On Fri, 3 Jun 2016 21:41:24 -0500 "Kaleb C. Striplin via Mercedes" <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:
> Holy crap, what is the commission rate on listings there? Its usually > 6% here. Commission rate here is 3%/3%. We had the house listed on Zillow for $364,500. The first agent who brought someone by started her presentation by saying, "You're not going to be happy about this." She ended up presenting an offer for $310,000 from some people who needed to move in quickly so they could get set up to foster children. The things she related they said just didn't make sense, so we hesitated. Then the husband of the couple who wanted to buy it contacted me directly. His contacts put us off even more. We finally told him we did not want to sell to him. The second couple who wanted to buy our house found it by the sign I had put out in front. They were a Chinese couple who came through the house three times with her parents, who spoke no English. The four of them walked through the house jabbering to each other in Chinese. One time, the husband asked me what was the lowest price I would take. I told him if they didn't use a real estate agent, I would require $330,000. If they used an agent, I would require $340,000. Their agent brought their offer over for $310,000, with a 3% commission, plus the gross receipts tax on top of that. We said no. The couple came over again, this time to present their sob story and plead with us to sell it to them for their price. The wife said she was a light sleeper and the forced-air heat system made too much noise, so they would have to change it to a hydronic system, which would cost more than $25,000. She really tried to put a guilt trip on us. Note, though, that the house is built on a slab. We again said, "NO!" A few months later, an older couple stopped by to inquire about the house. When I showed them around the house, the husband remarked how quiet the heating system was. They lived down the mesa about a mile from us and were scouting for their daughter and son-in-law. The son-in-law was possibly going to get a job offer from the Lab, thus needing to move from Texas, and they were scouting for them. The older couple were quite taken with the house and the remodel I had done and said they would tell their son-in-law and daughter about it. A while later I got a call from the daughter. She said her husband had gotten the job offer and that the Lab wanted him there quickly, so he was going to come look at houses the next weekend. He was brought to our house by his mother-in-law. As I was showing him around the house and the 0.6 acre yard, the mother-in-law sat at the dining room table and talked with Shirley. She told Shirley her son-in-law had another house to look at, but that she was going to push ours. A couple of days later, I got a call from the son-in-law. He wanted to come over and talk with me about making an offer. When he came over, we discussed whether he should use an agent, since it was his first time buying a house. I told him we had done it many times and that the title company was the center of the transaction. He agreed to not use an agent and offered $335,550. Shirley and I accepted. The next day, he and I met at the lobby of the local bank and walked into the title company's office. Motioning to him, I told the lady there, "This young man wants to buy my house." She responded, "And you're here because you don't know what to do ..." I replied, "Yes, it's not like we do this every day." She said, "Well, we do do this every day and we will help you through the process." She was true to her word. She got us a contract form and, with her guidance, he and I worked through each item of it, haggling about who would pay what and coming to agreement. It was such a pleasure working directly with the buyer! At one point in the process, he remarked that it was a pleasure working directly with the seller. For example, he and his family arrived in Los Alamos about a week before closing (staying at her parent's house). He was having some cars shipped from Texas to Los Alamos and called up to ask if he could have them put out of the way at the back of our lot before closing. I said, "Sure, no problem." I found out they were not going to move into the house until two days after closing, so I asked him if we could stay until then. He said, "Sure, no problem." Can you imagine the difficulty of getting those things done with going through two agents? Anyway, that's how it went ... Craig > On 6/3/2016 9:37 PM, Craig via Mercedes wrote: > > On Fri, 3 Jun 2016 20:49:16 -0400 Dan Penoff via Mercedes > > <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > > > >> This is also why, for many years, we have often forgone the use of a > >> realtor and used a good real estate attorney and a home inspection > >> company, along with doing our due diligence. > > We sold our house in Los Alamos without a realtor involved in the > > transaction and netted $25k more than selling to those buyers realtors > > brought by. _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
