How selling privately almost saved all the commission for one lucky Winnipeg home seller

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photo credit to kennysarmy photostream on flickr

True Story……just happened!

Kathy (not her real name) called me as it was time to sell her home. She said to me:”Bo, I luv ya, but if I can save the real estate commissions, I need to do that! I have a friend who wants to buy my house from me privately, and I’m asking for XXX Dollars. What do you think I could get for it?”

I took a look at her house and in my honest opinion, XXX Dollars sounded pretty good. I told her so :”If you can get XXX Dollars without commissions, take it. I simply can not guarantee you that amount PLUS commissions, so in this case, selling privately might be ok”. So, 3 weeks went by and I thought it was all done. Luckily for Kathy, this isn’t the end of the story.

Tried selling privately

She called me and told me that her friend could not qualify for the mortgage. So then Kathy put the house on a private sales site, and tried selling privately, and even got a few phone calls. “A few people showed up, but you could tell that none of them could afford the house. The rest of the calls were real estate agents looking to list it.” Kathy stopped short of blowing another $699 on a private sales package, which would have yielded similar results. So now it was time to ‘list’ the house on the MLS® and other sites, magazines and newspapers. Here is what happened.

REALTORS® and the MLS® produced results

In a week, Kathy’s house got 16 showings, and in the end, received numerous offers, each one higher than the original amount she was asking from her friend. The house sold for enough to cover the commission PLUS net her another $9,000 in additional profits on top of the commissions.

The moral of the story? Even though I thought I was helping Kathy when I said: “Take the friend’s offer of XXX Dollars”, there is no way to truly know how much your home is worth until it is exposed to the real estate market! Not the private buyers looking for a bargain, but the real, committed buyers who are working with agents. Yet I hear of people who, after selling privately, raise their arms in victory and declare ”I saved the commission”. Like the old saying goes ”Ignorance is Bliss”. If you don’t know how much money you COULD have gotten for your home, ‘saving’ the commission sounds like a good deal.

Kathy’s comment to me: “You made me a lot of extra money. Thank you so much, Bo.”

She won’t try selling privately again.

Buyers of Winnipeg homes need some real protection!

Word has it that our governments are working on 2 changes which are (supposedly) going to protect buyers of Winnipeg Homes in this hot real estate market. The first change involves lengthening the condo-document clause …

Publish Date: 07/25/2011 11:01

http://bokauffmann.com/2011/07/buyers-of-winnipeg-homes-need-some-real-protection/

Hot housing market in Winnipeg | Winnipeg | News | Winnipeg Sun

It’s shaping up to be yet another big year for the local housing market.

Publish Date: 07/07/2011 18:14

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2011/07/07/hot-housing-market-in-winnipeg

MONEY® Money News » WINNIPEG HOUSE PRICES CONTINUE TO RISE IN 2011

WINNIPEG, April 12 /CNW/ – Winnipeg’s real estate market continues to prosper as 2011 begins, according to the latest Royal LePage House Price Survey. The survey released today showed strong price appreciation across all …

Publish Date: 07/23/2011 14:31

http://money.ca/money/surveys/winnipeg-house-prices-continue-to-rise-in-2011/

Winnipeg Real Estate Market Update July 2011

bokauffmann.com Monthly real estate market report for Winnipeg, showing numbers of available homes and condos, and SOLD’s in Winnipeg.

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