For many, it’s a great option because real estate agents can bring a lot of value.

However, it’s not without cost – if you hire an agent, you’re going to be paying for their services. And, as you may be realizing, their fees can be quite high.

On average, you can expect to pay about 6% of your home’s sales price as a fee to your realtor or agent. That’s a TON of money!!!

If you’d like to see how much money that is, you can use our Home Commission Sales Calculator to quickly see how much you’ll be paying.

You might be thinking, “Only the seller pays that fee so I don’t need to worry if I’m the buyer.” That’s not entirely true – sellers pay the 6% fee because their agent splits it with the buyer’s agent. Therefore, if you don’t have an agent, you can immediately get 3% saving because the sellers won’t have to be giving up 3% to your agent.

REALTOR® is a registered collective membership mark which identifies a real estate professional who is a member of the National Association of REALTORS® and subscribes to its strict Code of Ethics

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Yes, you can sell your own home without being on the MLS, however, your hoe will show as “For Sale By Owner” on places like Zillow and buyer’s agents may try to avoid you (the real-estate mafia hates it when people find a way to cut them out of home sales).

In our course, we recommend using a flat-fee MLS service to get your listing onto your regional MLS and make it appear like it is being sold by a realtor (when, in reality, it’s just you).

Flat-Fee MLS Services – What they Provide

Flat-fee MLS services charge a basic fee (typically under $500) to list your home on your regional MLS system so that it automatically appears on services like Zillow.com, Realtor.com, and others. It also makes your home listing appear more professional and it hides the fact that the listing is FSBO (For Sale By Owner).

I’ve used this service before and I was flooding with texts and calls form buyer’s agents who had no idea that they were reaching out to the home owner to schedule showings and to make offers to purchase my home.

Some of these services offer upgraded features that can help you with document preparation and add extra features to your listing. In my experience, the basic package is the best – it gets your home on the MLS and puts you in control of everything else.

Which Flat-Fee Service to Use?

Which flat-fee MLS system you use depends on where you are list your home.

There are some companies that advertise as “national MLS” services, however, they just uncharge and then refer you to one of the local services anyway.

Please use this chart to see which flat-fee MLS system we recommend base don your state:

How to List with a Flat-Fee Service on MLS

How to list your home with one of these services depends a lot on a few variables.

We cover these variables, and more, and walk you through the entire process in our course.

We hope to see you in there.

The post Flat-Fee MLS Listings – Are they smart? appeared first on Home Solo.

I’ve got two pieces of good news for you:

1. Our course covers everything you need to know to sell your home on your own and save thousands of dollars in the process, and
2. As an attorney, I can easily answer this question.

Why a Real Estate Attorney is a Good Idea When Selling Your Home

Especially today where it’s very easy to list and sell your own home (especially with the right guidance), most home sellers look for professional help because of the complexity and legal significance of the real estate transaction.

Effectively, home sellers could use someone to hold their hand and give them some legal guidance through the process to make sure all the disclosures, contracts, legal forms, etc.

If that’s you, you should get a real estate lawyer and NOT a real estate agent. 

Why?

Quite simply, real estate agents are not allowed to give legal advice! Despite this prohibition against realtors giving legal advice, far too often they try to give it anyway.

This should matter both to prospective buyers and sellers because if the advice ends up being wrong, perhaps because the realtor was a little over-confident and doesn’t really understand the nuances of the law, then when there’s a contract dispute or a legal issue, you’re going to be the one left dealing with the problem.

Sure, if you get bad advice and end up getting sued because your realtor pretended to be a legal expert, you could go after the realtor later in another legal dispute because they gave you bad advice, but that sounds like MUCH more hassle than just doing things properly in the first place and avoiding all of the legal hassle.

If you use a real estate attorney, you’re getting actual legal advice and, if they make a mistake, you’ll be covered because any properly licensed attorney carries insurance to cover mistakes like this.

Real Estate Agent Cost

Real estate agents are ABSURDLY expensive for the work that they do.

You should expect to pay around 6% of the final sale price of your home to agents in exchange for them completing a few hours of work.

If you’d like to see how much you’d lose to agents out of your hard-earned equity in your home, check out our commission calculator.

On a $1 million home sale, the seller would be losing $60,000.00.

Real Estate Attorney Cost

Real estate attorney fees are almost always significantly lower than real estate agent fees. 

For example, even a really expensive attorney that charges $500 per hour, will only end up costing you $2,250 in legal fees after four and a half hours of work (a common amount of time per transaction).

This is an important point to note: a legal expert, and actual attorney who knows real estate law, is significantly less expensive than your neighbor who also happens to be a real estate agent. That alone should show how over-priced realtors are.

Some lawyers may even work off of a flat fee instead of an hourly rate – this can be even nicer (but sometimes more expensive) because you know exactly what to expect for your costs in the transaction.

Attorney VS Agent – Which is best?

This is hard to answer because they do two completely different things.

Agents list your home online for you, schedules the photographer to take pictures, and answers the phone when people call with questions about your home.

Real estate attorneys can help you with the purchase contract, negotiations, legal disclosures, closing documents, and any other legal document.

If you need help with the listing of your home and the marketing of it, either hire an agent for 6% of the value of your home or take our online course and do it yourself. 

If you need help with the legal aspect, please hire an actual attorney.

The post Is a Real Estate Attorney Cheaper than a Realtor? appeared first on Home Solo.

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Unfortunately, there are costs associated with selling your home and the BIGGEST of the closing costs, by far, is paying real estate agents. So, it’s only natural to wonder: can you sell your home without a realtor?

The answer is YES! In fact, in most situations, I encourage people to sell their home on their own.

By selling your home as For Sale By Owner (FSBO), you’re going to save a TON of money, you’ll be in better control of the process, and, because you’ll be focusing on your home instead of treating it like just another listing, you’re likely to sell it faster.

The problem with being a FSBO seller, for many people, is not knowing how to do it. I get it – there’s a lot to know like how to prepare your home, how to effectively market your sale, how to list it on the MLS, how to handle the legal documents, and how to negotiate properly.

That’s why we made the Home Solo program – an online course and resources to teach you everything you need to know and walk you through the entire process.

I’m an attorney who has sold multiple homes on my own and know how the entire process works – I even included things in our program that most realtors don’t know like negotiation skills and how to make a website and run social media ads.

Real Estate Agent Cost

The biggest reason I try to avoid real estate agents is their cost – you’re going to be paying 6% of the sales price of your home to them as their commission fee (3% to the seller’s agent and 3% to the buyer’s agent).

If you sell your home for $500,000, you’ll be paying out $30,000!

If you sell your home for $750,000, you’ll be paying out $45,000!

And, what are the agents doing for all of your money? Well, in many cases, they’re taking a potential buyer to see homes that the buyer already found online and sent to the realtor so that they could meet them there (in their Mercedes) and open the front door while they talk on their phone to another client.

Or, if they’re the listing agent, perhaps the real estate agent is listing your home as an Open House and working on their phone in your kitchen for a few hours while prospective buyers stop by.

If someone offered us $45,000 to host a couple of Open Houses, have pictures taken of a home and list them online, and fill out a pre-formatted home sales contract, we’d jump at the chance – making $45k for about 10 hours of work is an amazing deal (and something I’m tired of paying other people for).

How to Sell Your Home Without a Realtor

Selling your home without a realtor can actually be as straight forward as selling a used car to someone else in your town.

You need to get it cleaned up and fix any issues, you need to take pictures of it and list it online for sale, and you need to meet with potential buyers, answer their questions, and possibly negotiate over the price.

If people are willing to sell an old car themselves, why aren’t they as willing to sell their home themselves?

We believe it is due in large part to how much realtor associations have marketed to convince you to use an agent.  Without all of that marketing (and deliberate efforts to make you rely on agents), we would never use real estate agents for our homes just like we don’t use “car agents” to help us sell our used car.

There is absolutely no legal requirement to use an agent in your real estate transaction.

I’m going to walk you through the selling process here but if you’d like a complete education on everything you need to do where I walk you through the entire process and give you all the tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years as an attorney who has sold multiple homes on his own, please consider taking the Home Solo online course.

Step-by-Step How to Sell Your Home Without a Realtor

The only thing left to do after selling your home on your own without an agent is figure out what you’re going to do with all of the money you saved by not having to pay an agent commission. 

We hope to see you in the course.

The post Can I Sell My House Without a Realtor? (Step-by-Step How to FSBO) appeared first on Home Solo.

Worry not!

I’m going to walk you through some of the things to consider when you are thinking about drafting your own purchase contract / purchase agreement.

I’m an attorney and I’ve sold multiple homes on my own (FSBO – For Sale By Owner) and I’ve sold some homes with a realtor, too – so, I know how the process works both ways. But, without knowing your specific situation, I can’t possibly give you legal advice (and neither can a real estate agent  – finding an hiring a real estate attorney may be the right answer in your situation.

Contract Basics

Let’s start with the basics – what is a contract? A contract is, at its simplest level, nothing more than an agreement where both (or more) parties involved receive a benefit.

This concept of each side of a contract receiving a benefit is called “consideration.”

Technically, there isn’t really a difference between a written contract or “oral contract.” If there’s an agreement where there is consideration for both sides, then there’s a contract.

The reason written contracts are preferred is because it’s easier to confirm the terms that were agreed upon.

For example, in a real estate transaction, the purchase agreement will involve one party (seller) receiving money and the other party (buyer) receiving a house.

Even if this was written on the back of a napkin, both parties received something (consideration) and there was an agreement. Therefore, it’s a contract.

However, if someone drafted up something on paper that said you have to give them $1 million, made it look like an official legal document, had you sign it, and even had it notarized, it is NOT a contract because you didn’t receive a benefit.

Real Estate Contracts

Real estate contracts are purchase agreements for a buyer to purchase a home from a seller – they are the main legal document that governs the sale process of a home.

In most states, real estate agents have contract form templates that they use for all of their listings. These templates have sections where the relevant information can then be filled in by the buyer’s agent and presented to the seller as an offer.

If the offer is accepted by the buyer, then a valid purchase agreement (legal contract) exists.

The use of a standard contract not only makes an agent’s job easy, it also has been made to conform to the real estate laws of that particular state and ensures that the most common elements are included.

In a FSBO transaction (For Sale By Owner), the seller isn’t using an agent and won’t have access to the standard contract used by realtors in their state (this is just one of the many ways real estate agents try to force people to use them instead, and give up a lot of their money, instead of handling the sale on their own like they might for a used car).

However, since they buyer’s agent is the one that submits the contract as an offer to be considered by the seller, this isn’t usually an issue. However, if the buyer doesn’t have a realtor, the two parties may be working together to draft an agreement that works for both of them.

Because this is such an important part of the home-sale process, we have an entire chapter of the Home Solo online coursededicated to working with for sale by owner contracts.

Common Elements of a Real Estate Purchase Contract

There are some elements that will be a part of every good home purchase agreement:

Buyer / Seller – Both the buyer and seller (whether individuals or corporations/trusts) will be identified by their full legal names.

Property description – The contract should clearly identify the property that is being sold. This includes the property address and the information about the land (like plot number from the deed).

Purchase Price – The offered purchase price will be a part of the legal agreement and this might be modified as part of negotiations. This will also include how the payment will be made (e.g. cash or financing) and how much of a deposit will be made.

Title Company – The title company should be identified along with the escrow agent which will be holding any deposit (sometimes called “earnest money”).

Seller Disclosure – Although not usually in the actual legal agreement, the seller’s property condition disclosure statement, should be referenced. Sellers, be careful on this one – you have a legal and ethical obligation to disclose all things about the property for which the buyer should be aware.

FSBO Contract FAQ

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