From: egreen@east.sun.com (Ed Green - Pixel Cruncher)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
Subject: Re: Getting Ready to Sell House
Date: 20 Nov 1992 15:46:30 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, RTP, NC
Distribution: world
Reply-To: egreen@east.sun.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: laser.east.sun.com

In article D4v@magpie.nycenet.edu, manes@magpie.nycenet.edu (Steve Manes) writes:
>Ed Green - Pixel Cruncher (egreen@east.sun.com) wrote:
>
>: How about otherwise reasonably priced houses
>: whose asking price is artifically inflated 6% to cover agents' fees?
>
>This infers that owner-represented homes have asking prices 6% less
>than agency-represented homes, which I didn't see even once.  Unless
>you're a naive buyer, before you make any bid on a home you've
>already studied what similar houses in the area have recently sold
>for; their asking prices and their sales prices. 

Exactly.  The challenge in any negotiation is to separate the asking
price fluff from the real selling price.  Doing your homework as you
describe prepares you for that.  For a listed house, that's it, that's
what you pay.  For a FSBO, that is just the starting point, there is
another 6% to be considered.  Since your "comps" were done on
agent-listed houses, their selling price is 6% over what the seller
walked away with.  The smart buyer will negotiate for ~half of that
delta with the FSBO.  The seller is still walking away with 3% more
than what his neighbor did (for the same selling price), and the buyer
is getting another 3% off the price, which will pay for itself several
times if financed.  

Of course the *asking* price is no different from listed houses, but
the potential *selling* price (for a smart buyer) is.  The RE fee is
real money, folks!  Everybody likes to think somebody else is paying
it, but it *does* get paid.  If it is not going to a RE agent, IMHO, it
is fair game for negotiation.  With housing prices what they are, we're
not talking about a small chunk of change, either.

>: 2. Hire a professional to inspect the house and the addition, and
>: certify that it conforms to the local building code (something I would
>: do with *any* house I was serious about buying, anyway).
>
>Unless you're paying cash for the house, any mortgage lender will
>insist that the house be inspected by a licensed housing inspector
>prior to contract, for everything from code violations to termites
>to a leaky roof.  

Not around here.  My lender got a survey and appraisal, and told me I
had to get a termite report.  That was all.  I had a structrual
engineer ispect the house from top to bottom, and I got the seller to
fix several items, but none of that was required by the lender.

>In this r/e market (the northeast), it looks like one out of every
>five homes is actively for sale. 

Several people have told me this in e-mail.  I guess if you have the
misfortune to live in the Northeast  :^)  you really do need a RE agent
due to the sheer number of houses on the market.  That may well be true
in any heavy urban areas, but it is certainly not the case in general.

---
Ed Green, former Ninjaite |I was drinking last night with a biker,
  Ed.Green@East.Sun.COM   |and I showed him a picture of you.  I said,
DoD #0111  (919)460-8302  |"Go on, get to know her, you'll like her!"
 (The Grateful Dead) -->  |It seemed like the least I could do...