Ever sold your NYC home yourself, without a broker?
Obviously, people do this all the time, but I was wondering how it works, especially with a co-op. Where do you advertise? Is it possible to advertise in some “old-fashioned” way, the way newspaper ads used to be, without over-sharing, or do all sites require everything, starting with name/address? What information of your own do you have to collect to provide people? Although you can’t reject people for protected categories, how does one reject a prospective buyer for other reasons – like he’s just so unpleasant to deal with? At what point does the inevitable lawyer get involved?
FishieFishie
in General Discussion 9 years and 2 months ago
25
Please log in, in order to post replies!
25 replies
NeoGrec | 7 years and 2 months ago
Yes, completely agree with Slopefarm. A good lawyer can also help with the negotiating if you decide you need an intermediary. Brokers’ commissions in the UK are 2%. the fees paid here are daylight robbery.
slopefarm | 7 years and 2 months ago
Presumably you will want a lawyer for closing, so if you go FSBO, why not get your lawyer in place early and get some sound legal advice on dos and don’ts. This won’t add much if anything to the legal costs and it sure beats (a) 6% or (b) being sued.
jeanneholland
in General Discussion 7 years and 2 months ago
Selling FSBO in NYC is quite common, actually. Even for co-ops, as long as you are actually interested in helping with the board package and managing the sale process you can absolutely do it yourself. In short, you just need to take professional photos, price it appropriately and make sure you list on RLS, StreetEasy, etc. There are companies that offer this service (called Flat Fee RLS/MLS) – i.e. Hauseit. This is a good article on FSBO in NYC: http://observer.com/2016/09/the-biz-of-the-fsbo/
If you aren’t prepared to spend 3-4 months working on your sale, or you think you are easily discouraged and may give up – then I suggest you hire a broker!
angelique.m.west | 8 years and 8 months ago
When it comes to selling a co-op (or condo) one thing you’re paying the broker for us to work as the go-between for buyer and the board. These days even the most relaxed boards require reams of paperwork from prospective purchasers. It’s not just the volume of material they ask for but the specific and unique ways they may want it submitted. It’s easy for even the most organized purchaser to screw it up, which delays the closing. The broker can ride herd on the purchaser and review the package pre-submission to ensure everything’s as it should be. You want that package to be submitted to the board once and not bounced back for a missing doc. Ask yourself if you have the patience to play that role once you actually agree with someone on price. If you aren’t sure ask the board for the list of documents they require from purchasers. Then decide. Btw, 6% isn’t firm. Many brokers are willing to do 5% these days given the scarcity of listings. Just ask.
FishieFishie | 9 years and 2 months ago
Thank you all so much, with all the different input! I realize I should have mentioned that I wasn’t determinedly embarking on a must-sell quest; I just wanted to float the possibility experimentally for a couple of weeks. So I wasn’t going to do the whole drill, staging, and all that. And, yes, I did talk to a couple of brokers (I didn’t realize the norm was 6%, which stunned me), so I do have a good idea of a reasonable price. Dave/DIBS: I think that despite my ignorance, I might disagree that most buyers are working with brokers. I get the impression that buyers just read the ads (unless they’re really wealthy, and my place isn’t in that category). Rob Mills: Thanks about the attorney recs, which I’ll check. Nancy: Thanks for the rec of RealDirect, which I’d never heard of. Despite the warnings about protected classes, this still bothers me. For instance, if I get a guy who comes off as a thug or lunatic or tyrant, I know perfectly well that the co-op board will reject him, so even beyond my own distaste for dealing with him, why waste the precious time? You guys have me thinking that perhaps I should find out where I can look up the list of protected classes. I could probably think of ten or so, but if you think there are twenty, there are probably ones I haven’t run across.
katerina | 9 years and 2 months ago
In addition to listing on NYTimes and the advice about hiring a professional photographer, I’d also recommend listing on StreetEasy. We recently bought and looked for listings exclusively on StreetEasy, which is a much better website than any of the RE firms’ sites I’ve seen. We purchased a FSBO and I can’t imagine why I’d need a broker to sell if/when that day comes. As first time buyers, we used a broker but I seriously regret it. He did little more than look up comps on StreetEasy, which I was perfectly capable of doing on my own.
boredatwork | 9 years and 2 months ago
*would not be the issue.
boredatwork | 9 years and 2 months ago
It seems easier than ever to find comps, average and median prices in your neighborhood and per sq ft prices for similar properties. So I dont think pricing would be the issue. Marketing is not as easy, but a great website and pics should make a big difference. Paying a stager for advice or staging works too. As a seller, you have to decide if the broker is providing you 3% or 6% of marketing power over what you can charge on your own. I think @daveinbedstuy’s advice is spot on. If you offer a co-broker fee you can get the traffic and save lots. I have never tried FSBO, but with a renovated legal two family in Carroll Gardens, I dont think I will have too much trouble in this market. I can’t imagine a broker will provide me with $180,000 in value, and certainly not as @robertmills claims, pay for itself “several times over.”
slopefarm | 9 years and 2 months ago
Gres, here is why your advice does not always suffice. 12 years ago, we tried to sell our brownstone coop FSBO. We thought we’d priced it pretty well but, in a rising market, we received only one lowball offer over several weeks, a good 20% off ask. We pulled it off the market, consulted with two realtors, both advised that we should ask a bit higher than we were asking, we granted a co-exclusive, listed at the higher price and within a week came to terms at exactly the new higher ask. Several factors in play. 1) I think people like to lowball FSBO offerings because they figure there is more play, given the lack of a fee. 2) I think it helps to know have a professional opinion about value and comps before listing. 3) They probably marketed it better — photos, wording the listing, etc. I do know that, for my fee, I got a much higher price than I was getting on my own. And we didn’t go back and re-stage the apartment. We were still living there. So three is a value to saving the fee, but also a value in relying on the professionals, and perhaps a little bravado in the assertion that there is no value added.
bradeichmann | 9 years and 2 months ago
“No point in pocketing 3-5% on saved commission but wondering if i left more than that on the bargaining table” ~slopefarm then price high!
pps_wannabe | 9 years and 2 months ago
We purchased a home using a broker. The unique scenario with our deal was that the broker was the seller’s broker also, and the owners didn’t want to publicize that their home was for sale (At All). So, it was up to the broker to find a buyer amongst her own set of clients who had been searching. We just so happened to be the perfect match. If they had advertised with or without the broker, they might have been able to get a bigger sale price. But, for them, the privacy was the main issue.
hhcguy | 9 years and 2 months ago
A broker will always provide the best execution. The major brokers maintain a “Cartel” to keep fees at 6%. A sale at 800,00 yields a 48,000 fee. A sale at 1.6 million 96,000\. Same amount of work. It comes down performance for dollars paid. Tough to justify paying a 96,000 fee.
firstmediation | 9 years and 2 months ago
I believe that if you have an accurate idea of the “value” of your home, and if you are willing to do some minimal cleaning up/painting to make your place show to its advantage, you do not need a broker at all. And I really do not understand why anyone would pay a broker so much money for so little work, UNLESS they did not know the value of their home and they needed the broker to guide them about pricing. But there are now tools for doing that that you can access yourself without a broker. I have sold twice without a broker with excellent results both times. The advertising part is really simple in the internet age with this website and with Streeteasy.com. Forget paper ads… I worked with a “stager” who for a minimal price came and walked through my home and send me a 3 page list of things she recommended I do that would make my home show better. I incorporated about 1/3 of what she suggested, but it was helpful to see her list which included things that were not intuitive, like leave the shower curtain closed. If you do list without a broker, you need to have your real estate lawyer lined up in advance because as the seller, you want to have someone working for you when you make a deal with the other side. The seller’s lawyer prepares the contract and nothing is a done deal until the contract is signed (and in a coop, until the Board acts on the buyer’s application). Good luck!
E_Minor | 9 years and 2 months ago
I sold my coop by myself in 2011, but I did end up having to pay the buyers broker his 3% fee. The market was so bad then, that we really did need the buyers broker to pull the deal over the line. Having said that, in this strong market, you really could sell it yourself. Tips: 1) Take really good complementary pics of each room, get a friend or hire someone if you can’t do this. 2) Build your own website. call it yourstreetname.com. Do a good job with this 3) Post a clear floorplan on the website. 4) Advertise on NYTimes and Streeteasy. Offer the 3% buyers brokers fee. 5) Schedule open houses every Sunday for a few weeks. 6) Some brokers will badger you to take their clients low ball bid. Just ignore them and don’t take it personally.
slopefarm | 9 years and 2 months ago
You can find comps easily if your house comps easily. Not every house does. Some are similar to the housing stock in the neighborhood and some are more singular, whether for good or bad. Also, you have to be honest with yourself about what the comps are telling you. make sure to bracket — see what sells for more and for less and figure out what accounts for the variances. No point in pocketing 3-5% on saved commission but wondering if i left more than that on the bargaining table.
bradeichmann | 9 years and 2 months ago
Use a broker…just not in this market. You can hire a professional photographer, a stager and list on streeteasy/NYT for 1/8th the cost of a broker. Just doesn’t make sense. If you want to know how much to list for, you can find comparables easily on streeteasy as well.
slopefarm | 9 years and 2 months ago
This may seem counterintuitive, but we generally rent out the rental in ourhouse ourselves, without a broker, even though the tenant pays the fee, but I am reluctant to go FSBO when I sell my house, even though i would save the fee. The reason we do not use a broker for the rental is that i do not want an intermediary filtering who i might consider renting to. I want to have met them and, if there are several applicants, be able to choose. For selling, I would be concerned about pricing (my house does not have a lot of obvious comps), and I am not confident I would price it well. Also, I do not want to be in the position of making representations about the house directly to would be buyers. I want an intermediary who knows how to field questions and answer them.
sabadodomingo | 9 years and 2 months ago
Having a broker as a buyer is definitely a disadvantage. Everything being equal, you will find that 10/10 times, a sellers broker will advise them to take the buyer without a broker because they will make a higher fee. Information is so readily available that there is absolutely no reason to use a broker as a buyer and you will get a better deal and more clarity into the bidding process if you don’t use one. Have a good lawyer and do your research. I recently purchased a brownstone without a broker and it was amazing how much clarity it gives you into the process…
cordeliamilesx | 9 years and 2 months ago
brokelin makes very valuable points, particularly regarding the role of the attorney. The ‘inevitable’ attorney is your protector and advocate in this process, and is hopefully someone whose help you will come to welcome in the end. An attorney who specializes in NYC real estate is worth every penny, and many offer flat fees per transaction that are more reasonable than you might expect. Property issues can be so particular to neighborhood and building type that some attorneys (much like agents, lenders, and appraisers) even specialize in particular boroughs or building types. This kind of experience can save you a fortune and plenty of headaches, so I highly recommend working with a specialist. It’s best to have an attorney ready when you list your home, because they will need to begin work on the contract immediately when you accept an offer. Most agents have a list of real estate attorneys they know and trust, and will share their recommendations regardless of whether you decide to work with them. (You can find my favorite attorneys in a guide for sellers here: http://robmillis.com/selling/) And I have to reiterate what brokelin said regarding protected classes ? you absolutely must treat every buyer equally. Even you (or your board) find unpleasant have a right to buy and sell property without bias. Attorneys and agents are your buffer. Hope this helps! Rob rob.millis@corcoran.com