All Forum Posts by: Zee Anon

Hi Nate,

I know this thread is rather old, but there's been a LOT of incorrect information here, and since this was one of the first things that popped up when I google searched it, I want to jump in to help educate other people who may still be viewing this thread.

You can ABSOLUTELY save money by not using a realtor! I'll go into more detail below and address a lot of the points brought up in this thread

The 5-6% is indeed negotiated between the seller and their agent before a sale. I would not simply go in there and offer less based off the fact that you don't have an agent. As far as the seller is concerned, they still have to pay the same amount. As @David Faulkner mentioned above, this can be beneficial to motivating the sellers agent to close the deal on your behalf. I move around quite often and I'm very picky about where I live, so I use this strategy quite often in order to ensure I get what I want.

Here's what you CAN DO to save money -- come in with an offer, and ask them to credit 3% of your would-be realtor fee towards the purchase price (if you want to incentivize the sellers agent still, you can tell them to credit you 2% and the sellers agent keeps an extra 1%). Everything is up for negotiation, and frankly if your offer comes out to the same amount as somebody else once the fee is accounted for, they have no reason not to accept. I've used this strategy before successfully and everybody walks away a winner.

Every time I go to a showing without a realtor, the sellers agent attempts to convince me to use them if I go to another property, and says "You're not saving any money by not using a realtor, might as well use one". That's the narrative they keep trying to tell us, and many have tried to tell you in this thread. This is simply not true. I wish this information was more mainstream, but seeing as it would seriously harm the existence of realtors, I can see why there's very little known about it.

Redfin even wrote an article agreeing with me
https://www.redfin.com/blog/everything-to-know-about-buying-a-home-without-a-real-estate-agent/


To add some disclaimers, you need to know what you're doing in order to use this strategy, and I'd only advise people with the time + knowledge to do any real estate deals without a realtor. For those of us who don't need one though, do not use them -- it is money wasted on an unnecessary middleman. Pocket the extra cash yourself. Nothing against realtors, I'm just tired of "middleman industries" taxing consumers (care sales are a great example).