Cabal there is not a whole lot of constructive advice I can add to the commentary however I will type just for the sake of typing.
I used to own a flat fee franchise, Help U Sell. There were two sides to the sword. First off, they are not flat fee, or were not when I worked with them. The flat fee actually depends on your sales price and that fee generally went from 1.2-1.4% on the listing side. Furthermore each franchise was free to set thier own pricing. This was very problematic as people would call me asking why my franchise priced the way it did when the guy a few miles from me priced however he priced. Anyways I went out on my own after I sold the franchise and I can price however I want which is by far the best way to go.
I found that the staff at the HUS franchises were all decent. Some were much better then the “full service” guys and some were not.
Assist to Sell is another alternative. I have had a transaction with them and it went well. I know the owner of the Assist to sell in the north county and she is pretty good. I am not sure how there pricing model is to be honest.
A few years back I did a deal with an I PAY 1 agent and she was very good.
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Recently I have been involved with alot of transactions with Prudential… not a big fan of them and in one recent one my clients did end up filing a complaint with the BBB. I will not go into details.
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My suggestions for your listing agent would be to interview a few different listing agents and by all means call on thier previous clients to get impressions of what the clients thought. To me this is more important then anything else.
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Your house will indeed sell if it shows well and you price it right. Otherwise you could be in for a long time on the market. Your full service agent will tell you when you are interviewing, about how every marketing means is important. You can ask him to provide stats about how many sales each marketing tool provided. I would say that most of the time you will be met with a blank stare or an excuse that the data is not tracked. Quite frankly to me this is BS. Anyone who runs a business knows that tracking your marketing results is about the most important thing a business owner can do.
To me, having an agent that gives you unbiased information is quite important. Having an agent that cherry picks comps to support your desired asking price hurts you in the long run. That agent should show you everything, sales, cancelled and expireds, pendings, etc… You may not like the look of the data but it is by far the most important tool to help you price the home adequately. That same agent should be able to give you pointers as to what is worth fixing up and what is not. In this market you will not get back dollar for dollar what you put into the home. However getting the home sold in this market is more important than getting stuck with the home if you really want to sell it.
As sdr said, your agent will want to hawk the buyers when you do get into escrow. For instance making sure that on the RPA the response time on a notice to perform is as minimal as possible is a good thing. Most buyers will try to put 48 or in some instances 72 hours in this spot. Your agent should catch that.
As for the coop commission, my recommendation would be to stay competitive with your competition. I strongly discourage offering an unusually high coop commission and offering a below market coop commission in this market is downright foolish. Find out what the active comps you are competing against are offering and match them. Price competitively so that buyers will have a clear vision as to what is the better deal and better home for them.
Anyways shop around and be diligent. Getting your home on the market by early to mid February at latest would be good.
