gone through the process before, you can go without.

Access to the MLS is a pretty big perk of using a realtor, though.
 
The only thing that I could see a realtor possibly being useful for is if it's taking a long time to sell the house and you don't have the time to keep running home to let people in to see your house.

But I'm sure you could find a neighbor kid or someone else who would go and let people into your house for you for a lot cheaper than what a realtor charges.
 
i really hope so. well i dont see them ever going away completely, but the profession needs an overhaul
 
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jagec said:
A LOT of people on both the buying and the selling side are clueless and really need the help of a realtor. But if you're smart, do a LOT of research and legwork, and have gone through the process before, you can go without.

Access to the MLS is a pretty big perk of using a realtor, though.
Click to expand...

What exactly is the MLS? Shouldn't it be public record? Or is it a private thing between realtors? Sounds like a scam to try to prevent people from going without a realtor.
 
I'd still stick with a realtor because the guy I used got first dibs on the house I now own. We got to look at the house BEFORE it ever got listed. Here is the thing the really good houses won't be on the market very long. Your best chance to look at these type of houses is through a realtor.
 
SandEagle said:
forsalebyowner.com
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Yeah I know people do it. The house we bought last year was a FSBO. I just wish people would start rebelling against the notion that you have to have a realtor to buy/sell a house. If more people starting buying/selling on their own maybe the realtor commissions wouldn't be so outrageous.
 
I used a realtor to buy my house. I looked at a LOT of houses, but he steered me away from even bothering to look at some, that he had been in, and told me were total pieces of crap.

he also did construction and had a contrators license for a while, and was very good at finding trouble spots on houses we would walk through. going far enough to even ge tin and peek at plubming and electrical etc.

but most realtors arent like that. and he got out of it when Illinois required more expensive licensing, and just flips property, and is a landlord now. so ill go without next time probably

remember that the selling agents job is to sell you the house, they are not under obligation to point out any faults at all, so dealing with them is a crapshoot at best

though the agent that sold me my house, lectured the sellers on the condition they left the house in come closing day. in front of us. they were shamed and it was hilarious

MLS owns btw
 
Jeffg010 said:
I'd still stick with a realtor because the guy I used got first dibs on the house I now own. We got to look at the house BEFORE it ever got listed. Here is the thing the really good houses won't be on the market very long. Your best chance to look at these type of houses is through a realtor.
Click to expand...
do you think that sort of system is something that should be encouraged? wouldnt a public listing be fairer? you are obviously happy because it worked out for you, but what if you were the seller? At the end of the day, they sold so they were obviously satisfied but i cant really imagine that would PREFER to ONLY have had their house shown to the preferred clients of a particular agent...
 
HardcoreRobot said:
do you think that sort of system is something that should be encouraged? wouldnt a public listing be fairer? you are obviously happy because it worked out for you, but what if you were the seller? At the end of the day, they sold so they were obviously satisfied but i cant really imagine that would PREFER to ONLY have had their house shown to the preferred clients of a particular agent...
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Targeted selling through prefered brokers/agents is more likely to get a sale completed quickly than a free for all public listing.
 
The profession may shrink but will never die.

When I relocated, thankfully I had a realtor that took care of the house while showing it then selling it for me while I was out of state.

Not everyone has the time or internet smarts to perform all of the research.
 
The realtor I used to sell my house arranged all of the following, I never had to do anything other than accept/negotiate offer. He was basically my project manager to get the house sold.

1) Full paint and carpet
2) Exterior painting and deck stain
3) Landscape cleanup and multching
4) Full top to bottom cleaning
5) Any repairs needed
6) All the other little stuff to get it in pristine condition to sell
7) All of this via discounted rates
8) Pack and haul away all the junk we left in the house from moving to the new one
9) Sell some of the things we didn't want to keep, like a full bar

Sold for more than we thought within 4 weeks. Yeah, totally worth it. Also on the new house we bought he convinced us to offer 150k less than what the house was being offered at and probably saved us 110k when it was all said an done.

A good realtor is worth their weight in gold, unfortunately the percentage of good ones is low.

This is also the realtor that sold my wife's house. That house was on the market for a year with another realtor, when he took over it sold in 3 days.
 
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HardcoreRobot said:
do you think that sort of system is something that should be encouraged? wouldnt a public listing be fairer? you are obviously happy because it worked out for you, but what if you were the seller? At the end of the day, they sold so they were obviously satisfied but i cant really imagine that would PREFER to ONLY have had their house shown to the preferred clients of a particular agent...
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The seller got their asking price. It was a good house that was priced right. If you are looking to over price a house then good luck with that. You really think that in this market that a seller is going to have it easier time to selling a house by just listing it on the internet, good luck with that.
 
Capt Caveman said:
The profession may shrink but will never die.

When I relocated, thankfully I had a realtor that took care of the house while showing it then selling it for me while I was out of state.

Not everyone has the time or internet smarts to perform all of the research.
Click to expand...

Yeah I could see it being useful still for long distance transactions or times when the seller simply couldn't spare the time to deal with showing the house to potential buyers.

For the amount of work that a realtor does in most transactions, paying 6% is pretty outrageous. My last house sold the first day it was on the market. So my realtor got 25 grand for doing about 2 days worth of work.
 
bignateyk said:
Yeah I could see it being useful still for long distance transactions or times when the seller simply couldn't spare the time to deal with showing the house to potential buyers.

For the amount of work that a realtor does in most transactions, paying 6% is pretty outrageous. My last house sold the first day it was on the market. So my realtor got 25 grand for doing about 2 days worth of work.
Click to expand...

So, they found the buyer for you?
 
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