would you consider not using realtor for buying or selling?

[babyonbrain]

Why or why not?
another thread got me thinking about what we would do for our next move. We used a realtor for our current home (our first) so we didn't have to directly pay realtor fees , but when we sell, we will.

We are leaning towards just using lawyers and doing buying/selling without an agent. Has anyone done this and regretted it?

[Giantbear]

i did not use a broker to purchase my home and i used a friend who was an attorney and 'broker' so i could get back the 'purchasers' commission. We were looking in one town specifically and i had done a lot of research on home values in the area. I am also a cpa so negotiation does not scare me. I would recommend it if you can save the fee and are the type who would be comfortable flying alone.

I did sell with a broker, i did not want to be bothered with constant showing and, if you do not use a broker and do not offer the buyers agent a fee, a lot of agents will not push people to buy your home

[specialp]

We used a realtor to sell ours because I was not excited about showing our house to strangers with me home alone which would've been our only option and I really didn't have much flexible time that I would be available to show our house. Other than that, we would've been fine to go without.

[sariana]

Well, my ILs are Realtors, so we never pay the commissions, and they always work out a deal with the other agent. So as long as we are in the area, we will use them. When we were out of the area, we used people recommended by them and with whom they had worked out deals. :)

[AnnieW625]

No I don't think I would. Lawyers are not used in CA to be the middle man on deals so I would want a realtor. If we do end up having to move in a few years (we should find out in April where DH's office potentially moving to, but it could still be a few more years before the final move date) in this current market we will most likely have to short sale because our house is still worth less than we owe on it. Even if the market really rebounds and we don't have to short sale we will still use an agent.

Now would I buy another home without an agent, sure, but IMHO since I am a buyer and the agents costs are nothing to me I figure why not.

[vludmilla]

Absolutely. I didn't want to use a broker for our home purchase and I was convinced (by others, against my better judgement) to use one. I did plenty of research on my own and the broker never told me anything I didn't know already. She was pretty useless.

[crl]

For buying, maybe, depending on the market, I would consider not using an agent. If it is a buyers market with lots of options, I think you could do fine without an agent. But in many places, I believe the custom under those circumstances is to have the commission go all to the sellers agent. Unless you just go to opens or FSBOs, someone has to show you the house and if you don't have an agent, that's going to be the seller's agent most likely. Now, you might be able to negotiate the commission down, but maybe not.

For selling, no. Our agents have held brokers opens, hired photographers, set up websites, placed strategic ads based on their knowledge of the market. All things I wouldn't be able to do or would take a lot of my time to do, And both of our houses sold in under a week in the market; I feel sure that's faster than they would have sold FSBO. I figure we came out ahead on carrying costs alone vs what we would have saved on commission.

Catherine

[westwoodmom04]

For buying, maybe, depending on the market, I would consider not using an agent. If it is a buyers market with lots of options, I think you could do fine without an agent. But in many places, I believe the custom under those circumstances is to have the commission go all to the sellers agent. Unless you just go to opens or FSBOs, someone has to show you the house and if you don't have an agent, that's going to be the seller's agent most likely. Now, you might be able to negotiate the commission down, but maybe not.

For selling, no. Our agents have held brokers opens, hired photographers, set up websites, placed strategic ads based on their knowledge of the market. All things I wouldn't be able to do or would take a lot of my time to do, And both of our houses sold in under a week in the market; I feel sure that's faster than they would have sold FSBO. I figure we came out ahead on carrying costs alone vs what we would have saved on commission.

Catherine

I pretty much agree with this. It's near impossible to sell without an agent these days; other agents just won't show your house. In our market, when things are hot on the selling side, there are a few really good agents that have enough clients that they can sell houses before they even hit the listing service.

On the buying side, my experience has been that there is very little value added by an agent. As I wrote in my other post, we had a much better experience using a RE attorney than a realtor, but to do that, you need a seller who isn't using an agent or a willingness to pay out of pocket for an attorney.

[ncat]

If we buy in the same area, we will likely not use a realtor. When we bought our current house, our realtor was completely useless and largely interfered with the process. For nearly every house we looked at, the sellers agent was there (or our realtor merely directed us to an open house). Lawyers are used here for the paperwork.

[arivecchi]

For buying, sure. I can do all the diligence online and set up showings, my DH and I are comfortable with contracts and we know a good real estate attorney. For selling, I have sold on flat fee mls twice but that was in a booming market. Would likely use a realtor if I was selling these days.

[brittone2]

I would skip using a realtor again for buying; not sure about selling...it would depend on a lot of things. Most likely, I'd use a realtor to sell, but there are situations where I can see that we might perhaps skip the realtor.

I responded in the other thread that we bought our current house sans realtor involvement. It had some challenges, but I'd do it again. I do feel we could get decent comps on our own, as we did it this last time, but there are certain properties and situations where comps can be more challenging (unique properties, locations, very slow market with few recently solds, etc.). Over the years I've come to realize that I have no interest in the inspectors, etc. that my realtor recommends. Zero. I'd much rather find someone via word of mouth and we'll always pay for the pickiest inspector we can find. Thankfully we never had serious issues with any homes we bought that would or should have been caught at inspection, but I do think that some realtors are looking for things to close, and for that reason, I'd rather have someone totally not involved with our realtor at all.

[kdeunc]

We are currently on the market without a realtor. We paid a flat fee to be listed on the MLS/Realtor.com, etc. We did put in our MLS advertising that we would cover up to the 3% commission for a buyers agent that sold the house. We do not have to sell. If we did we may have gone straight to listing with an agent. We have had 2 different agents show the house to their clients.

We are using a buyers agent. It doesn't cost us anything and he coordinates showings etc.