If you are looking at your options on how to sell my house without an agent in Kansas City, we’ll be able to help!
Even though we do sometimes cooperate with agents and brokers, sometimes it’s best if you can avoid paying the middleman, especially when that means more money back in your pocket. At the end of the day, paying 6% of the sale of your home in commissions sure is a ton of money to miss out on. We do believe that in some situations, the money spent on paying an agent may be well spent and they really do earn their commission. However, more often than not, that simply isn’t the case. Keep reading to learn how to sell my house without an agent in Kansas City.
Here are some ways on how to sell my house without an agent in Kansas City:
However, before we get into that, it’s important for you to know just exactly how commission splits work and where the money is going. In the majority of home sales in Kansas City, about half the commission that you pay never even goes to your realtor. Instead, it goes to the agent of the buyer – that is, the agent that is working against you.
It doesn’t make too much sense, does it?
Why are you expected to pay the agent that’s working against you? Truly, it goes against logic – but it’s what is common and by this point, accepted. However, the silver lining is that can be used in your favor in a few different ways.
First, when you are looking at what other properties in your neighborhood have sold for in recent sales, it’s important that you account for the commissions. If the seller of the comparable sale used a realtor, they need to take that into account and subtract it from the sales price. This makes sure that we are comparing apples to apples.
It’s important that you do not underprice your house.
Most buyers are looking to try and get a discount, so if you list with a realtor you need to be prepared to get offers for less than your asking price. But if you aren’t using an agent then you can expect to save that money.
What’s important to know, the buyers who are not represented by a realtor don’t ever think to leverage that point and negotiate the price down for themselves, so they don’t bring it up! Just don’t be too surprised if that comes up during negotiation.
You might consider offering 2.5% to the buyer’s agents since they will bring clients and show your house. But still, it is a big cost. If you price your property to include the commission, it gives you more leveraging power to negotiate when a buyer comes who is not using an agent.
But, if you don’t leave any room for the buyer’s agent to receive a commission, then that’ll cause you to exclude most of the buyers in the Kansas City market (or any market for that matter). That is because…
9 out of 10 transactions are accomplished through the MLS.
The MLS, or, the Multiple Listing Service. That’s the main database of all the houses that are for sale, which all brokers in Kansas City use to find information for their clients.
Back in the day, you needed to pay full commission in order to get your house on the MLS. These days, it isn’t common for a broker to charge you a fee to place your house on the MLS. It is common practice for you to only spend a couple hundred bucks and then, of course, pay the commission if the sale does close.
As opposed to some other way to market your property (for instance say, a newspaper ad) the MLS is a relatively cheap way to gain exposure to such a large audience. The great part about getting your house on the MLS is that means it will soon be picked up by other major real estate sites like Realtor.com, Zillow, Redfin, and Trulia, which all automatically pull data from the MLS. There is a good chance that one of these sites will pick up your listing and have it appear on their websites a few days after your house is listed on the MLS.
Advertising is a gamble.
Sometimes, a Kansas City open house can be a great way to show property, but more often than not, they are a waste of time. More than anything they are a trick by real estate agents to get leads to buyers. That’s why they are always so intent on taking down information of the people who stopped by. Same thing with the newspaper ads, and fancy signs – sometimes they’ll work, and other times they won’t.
Marketing is the key component when you are looking to sell your house without an agent.
You will need to place signs and flyers all around the neighborhood to start generating calls. There are also a few free websites where you can advertise such as Craigslist. But most of the time just placing flyers and holding an open house won’t be enough, especially if your house cannot appeal to the average buyer.
This is why realtors can charge hefty commissions – because they will be spending quite a lot of resources and money upfront to get the word out about your house. Certain properties may require several thousand dollars in marketing expenses before being able to locate the right buyer.
If you don’t want to pay any commissions at all then you can sell your property to Busy Beaver Homes
We pay fair prices for houses all throughout the Kansas City Metro – and we close quickly (in only 10 days if need be).
Sometimes we’ll buy Kansas City houses to do all of the work and then resell to another nice family, and then other houses we will keep for our rental portfolio and rent out to tenants. The point is, we buy a lot of houses and help a lot of people so we are confident that we can help you, too! Even if you are still on the fence about this process and you would like to weigh out your options for how to sell your property, we’d love to hear from you and we will help in any way that we can!
We’re a company that cares a lot about the people of Kansas City – our city! Check out our Testimonials page to see what other happy sellers are saying!
We can close quickly, we pay cash and you can have your money in as fast as 10 days. Call us now at 816-226-6797 or fill out our quick form here.