All you should need is a good escrow officer that isn’t friends with the buyers agent to guide you through the process.

Many agents are not comfortable with dual agency, or their brokerage discourages or prohibits it.

If you are willing to pay a higher commission, then hire SD Realtor to represent you and have him put it on the open market so every buyer has a crack at it – which also instills maximum urgency, causing the in-love buyers to overpay.

I think this is a fact – if one couple loves it, others will too.

[quote=urbanrealtor][quote=jimklinge]Many agents are not comfortable with dual agency, or their brokerage discourages or prohibits it.

If you are willing to pay a higher commission, then hire SD Realtor to represent you and have him put it on the open market so every buyer has a crack at it – which also instills maximum urgency, causing the in-love buyers to overpay.

I think this is a fact – if one couple loves it, others will too.[/quote]

Somehow I accidentally un-ignored Jim (kidding Jim, I actually have a small shrine to you in my office).
But he is right.
Get some input from some agents and either take this offer or list the damn thing.
Most likely, if you got an offer for this with no MLS exposure, other people will offer also (and maybe for more.[/quote]

True, but these also might be the kind of “dream buyer” that sellers are all waiting for. If treehugger lists the house on the MLS, this buyer might get turned off, and not want to go through with the transaction.

I’m not a realtor, and defer to those who are WRT this issue, but if I were in treehugger’s shoes, I’d offer 2.5% to the selling (buyer’s) agent and select the escrow company/officer myself. If the deal falls through, then she can look into listing in on the MLS.

I see no reason for her to throw away an additional 2-3% on commission to a listing/dual agent if it’s not necessary. If something weird comes up, then she can hire an attorney just for that issue.

Just my 2 cents.

I am not a real estate agent, but I have sold a few houses of mine over the years through agents.

Throwing it out there on Zillow as a FSBO does not give the the highest probability of the highest price. Sure, you got someone interested and you might sell it. But if you had put it out there in the system where there are a bunch of hungry agents talking buyers into buying your house so that they can feed their family it would be exposed to more buyers and perhaps higher bids. Use their greed to your advantage. You don’t have to like the MLS system or the way its set up but you can work it to your advantage. You would get maximum exposure and you might have three bids by now.

Why go half-assed to a limited market to save 5%. The truth is that for most houses you can’t really even estimate the price to within 5% (at least that is my experience when selling my personal and rental properties over the years) until you put it out there on the market. (Unless its a fairly recent tract where the houses are still all the same)

As for waiting for the Spring to place it with an agent if it doesn’t sell as a FSBO … in my opinion the optimal time to put it on the market under the current conditions is the first week or two of February.

Here’s why :
There isn’t that much inventory right now. People are “waiting until Spring” or fixing up a few things before they put their houses on the market. They want to list in April, but Spring Break rolls around, so they put it off a few weeks. Then it’s May and they finally get it out there. Pretty soon its June and all of a sudden you have tons of properties coming on the market, your competition gets harder.

Just my 2 cents.

P.S. – Don’t know your reason for selling, but I wouldn’t be selling in this market unless you are moving up or out and need the cash from the sale to do so.

Agreed Jim, late January/early Feb is a great time to list. Personally I think this spring is going to be pretty active as well due to limited inventory of quality.

Treehugger getting an attorney is fine. That probably would constitute enough representation for a cooperating brokerage to work with you and there should be no problem but you need to see if the buyers agent broker will agree to that. Again, it just depends on how risk averse that broker is. Having an attorney simply review a purchase agreement verses representing you may not be enough for the other broker. You are arguing your case to the wrong people, contact the broker and if he is cool with it then you are good to go!

The other point that others brought up is that you may be perhaps limiting your exposure. Really what is most important to you is what you net correct? So if you get a higher sales price that covers the higher commission wouldn’t that suffice? There are no gaurantees but that is the point.

This is not the argument of what good is a listing agent for and why should I pay that commission. I understand that argument and that dovetails into the whole discussion about the entire real estate model and its current faults.

So given that as a starting point, there are simply 2 issues here.

1 – If you feel that there is not a potential to fetch a higher price using the MLS to cover the commission costs then that is fine.

2 – If you have verified with the buyers agent that his brokerage will co-op with you given your representation model, then you are good to go. Seems like a quick call to the buyers broker will answer this question.

[quote=sdduuuude]Also consider this – if the agent doesn’t want to deal with an FSBO, but you have direct access to the buyers. Tell the buyers to tell the agent to either deal with you or step aside and do a direct seller-to-owner deal. Then you get the escrow agent to manage everything and neither buyer nor seller is represented. I have done this before and the process is remarkably smooth when there are not two agents involved who are trying to manage not only their clients’ needs, but are also trying to limit their own liability. A surprising amount of the paperwork involved is there to protect the agents.[/quote]

Very true. I’ve done a number of deals with and without agents, and it was always smoother without an agent. That’s not to say that agents aren’t necessary. They are absolutely essential when buying or selling in an unfamiliar market or when you don’t have enough time to deal with buyers/sellers yourself. It’s just that by inserting people with different interests into the middle of a transaction, things can get lost in translation, and the deal often becomes adversarial.

You’re also right about the paperwork. It feels like 80-90% of it is for the agent’s/broker’s protection — there is a lot more paperwork when dealing with agents. Case in point: a land sale we made in another state done without an agent. Total number of pages involved in the transaction: 1 1/2. One was the warranty deed, and the other was a half sheet of paper asking for my social security number. That was it. The money was wired into my account the next day. I kept waiting for lightening to strike or something. It was strange to be involved in a transaction that required so little paperwork.

Treehugger has no obligation to this agent. If the agent/broker doesn’t want to cooperate, then the buyer can work directly with the seller or seek other representation. I’m not even sure why treehugger would want to talk to the broker. It’s the buyer’s issue to deal with, not treehugger’s.