We have had our house on the market since April, 2009. We've had some experience in selling a home before and thought we could save money by listing with a flat fee broker and handling the showings ourselves. A flat fee broker charges a flat fee to list your home in MLS, takes the pictures and provides the sign. The fee here in Wisconsin was $450. We thought we would try it. We listed for six months and had only 6 showings in that entire time.
So, in December we decided to list with a full service broker for a 6% commission. Since then we have had over 20 showings and 2 offers. The first offer was contingent on the buyer selling their home and that hasn't happened. The second offer was an insult and the buyer's demands were more than we were willing to give. Tomorrow there is a second showing for a buyer who is very interested. We're hoping for a sale soon.
My impression in this tough economy is that you need a full service realtor to sell your home. I think realtors don't want to show a home that has a flat fee listing. They tend to show homes listed with a full service broker. This is very obvious to us in our situation. Most of the showings we had last summer were people without a realtor who saw it listed on the MLS site on the internet. I really thought buyers would be searching more on their own online, but it seems most buyers rely on an agent to find them properties to look at.
We're keeping our fingers crossed that the buyers tomorrow will make an offer. If not them, there are two other buyers who looked at it over the weekend and have a strong interest in it.
Wish us luck!!
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