Well, we sold our home, despite the opposition.
Some realtors, some friends and even neighbors scoffed at the idea of listing our home without the assistance of a listing agent.
However, we did it, and I would even dare to say, we did it surprisingly well.
We had Realtysellers Real Estate, place our home on MLS at no charge. (see their site: http://realtysellersrealestate.com/ ).
Here is a summary:
1) our home sold quickly - number of days listed on the market: 33 days;
2) we received a fair market price for our home;
3) we sold our home in one of the slowest months of the year (December);
4) we sold our home at a time when overall housing sales activity has dropped.
We were warned, cautioned, laughed at, and even avoided but despite the opposition, we received a higher price for our home even compared with two recent sales of semi-detached homes on my street. These two other homes even have finished basement units with rental income potential (that feature alone should draw a higher sale price) - our home, on the other hand, does not even have a “finished basement”.
One of these properties, with a rental income potential and an identical floor plan, as our own home, sold on October 1, 2010 (just two months earlier) for $360,000. We sold our semi for $15,000 more.
Statistics on recent home sales, for this street, also show that our semi sold at the second highest price ever using all comparable semi sales for the last 12-months of sales activity! Not bad, considering we were told that we could never receive a proper offer as a private seller. The highest priced semi, on our street, sold for $378,000 in January 2010. We sold our home at $375,000 and with NO price haggling to boot!
Here is how our costs and savings add up:
I paid less than $200 for advertising and signs
There was no additional lawyer fee as the buyer’s agent used the standard OREA forms
Cost for the buyer’s agent = 2.5% of purchase price (this is standard)
Our savings: if we used a listing agent (assuming a 1% listing fee, the cost would have been): $3,750.00 plus HST $488.00 = $4,238.00
My only regret, in this whole selling process, is that we did not actually price our home properly, from the start.
This blog was written by Elizabeth Blair on December 18, 2010. Elizabeth is a Licensed Mortgage Agent with Mortgage Edge in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Elizabeth services mortgage clients in Mississauga and all over the Greater Toronto area
You can contact Elizabeth directly by phone at (905) 510-5785
by email at eblair@mortgageedge.ca
or you visit any of her websites at:
www.missmortgage.ca
www.burlington-mortgage.ca
www.oakville-mortgage.com
www.streetsville-mortgage.ca
Elizabeth is licensed with the Financial Services Commission of Ontario and is also a Member of IMBA (the Independent Mortgage Brokers Association of Ontario) www.imba.ca
Lic # M08005880 / Brokerage Lic # 10680
Head office is located at: 15 Wertheim Court, Suite 210, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada.
