AGENT FEES
WHY AVOIDING PAYING FEES COULD BE A FALSE ECONOMY
B Y C H R I S G R A Y, C E O, YO U R E M P I R E
No one likes paying fees. Our parents idea of wealth creation was to ‘look after the pennies and the pennies will look after the pounds’ and ‘why pay someone else, if you can do it yourself?’ Their generation was very much about doing everything yourself and controlling how much money you spent. Times have changed though.
a specialist that does that particular
advert, open up your home, write
We don’t repair TVs and washing
task all day every day and can do it
down some names and numbers
machines these days, we simply
better than you in half the time.
and then agree a price. If it’s your
throw them away and buy a new one as labour is so expensive and technology changes so quickly, it would be out of date anyway.
When it comes to property, paying fees can be a very expensive exercise given that a typical sales agent charges 2% + GST which
home, surely, you’re going to negotiate harder than an agent who just wants to move on to the next listing?
In a similar vein, the thought
can add up to $25k - $30k on a
There is some logic in that thought,
process of today is that you can’t
$1m property when you add in the
however the reality is, most buyers
be an expert at everything and so
advertising and auction fees. That
don’t like discussing buying
you’re better off spending an extra
can lead some sellers to be tempted
a property with an owner. They feel
hour doing what you do best at
to try and sell their own home.
they can’t speak openly about the
your job and outsource a task to
How hard can it be? Put up an
pros and cons for fear of insulting the seller and the owner might tell them anything to get a sale. That’s why so few properties are on the ‘for sale by owner' sites. Sure, there may be more in regional or remote areas, but you don’t get many around the more expensive city areas as buyers like to go with the norm. Not that anyone really cares, but sales agents do actually work hard, and they put in more hours than a typical blue-collar worker or suit in the city. They are often doing deals late at night or on the weekends
C21 MARKET PULSE
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CENTURY 21
