If you’re looking to sell your house or investment property in Myrtle Beach without using a realtor, we can help.
Although we do cooperate with brokers, sometimes it’s best to avoid paying someone to be the middleman.
Paying a 6% commission to a real estate agent is a lot of money. For a $200,000 property, this reduces the net cash in your pocket by $12,000. In certain situations, SC brokers and real estate agents can be very useful and earn their commission. But not always.
How Do I Sell My House Without An Agent in Myrtle Beach?
There are a few ways to avoid paying high commissions in your SC sale.
But first, there’s a realtor fact that you should know about.
In most sales in Myrtle Beach, roughly half of the commission you pay as the seller goes to pay for the buyer’s broker. That’s usually a full 3% that you are paying to the buyer’s agent.
It sounds crazy but it happens everyday.
Luckily, 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. They will argue that since you aren’t paying the realtor commission, then they should get a deal on the price. So 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 Myrtle Beach. According to the National Association of Realtors, 88% of buyers used a realtor.
Over 90% of transactions happen through the MLS. The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is the main database that all the brokers in Myrtle Beach use to access information for their clients on the houses, condos, land and investment properties for sale, along with data on the sold prices.
Years ago, you had to pay a full commission to get your property on the MLS. Now in Myrtle Beach, there are a few brokers who will charge you a flat fee just to list your property on the MLS. The brokers won’t help you with any paperwork, negotiations, showings, etc, unless you hire them and pay them their commission. Also, remember that when you advertise your property on the MLS the buyer’s agents will be looking at it and will expect a commission for bringing you their buyers. And it may not be wise to negotiate with a buyer’s agent unless you have some representation of your own. Even so, the MLS is a cheap, no frills way to market your property to a wide audience.
All the major real estate search sites like Realtor.com, Zillow, Yahoo Homes, etc. get data from the MLS. Chances are good that when you submit your listing in Myrtle Beach to the MLS, information on your property will end up on most of the major sites within a few days.
Each of those sites sells 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 it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes open houses in Myrtle Beach SC can be a great way to sell a property, and sometimes they’re a waste of time.
Here’s something you may not know… Open houses are supposed to attract potential buyers, but often all they do is bring new clients to real estate agents. That’s because unrepresented buyers frequently go to open houses, which means potential new business for an agent. So the odds are that this will just be a waste of time. According to Investopedia, statistics show that just 6% of buyers found the home they bought by visiting an open house. So open houses seem to benefit the realtors the most. Food for thought.
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.
Certain properties might require thousands of dollars in advertising expenses before the right buyer happens to see the ad and call.
Don’t forget the buyer contingencies
Most people who purchase homes on the MLS are your average traditional home buyers. They want to find a house to live in, and they make their offers with financing and inspection contingencies. Once the buyer and seller agree on a price, that’s just the beginning of the process. Typically the buyers will higher a professional SC licensed home inspector to inspect the property. This often times leads to more negotiating, buyer credits, etc, after the inspection is complete. Be prepared to renegotiate after the inspection.
Don’t forget the loan process. Now the buyer has to submit their paperwork to their bank’s underwriter and hopefully they get approved for the loan. Remember, a pre-approval letter from a bank is just that. It isn’t the final approval, and many things can go wrong between contract and closing. Also, you have to take into consideration the fact that the bank needs to send an independent appraiser to the property to assess the value. The bank typically lends the buyer a fixed percentage of the purchase price, but it’s all dependent on the appraised value of the home. If the appraisal comes in lower than expected, the bank will usually reduce the loan amount available to the buyer. If this happens, the buyer either has to come up with more of a down-payment, or terminate the contract. This is why a cash offer is so strong.
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 close fast (in a matter of days if you need to).
Sometimes we’ll purchase Myrtle Beach houses, fix them up, then rent them out… 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 SC.
We’re investors who care a lot about Myrtle Beach. This is our home too.
We simplify the house selling process…check out our testimonials here.
We close fast and pay cash in a matter of days. Give us a call now at 843-732-3529 or fill out the short form over here.