If you’re looking to sell your house or investment property in Virginia without using a real estate agent, we can help you navigate the process.
Although we do cooperate with brokers and understand their value, sometimes it’s best to avoid paying someone to be in the middle of your transaction. This approach can save you significant money and give you more control over the sale.
After all, paying 5-6% of the sale price of a property in commission is a substantial amount of money that could stay in your pocket. In certain situations, Virginia brokers and real estate agents can be very useful and earn their commission through their expertise and network. However, this isn’t always the case, and many homeowners find they can successfully sell their property without professional representation.
How Do I Sell My House Without An Agent in Virginia?
There are several effective strategies to avoid paying high commissions in your Virginia sale while still achieving a successful transaction.
First, there’s a tricky custom in the real estate industry that you’ve gotta know about before you start the selling process.
In most sales throughout Virginia, roughly half of the commission you pay as the seller goes to pay for the buyer’s broker. This means you’re essentially funding the representation on both sides of the transaction.
Doesn’t make much sense, right? It’s one of those industry practices that seems counterintuitive when you first learn about it.
Why should you, as the seller, pay for the agent on the other side of the table who is working to negotiate against your interests? It’s a fair question that many sellers ask.
Truthfully, it defies logic – it’s just what’s typically done in the traditional real estate market. This practice has been standard for decades, even though it may not seem fair to sellers.
However, you can use this knowledge to your advantage in a few strategic ways when selling your Virginia property.
First, factor in the commissions paid when you’re looking at the comparable sales in your area. If the properties similar to yours sold for prices that included commissions, take that into account when setting your asking price. This will help you price competitively while accounting for your savings.
Don’t underprice your property – be aware that a savvy buyer may expect to take a discount too if they know you’re not paying agent commissions. If you’re doing the work of one agent, you can expect to save that money, but buyers may want to share in those savings.
Sometimes throughout Virginia, buyers who aren’t represented by an agent won’t remember to negotiate the buyer’s side commission out of the price for themselves, so don’t remind them if you don’t want to pay them. Just don’t be surprised if it comes up during the negotiation phase of your sale.
You may want to consider offering 2.5% to buyer’s agents who will bring their clients to show your property. Sure, it’s a lot of money, but it can significantly expand your pool of potential buyers. If you’re pricing your property including that commission, you can always negotiate a better deal for a purchaser who comes without an agent, potentially splitting the savings.
On the other hand, if you don’t leave room for the buyer’s agent’s commission in your pricing strategy, you’ll be excluding most of the buyers in the market throughout Virginia. This could significantly limit your potential buyer pool and extend your time on the market.
Over 90% of real estate transactions happen through the MLS – that’s the Multiple Listing Service. It’s the main database that all the brokers throughout Virginia use to access comprehensive information for their clients on the houses, condos, land and investment properties for sale, along with detailed data on the sold prices and market trends.
Once upon a time, you had to pay a full commission to get your property listed on the MLS. Now throughout Virginia, there are a few brokers who will charge you a flat fee just to list your property on the MLS. Often, you spend a few hundred bucks upfront and you only pay a commission if the sale closes, making it a low-risk option for sellers.
Compared to the cost of a newspaper ad or other traditional marketing methods, the MLS is an incredibly cheap way to market your property to a very wide audience of active buyers and real estate professionals.
All the major real estate search sites like Realtor.com, Zillow, Yahoo Homes, Trulia, and others get their data feeds directly from the MLS. Chances are good that when you submit your listing throughout Virginia to the MLS, information on your property will end up on most of the major sites within a few days, giving you massive exposure.
Each of those sites sells advertising opportunities. They’ve got packages that let you pay to enhance your listing, feature it at the top of the search results, and a lot of other bells and whistles that might or might not get an interested buyer to purchase your property. Consider your budget and marketing strategy carefully.
Advertising is a gamble, and there’s no guaranteed formula for success. Sometimes open houses throughout Virginia can be a great way to sell a property and generate multiple offers, and sometimes they’re a waste of time with few serious buyers. Same with newspaper ads, craigslist postings, fancy signs, and social media marketing – sometimes they work brilliantly, and sometimes they don’t produce results.
To effectively sell your property on your own, you have to market it well and consistently.
Putting up fliers and signs around your neighborhood can generate some calls from local buyers, and there’s a lot of free websites where you can post detailed information about your property. But often just putting up flyers and hosting an open house isn’t enough if your house doesn’t appeal to the average home buyer or if you’re in a competitive market.
In theory, real estate agents charge big commissions because they have to spend a lot of money up front to advertise your property across multiple channels. By advertising lots of properties at once, they expect to get more phone calls – and obviously, they’ll make good profits by selling lots of houses. They also bring expertise in pricing, negotiation, and closing processes.
Certain properties might require thousands of dollars in advertising expenses before the right buyer happens to see the ad and call to schedule a showing. This is especially true for unique properties or those in slower markets.
If you want to avoid paying any commissions, you can also sell your house to investors like us for CASH
We offer fair prices for properties throughout Virginia – and we can close fast (in as little as 3-5 days if you need to). This option eliminates the uncertainty and hassle of traditional sales.
Sometimes we’ll purchase houses throughout Virginia, fix them up, then rent them out to quality tenants… sometimes we’ll fix them up and sell them to other people looking for great homes in the area, and a lot of other reasons, too – but we love to hear from people like you who are thinking of selling anywhere in Virginia. Every property has potential value.
We’re investors who care a lot about communities throughout Virginia and believe in revitalizing neighborhoods one property at a time.
We close fast and pay cash in as little as just 3-5 days, with no financing contingencies or inspection issues. Give us a call now at 804-999-4516 or fill out the short form over here to get your free, no-obligation cash offer.