Will specifying 'no buyers brokers' limit our chances of selling?

As a potential buyer, I’m not sure I understand some of the responses above — I’m using a buyer’s broker, but I don’t *not visit* FSBO listings, or non-REBNY listings. Why would I? I just won’t use my broker if I put an offer in these places. I’ve already put one offer in on an apartment that did not allow buyer’s brokers; it was perhaps a wee bit more annoying for me, but not nearly enough to scare me off. The market is way too tight for that.

This is my experience as buyer/seller and now renter of properties, the people with most money to spend have the least amount of time, therefore they use brokers.You will get a better pool of buyers who are financially well-qualified if you allow ALL offers. By restricting your pool of buyers (and specifically by restricting the group of people who may be the best off financially) you will get more likely end up with a lower selling price. Doesn’t seem worth it to save a few thousand on commission. That said, you should do EVERYTHING you can to help the sale along, clear out stuff, clean up, paint the walls if they need it, keep fresh flowers and a spotless house and make the property available for showings any time people are interested. Right when you put something on the market that is the best moment to get top dollar. Do it right with solid strategy on all fronts and get it sold quickly. Yes, you should use a broker or even two if that’s what it takes. Commission is small price compared to lost opportunities. You’re not wrong that many real estate brokers are crazy and a pain to deal with… I just believe it’s a necessary part of the process if you want to get the best sales price you can.

When I sold my coop in brownstone Brooklyn, I decluttered it massively myself (I moved out all books, all plants, all papers, and much furniture – most small to medium sized furniture – just left the big stuff, like the couch, beds, a few nightstands, a small desk, dining table, a few small pieces of furniture that showed off great spots in the apartment, etc…I left only about 1/3 of the furniture I previously had in each room.  Since I was having movers move all that stuff to my new home, I had them move everything I else could spare – most of the contents of my closets, cupboards, etc.  I left just enough for when I wanted to stay over in the old place, along with just enough furniture to stage it perfectly.  (No one lives with that little furniture or stuff, but it shows and sells best that way.  If you aren’t getting your new place first, then move A LOT of stuff to storage – it’ll be worth the price, really.)  Having done all that, my place sold itself immediately.  Though my broker had great pictures taken, which probably helped bring people to the open houses.  Really good pictures, not just pictures, help to catch buyers’ eyes, I think, whether they have buyers’ brokers or not.  (I obviously think staging really well matters, and is necessary to get really good pictures.) I used a broker, because at the time, I was mostly away for work during the week.  I though that I would not have needed to use a broker otherwise, were I around more. Having done it with a broker, I don’t think I would sell without one again.  Getting offers was the easy part.  The harder part was getting those offers to contract and closing.  Having a broker was useful because I knew my coop board could be a nightmare, and they were.  It was nice to have an agent representing me to deal with them.  I know you asked only about buyers brokers, but I thought I’d give you my whole experience.  I found my experienced broker was also helpful in seeing which offers were financially likely to get to closing.  I am not inexperienced in contracts and finance, but I found it to be useful to have a broker, moreso than I thought it would be.  I thought I was hiring my broker primarily to market the place, so I chose a REBNY broker, which means one who co-brokes and shares listings constantly with the other REBNY firms – they act like a mini multiple listing service between themselves.  The marketing did help a lot, I think, but my broker turned out to be helpful in more ways than I anticipated. I got offers from people who came to open houses on their own without their own buyers’ broker.  I also got offers from people whose REBNY brokers (from Manhattan) brought them to see the place in response to the REBNY marketing that the broker I hired did.  I found most (not all) of the buyers represented by brokers were more ready to close – brokers vet their clients.  Yes, you can vet offers yourself, and I did, but the ready to close offers came from buyers who had good brokers.  One not so great broker brought a buyer not ready to close, as we discovered in vetting the offer.  While I kept an open mind about all my offers, my experience taught me that offers from buyers represented by brokers are more likely to be ready to close.  Some of the unrepresented buyers bid awfully low, somehow not realizing where the market was and that everybody else was bidding at or near asking price.  The time I spent answering questions about the building for those lowballing buyers, I learned, was a waste of my time. When I was looking to buy my coop earlier, I made some offers to sellers selling FSBO.  My experience there told me that dealing with these people was a waste of my time.  I wouldn’t necessarily go for FSBO places if I were buying again.  I’m sure they thought they were acting above board and professionally, but I did not find them to be doing so.  Hiding things was the name of the game there.  I’m sure this is not always the case, I’m just telling you my experience.  So, OK, my two cents is that I would use a broker to sell my place again.  If you don’t have the appreciation that I had to do this without feeling too much the pinch of the commission (and it IS a lot of money), then I can see why you might want to skip using a seller’s broker.  But I can’t see why it makes sense to skip offering 1/2 whatever the going rate of commission is to buyers’ brokers. Potential buyers  like me, who have had lousy experiences dealing directly with FSBO sellers before, might just not bother to make an offer.  Having a buyers’ broker to deal with you and run interference might make the difference for them.  Also, though I am not one of them, I find that there are a lot of people out there who are just plain uncomfortable representing themselves in making offers and negotiating prices.  You may miss out on some of those offers if they can’t have a broker (and who these people are may be surprising to you – they often have professions or personalities that wouldn’t lead you to think they’d be uncomfortable making deals for themselves.) Also, when I bought, I did not use a buyers broker, as it was before they were common in brownstone Brooklyn, when most of the listings were with small brokers who did not co-broke.  In hindsight, I could have used a buyers’ broker in there working for me, as the sellers’ broker certainly wasn’t acting in my best interest on specific issues with the apatment and building that came up. Now that it is more common to have buyers’ brokers, I would definitely use one next time, as there are things I would negotiate about differently this time, and it was hard with a sellers broker, who had been showing me a lot of stuff as a buyers broker previous to this transaction, for me to negotiate in my unrepresented state. So you might miss out on buyers like me who, from past experience, know we want to be represented by a buyers’ broker.  You could try on your own, with no commission offered, and see how that goes, and if it does not sell quickly, then offer to pay buyers’ brokers.  But how will they know when you change your mind?  Perhaps you could decide how many days you want to try without paying buyers’ brokers commission, and put in your initial advertising that offers with buyers’ brokers won’t be considered until after x date.  Just an idea – not sure how that would work in practice, but perhaps worth looking into.  I would take care to price it properly, whatever the broker situation.  I would not overprice, but I also would not underprice. I think underpricing suggests to buyers that there is something wrong with your place.   Or that you want to get a bidding war going.  As a buyer, I refused to get into those. (I thought the idea was shady enough with brokers running them, as who knows how serious those other offers were, and if they could have closed; as a buyer, I would be even more wary about getting into a bidding war run by a FSBO seller.) So, as a seller, I wanted to price it at what I would be happy to sell for, and not have a bidding war.  So I priced it at what other places like mine that sold quickly had priced at.  The price I had in mind to ask was exactly that suggested by my broker, and it sold for that. The reason I considered lots of offers was not about price at all – except for the real lowballs, the offers were in a small range – it was about picking buyers that my coop board was likely to approve.) There were some similar places to mine on the market just before I sold, so I could figure out the right price, and I did, before I talked to brokers to see what they thought it should be priced at.  Go to open houses and follow the listings for places like yours to see how much they are asking, and how quickly they are selling.  I think the right price is the one that will get you offers in the first two or three weeks of open houses. (So I definitely would not go more than 30 days with no offer to pay buyers’ brokers.)  Pricing it properly is as important, likely moreso, than whether you pay any brokers’ commissions.  You can interview some sellers’ brokers to get their opinion of the value of your place even if you decide to go FSBO.  If you do, ask them to tell you what they think they can bring that would make it worth paying their commission.  Ask them your question about buyers’ brokers, too, as most of them likely represent buyers, too.    After pricing, staging and good photos are next important, I think.  If you can’t stage it right yourself, get someone to help you.  (And I’m not talking professional stagers here – those artfully draped throws and stupid place settings on tables do nothing for me as a potential buyer – just get a friend with a good sense of design, on the spare side, of course, to weigh in on your furniture arrangement and decluttering plan, and if you don’t have one of those, then get one of those designers you can pay a small price to who will tell you how to rearrange your stuff.)  You can get a good idea of what is most appealing yourself by going to some open houses.  If you can’t take really good pictures yourself, get a friend who can to take them, or pay a photographer.  Also, be sure to have a floorplan.  These things, I think, are all more important than whether you offer to pay buyers’ brokers or not.  If the listing looks professional, even if you do it yourself, then you’ll get a bunch of buyers to come see it on their own.  If it doesn’t sell quickly at a price you are happy with to one of them, you can then offer to pay buyers’ brokers.  If it doesn’t sell quickly that way, then you can consider using a seller’s broker.  Just give yourself a lot of lead time if you are going this route, to go through the various stages. Another thing that likely comes into play is whether you have a prime property for your neighborhood, or whether it will be a harder sell for some reason – smaller than average for x number of bedrooms, awkward layout, poor light or views, substandard level of renovation, etc.  You should take a careful and unbiased view of the differences in these things between your place and similar sized places you look at when deciding how to price your place.  But these things will also determine how quickly your place will sell, even if it is priced right.  Also, some FSBOs mentioned on this site created really good websites for their listing, with lots of pictures and tons of information about the apartment on it, more information than you get from a typical broker’s listing.  Which was great.  I don’t think you necessarily need to have your own website, but if you can do one fairly easily (or get someone to do one for you), it can’t hurt.  If your place is not a prime place compared to others its size on the market in your neighborhood, it might help, but it could also be a waste of money, then, too.  More information on a not great place is not necessarily a good thing.   And, lastly, you did not say how big your place is.  My gut feeling is that if your place is larger and thus more expensive, then all of the above is important.  If your place is a studio or small one-bedroom, and thus relatively inexpensive, whether a prime specimen or not, I think it will need less help to sell, unless it is somehow hideous.  I think this because I think people buying at the low end of the market are more price sensitive than people looking at larger, more expensive coops. There is the perception among buyers that a buyer can cut a better deal with a FSBO paying no commission, which will be important to lower end buyers.  (I would price it at what similar apartments offered by brokers are priced at, but be ready to “split” what a total brokers commission would have been with your unrepresented buyers when considering offers, as buyers will expect this from FSBOs.  I think they will offer you less than they will offer on a similarly priced apartment with a sellers’ broker attached to it, because they expect both you and themselves to benefit from your not paying any brokers.)  Good luck with your sale!

When I sold a coop in Queens, I specfied no brokers. I might not do it that way in Manhattan or California, but in Brooklyn most people look on their own. Declutter, take lots of photos, post the listing in lots of places, hold open houses, and offer an enticing price under market. What do you have to lose?

Full disclosure here, I am a broker, and I know whatever I say will be taken with a grain of salt: That said, in this market, you will get offers and you will sell the property, but what kind of offers you will get, and what terms you decide to go into contract with are the real question at hand here. Realize that you could be eliminating a very large and significant portion of the buying pool market (assuming it is a property priced above 500K in CG) A recent stat thrown around my office was some eighty percent of buyers use brokers. I personally do not think it is that high, but to give you an example, my recently marketed three bedroom brought in 15 sign-ins last Sunday, and out of those sign-ins, only three came that were not represented by a broker. Now, there is a solid chance that the direct buyer will in fact be your highest and best offer, but statistically speaking, that is not always the case, and by trying to save 3%, you might very well be negotiating a 5% discrepancy with DIRECT BUYER A and all the while neglecting BUYER B who was being represented with a buyer’s broker and willing to pay your asking amount or closer to it. See this all the time. This business is all about exposure. The MORE people that see the property, the MORE offers you will get, and the higher the offer will be. And especially if you are lucky to get yourself into a HIGHEST AND BEST situation, every participant can drive up the potential bidding price. When dealing with 3 DIRECT Buyers VS 7 (say half being represented with brokers, the others without) in a bidding war, the three percent that was going to the Buyer’s Broker pales in comparison to the potential that their buyer might end up bringing to their final bid price. It’s a numbers game. Again, I know that you are dubious of anyone from the brokerage community giving you advice on this matter, but you very well could be leaving a lot of money on the table in order to save a bit (comparatively speaking).

If it’s a good apartment it will sell. Just make sure your listing is good (good photos, good floorplan, good description). Letting buyers brokers show the place will certainly get more traffic in the door. I sold on my own and ultimately got multiple offers from people without brokers but also got a couple from folks with brokers. We were offering 2%. That 2% can be factored into the offer if you get multiple offers. Why not do what gets the most people in the door and take it from there?