Why You Should Consider Selling Your House Without A Real Estate Agent

Transcript:

John Stanley:
Real Estate Agents – now there’ll be Real Estate Agents listening to us, right now. They’re going to think “Hang on. Are we under attack again?” Well, have a listen to this, because the issue is how much money Real Estate Agents make selling homes. They get commissions of what, in excess of 2% of the sale price?

If you’re selling a million dollar home, which is roughly the median house price, you’re paying $22,000 to your Real Estate Agent. The Australian is reporting, this morning, that the Ray White Real Estate Group paid commissions in excess of a million dollars to 45 of its agents in the last financial year. So, you’re making $1 million plus selling real estate. There are another 278 agents earned more than $500,000 in commissions. You’re earning several times what the Prime Minister earns selling real estate in Sydney.

Would we be better off selling our homes privately, or should we be going into the real estate game?

Neil Jenman is a former Real Estate Agent. He’s now a Consumer Advocate. He’s been arguing the case for doing it yourself for a long time. He’s on the line. Neil, good morning.

Neil Jenman:
Good morning, John.

John Stanley:
Neil, thanks for joining us. I’m sure a lot of people are thinking, “Gee, I’d like to go it alone, but it just sounds all too hard.”

Selling without an agent is not as hard as you may think…

Neil Jenman:
No, it’s not hard at all. I promise you Garry, John, if I could just say to people, if they could just do 1 hour of research on the internet, typing in ‘how to sell a house without an agent’, and just read carefully and do the research. It’s the biggest financial decision that most people’ll ever make and it can mean the difference of, oh I’m not kidding you, several hundreds of thousands of dollars, if you do it the right way. Never mind what you’ll save on the commission, which you can quite easily do, but it’s also what you’ll save by a big of competency and knowing how to negotiate well.

John Stanley:
That’s what it comes down to, because a lot of people find it very, very difficult to do a tough negotiation, Neil, don’t they …

Neil Jenman:
Yes.

John Stanley:
… face-to-face?

Neil Jenman:
Well, I think they do, but it is not as tough as what you think. Real Estate Agents are supposed to be negotiators and they’ll say such things as, “I’ve been negotiating for years,” but I did a survey recently where I contacted 100 Real Estate Sales People … well, I had somebody contact 100 salespeople in Sydney, and asked them the question, “How many books have you ever read on the subject of negotiation?” The answer was none had read none. That was it. I was just staggered. When you think about what an average Real Estate Agent does, and I’m talking about the average Real Estate Agent. Now, I’m talking about the typical one, all right? What they do is, they say to the seller, “Give us some money so we can advertise,” and they put the ads on the internet. Then they sit at the house for half an hour.

Out of 168 hours in a week, they give them half an hour. They wait for the people to come through and a buyer says, “Yes, I like it,” and they say, “Thank you very much. Basically, go and see your lawyers.” I’ve narrowed it down, but, I promise you, it’s almost that simple. This business about, “Oh, you need a lot of experience,” or, “We’ve been doing it for years, and that,” it is, I promise you, it’s just not correct. In the United States, now, nearly 25% of people are selling their homes without an agent. In Australia, we’re lucky to make it 2%, because there’s an enormous amount of bluff. I mean, I’m not associated with any of these private sale companies, but many of them’ll tell you they’re not allowed to advertise in certain publications. They can’t even get their message out there.

John Stanley:
Are we seeing an increasing number of Australians really trying this, or not?

Neil Jenman:
No, not really. I think it’s getting to the point now, and particularly with this publicity today, I think Australians are going to have to start saying, “Well, hang on. What do I really get? I mean, $22,000 is what I’m paying?” I can tell you now, it takes the average Agent about 15 hours of work to put a total sale together, and that means all, everything that you have to do. I worked out the figures at … Because nationally, it’s $15,000 per home, so it works out at $1,000 an hour. And when you say, “How can you justify this?” I mean, I had an Agent say to me the other day, he said, “How much longer can we get away with this?” Get away with it.

John Stanley:
Well, we have been for some time, Neil.

Neil Jenman:
Not at these levels.

John Stanley:
… people’ll listen and they’ll wake up. Neil, thank you very much for that.

Neil Jenman:
Thank you.

John Stanley:
Neil Jenman, there. We’ll have real estate … There’ll be Real Estate Agents listening to us now, and they’re welcome to put their case. We’ll give you 60 seconds, a quick, write of reply.

Garry Linnell:
Don’t you put this in the same basket as why we don’t shift our banks and our mortgages all the time, because it’s just too hard.

******************

To comment on this article, please click here.

To contact us, please click here.

To follow Neil on Twitter, please click here.

To visit our Facebook page, please click here.

To read more Articles, please click here.

******************