How to Keep Your Real Estate Fees Down When Selling

Thinking of selling your home through a real estate agency? There is a lot more to think about than just getting the price you want.

Commissions for sales, agents fee's, marketing costs (both online and traditional) can all add up. You need to know which fee's you can negotiate with your real estate agent and which costs you are just going to have to carry.

Here are 3 simple tips to keeping the cost of doing business with a real estate agent down.

1. Say No to Marketing and Advertising Costs

Very few homes sell on the advertising and marketing alone. Most buyers will visit your neighbourhood and they will want to speak directly to you or your agent.

If your agent starts asking for advertising dollars, starts talking about search engine optimization and online marketing costs in order to sell a home through Google or other major search engines, just say no.

You are not there to pay for the agents marketing efforts.

2. Critique Standard Agency Agreements

One of the worst things you can do is blindly sign a “standard” selling agreement. many people wanting to sell their home quickly make this mistake. They sign up with a real estate agent without thinking about what's in the agreement.

Once you sign the agreement, you are in the hands of the agent. You have lost control. Realtors may tell you that their agreement is standard contract. By this they mean according to their standard, not necessarily yours.

Be careful. An agent’s selling agreement is a legal contract. Treat it seriously. Find out what costs are embedded in the contract. You may be surprised. If they become awkward about the time you are taking to read the agreement you are probably on to something that is less than honest, and potentially expensive for you, the seller.

3. Negotiate the Commission

Once you have paid off your mortgage, the next biggest cost is usually the real estate agents commission. Let's be honest, this is their bread and butter, but it's also your money. So, negotiate.

Negotiating the commission you pay to your real estate agent can be one of the most effective ways for you to reduce the cost of selling your home.

In a regular real estate exchange, each party works with his or her own real estate agent. But it's the seller who usually pays the estate agents commission for both using the proceeds of the sale.

When you arrange to have your house sold through a real estate, you will have an opportunity to negotiate the amount of commission that both real estate agents will receive. This amount is set as a percentage of your sales price. For example, in the majority of cases the selling agent might anticipate a commission of 6%, to be split 50-50 with the buyer's agent (who will therefore receive 3%).

By reducing the commission by as little as 0.5%, you could save yourself a considerable amount of money. Using the above example, reducing the commission by as little as 0.5% on a $400,000 sale you could find yourself $2,000 richer at the end of the day.

Some research has revealed that sellers who negotiate to reduce their real estate commission have done so without reducing the quality of seller agents services. Remember, your agent wants your business and most reasonable agents will work with you to find some happy medium when it comes to real estate commissions.

One more thing, a major ingredient in any successful partnership is trust. Before you choose your real estate agent, ask many questions, check references, ask for a guarantee, test their negotiating skills and ask yourself a very important question question: Are you willing to trust this agent in handling the sale of your house?

If your answer is ‘no’, then don't engage the agent.

However, once you decide on an agent, give that agent your trust and confidence. Don't be forever second guessing them. Allow your agent to make the decisions they need to make in order to find the right buyer for your home. Remember, they have a stake in this sale as well.