If you’re looking to sell your house or investment property in the North East without using an estate agent, 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 2-3% of the sale of a property in a commission is a lot of money, especially when you consider you’re other options. Of course, North East brokers and real estate agents can be very useful and earn their commission. Not always. It really depends on your particular circumstances, condition of the property, and the motivations behind the sale.
Consider it this way; we are always buying houses from agents. The vendor won’t know it’s us, but if they did they would have saved all of that commission by coming to us direct. The price we pay for the property doesn’t change whether we are buying through an agent, or when approached by the vendor directly. So what it means is, that 2-3% you’re paying your agent could be in your back pocket. Then throw in the fact that we also cover all legal costs, and there’s another 1-2% to you too! Using an agent will often see you referred to their solicitors, and then you’ll be paying their markup on top too!
How Do I Sell My House Without An Agent in the North East?
There are a few ways to avoid paying the high commissions in your North East sale.
First, there’s a tricky custom that you’ve got to know about.
In most sales in the North East, 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 the North East, 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 the North East.
Advertising is a gamble. Sometimes open houses in the North East can be a great way to sell a property, and sometimes they’re a waste of time. Same with newspaper ads, craigslist postings, fancy signs – sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t. It really comes down to how you advertise that you’re actually running something like this!
To effectively sell your property on your own, you have to market it well.
Putting up fliers and signs around your neighbourhood can generate some calls, and there’s a lot of free websites where you can post information. A good place to start for these things would be Gumtree they’ve now branched into advertising property online too! So too can Facebook Marketplace, although this isn’t quite as “set-up” as Gumtree. But often just putting up flyers and an open house, along with some free ads online 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.
Certain properties might require thousands of pounds in advertising expenses before the right buyer happens to see the ad and call. This is just economies of scale, and is the premise upon which most agents work. However, as this article states – that doesn’t mean it works for everyone in every circumstance!
If you want to avoid paying any commissions, you can also sell your house to investors like us for CASH
We pay fair prices for properties – and we can complete fast (in as little as 3-5 days if you need to).
We’ll purchase North East houses, fix them up, then rent them out, that’s what we do day in day out. We buy them through agents, through online ads, and through this website too. It’s our bread and butter. We love to hear from people like you who are thinking of selling anywhere in North East.
We’re investors who care a lot about the North East. We are so passionate about giving back to the area, and the rentals we put out there are truly outstanding! Just get in touch if you would like to see any of them 🙂
We complete fast and pay cash in as little as just 3-5 days. Give us a call now at 0191 462 0160 or fill out the short form over here.