If you’re looking to sell your house or investment property in Parkersburg without using a real estate agent, we can help.
Although we do cooperate with brokers, and even use them ourselves at times, sometimes it can make sense to avoid them and sell directly to a buyer instead.
After all, paying 5-6% of the sale of a property in a commission is a lot of money. In certain situations, WV brokers and real estate agents can be very useful and earn their commission. However, a lot of times it can be the wrong situation for both the realtor and the seller, and a different option would be better.
How Can I Sell My House Without An Agent in Parkersburg?
There are a few ways to avoid paying high commissions in your WV sale.
First, there’s a tricky custom that you’ve gotta know about.
In most sales in Parkersburg, roughly half of the commission you pay as the seller goes to pay for the buyer’s broker. This means you’re paying for their broker as well as yours.
Doesn’t make much sense, right?
Why should you pay for the agent on the other side of the table?
Truthfully, it defies logic – it’s just the traditional way things have been done.
Now that you know it, you can learn from it and use that to your advantage in a few ways.
First, factor in the commissions paid when you’re looking at the comparable sales. If you’re able to look on Zillow at the price properties are selling for in your area, realize that the sellers are getting at least 5-6% less than the sale price. If the properties similar to yours sold for prices that included commissions, take that into account.
Don’t underprice your property – be aware that a savvy buyer may expect to take a discount too. If you’re doing the work of one agent, you can expect to save that money.
Sometimes in Parkersburg, the buyer who isn’t represented by an agent will not realize that you aren’t paying their 3% buyers agent commission, and most of the time they wont ask you to pay that fee. Of course they might, so don’t be surprised if it comes up during the negotiation.
You may want to consider offering 2.5% to buyer’s agents who will bring their clients to show your property. Sure, it’s a lot of money but it can help you sell faster. If you’re pricing your property including that commission, you can always negotiate a better deal for a purchaser who comes without an agent. This can mean that you’ll save 3% and so will they.
On the other hand, if you don’t leave room for the buyer’s agent’s commission when pricing your house, you’ll be excluding a lot of buyers in the market in Parkersburg. This can make it that much harder to find a buyer for your house.
Over 90% of transactions happen through the MLS – that’s the Multiple Listing Service. It’s the main database that all the brokers in Parkersburg use to access information for their clients on the houses, condos, land and investment properties for sale, along with data on the sold prices. If you have ever used Zillow it is very similar to that only it has more complete data and only realtors can use it.
Once upon a time, you had to pay a full commission to get your property on the MLS. Now in Parkersburg, there are a few brokers who will charge you a fee just to list your property on the MLS. Often, you spend a few hundred bucks and you only pay a commission if the sale closes.
Compared to the cost of a newspaper ad, the MLS is a cheap way to market your property to a very wide audience.
All the major real estate search sites like Realtor.com, Zillow, Yahoo Homes, etc. get data from the MLS. Chances are good that when you submit your listing in Parkersburg to the MLS, information on your property will end up on most of the major sites within a few days.
Each of those sites sells ads. They’ve got packages that let you pay to enhance your listing, feature it at the top of the search, and a lot of other bells and whistles that might or might not get an interested buyer to buy your property.
Advertising is a gamble. Sometimes open houses in Parkersburg WV can be a great way to sell a property, and sometimes they’re a waste of time. Same with newspaper ads, craigslist postings, fancy signs – sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t.
You Can Sell Your Parkersburg House without an agent, but to effectively sell your property on your own, you have to market it well.
Putting up fliers and signs around your neighborhood can generate some calls, and there’s a lot of free websites where you can post information. But often just putting up flyers and an open house isn’t enough if your house doesn’t appeal to the average home buyer.
In theory, real estate agents charge big commissions because they have to spend a lot of money up front to advertise your property. By advertising lots of properties at once, they expect to get more phone calls – and obviously, they’ll make good profits by selling lots of houses.
Certain properties might require thousands of dollars in advertising expenses before the right buyer happens to see the ad and call.
Luckily there are a lot of free resources and tools that are out there today. Facebook Marketplace can be a great way to reach a huge audience very quickly. I personally like this one so much because almost everyone is on Facebook now. It is also free and they do not charge anything to list or after the sale. The bad thing with this is that it can come with a lot of people who are just looking to waste your time. Zillow can be a great tool to connect you with some buyers as well. From my experience, a lot of investors are actively looking for deals on Zillow. Zillow also offers Zestimates which are their guess for what the house is worth. Although they can be wildly inaccurate, many people like being able to see that number. Craigslist isn’t as popular as it once was but it never hurts to list there as well.
What are some of the Main Problems when Selling Your Parkersburg House without an Agent?
1. Market Knowledge
Most people just simply don’t know what their house is worth. They aren’t sure what it will sell for on the open market and they don’t know how to price it. I’ve seen many time where individuals underprice their property and its gone in a day or they over price it and end up never selling it.
2. Time
Not very many people have the time it takes to effectively sell their house. You need to be willing to meet with buyers, advertise, clean up, answer calls, coordinate closings, negotiate, and answer questions. Few people have that much extra time in their life. This makes it a very unpleasant experience for the average seller.
3. Legal Experience
In order for the sale to go through effectively for both parties there are a lot of legal steps that need to happen. You need to ensure their are no liens or encumbrances on the property, that ownership is transferred properly, the money is effectively managed, and that the sale is properly recorded. You can do this all yourself if you really want to, but it is very easy to make a mistake. An agent or professional homebuyer will have a legal team already in place to ensure everything goes right.
If you want to avoid paying any commissions, you can also sell your house to investors like us for CASH
We offer fair prices for properties – and we can close fast (in as little as 7-14 days if you need to).
Sometimes we’ll purchase Parkersburg houses, fix them up, then rent them out… sometimes we’ll fix them up and sell them to other people looking for great homes in the area, and a lot of other reasons, too – but we love to hear from people like you who are thinking of selling anywhere in WV.
We’re investors who care a lot about Parkersburg.
We close fast and pay cash in as little as just 3-5 days. Give us a call now at (304) 679-7527 or fill out the short form over here.