If you have been searching “how do I sell my house without an agent in Alberta?”, we can help! Although we do cooperate with brokers, sometimes it’s best to avoid paying someone to be in the middle. After all, paying 4-6% of the sale of a property in a commission is a lot of money. In certain situations, Alberta brokers and real estate agents can be very useful and earn their commission. Not always.
How Do I Sell My House Without An Agent in Alberta?
There are a few ways to avoid paying high commissions in your Alberta sale.
First, there’s a tricky custom that you’ve gotta know about.
In most sales in Alberta, roughly half of the commission you pay as the seller goes to pay for the buyer’s broker.
Doesn’t make much sense, right?
Why should you pay for the agent on the other side of the table?
Truthfully, it defies logic – it’s just what’s typically done.
You can use that to your advantage in a few ways.
First, factor in the commissions paid when you’re looking at the comparable sales. If the properties similar to yours sold for prices that included commissions, take that into account.
Don’t underprice your property – be aware that a savvy buyer may expect to take a discount too. If you’re doing the work of one agent, you can expect to save that money.
Sometimes in Alberta, 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.
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. If you’re pricing your property including that commission, you can always negotiate a better deal for a purchaser who comes without an agent.
On the other hand, if you don’t leave room for the buyer’s agent’s commission, you’ll be excluding most of the buyers in the market in Alberta.
Over 90% of transactions happen through the MLS – that’s the Multiple Listing Service. It’s the main database that all the brokers in Alberta use to access information for their clients on the houses, condos, land and investment properties for sale, along with data on the sold prices.
All the major real estate search sites like Realtor.com, House Sigma, etc. get data from the MLS. Chances are good that when you submit your listing in Alberta to the MLS, information on your property will end up on most of the major sites within a few days.
Each of those sites sell ads. They’ve got packages that let you pay to enhance your listing, feature it at the top of the search, and a lot of other bells and whistles that might or might not get an interested buyer to buy your property.
Advertising is a gamble. Sometimes open houses in Alberta can be a great way to sell a property, and sometimes they’re a waste of time. Same with newspaper ads, fancy signs – sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t.
To Effectively Sell Your Property On Your Own, You Have to Market it Well
Putting up fliers and signs around your neighborhood can generate some calls, and there’s a lot of free websites where you can post information. But often just putting up flyers and an open house isn’t enough if your house doesn’t appeal to the average home buyer.
In theory, real estate agents charge big commissions because they have to spend a lot of money up front to advertise your property. 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 invest their own time and money to ensure that they find the right buyers for the properties that they are selling, often also spending money on marketing to make sure that your property has as many eyes as possible on it. If you are selling your property yourself, without an agent, then you may have to think about how you can get traction to your property, and how you can make it stand out against the ones in your neighbourhood that are listed on the MLS with agents.
Certain properties might require thousands of dollars in advertising expenses before the right buyer happens to see the ad and call. Websites like Kijiji are often used by homeowners who are looking to sell their property privately, and using the ‘Featured’ and ‘Boost Option’ of the website is one way your property’s listing can stand out.
Sell Your House For Cash To Investors – Avoid Commissions
The other way to sell your house privately is to sell it to someone who only buys properties privately! Cash house buyers are looking for home owners who do not want to go through the hassle of listing their property with an agent and spending time and money on the whole process. Cash home buyers like Alberta Property Buyers can offer a quick sale if that is something you are looking for; they will buy your property from you in the condition that it is in right now, and you can avoid paying any holding costs or commissions and even negotiate closing costs!
At Alberta Property Buyers, we pay fair prices for properties – and we can close fast.
Sometimes we’ll purchase Alberta houses, fix them up, and then rent them out; sometimes we’ll fix them up and sell them to other people looking for great homes in the area. But our main focus is on finding home owners who fit the buying model we have in place and where we can help them in return as well by solving their dilemma or situation. Cash buyers can be quite a good resource for those who don’t want to sell their house with an agent.