Even though real estate agents can get you great offers on your home, not every home seller can afford to wait months for buyers to come along — or to pay that hefty 5% commission once you close the deal. This might have you wondering, “How do I sell my house without an agent in Stockton?
Yes, you absolutely can — and we can help. Cutting out the “middleman” and doing a direct sale either by yourself or directly to a house buying company can be a financially savvy move if you need to sell your Stockton house fast. We’ll break all of this down in this guide.
How Do I Sell My House Without An Agent in Stockton?
It’s always a good idea to avoid real estate agent commissions if possible. Beyond making months of utilities and mortgage payments while you wait for your home to sell, you also have to cut a big check to your agent. What can you do?
First, it’s important to know that during most home sales in Stockton, half the commission paid to a seller goes to the buyer’s broker. It doesn’t’ make a lot of sense, but it’s a custom that has persisted. How can you use this to your advantage? For one, you can factor in the commissions paid while looking at similar sales. If houses sold for prices that included commissions, take that into account to increase your earnings.
Don’t underprice your house: Keep in mind that buyers are always looking for a discount. If you’re selling your home without being represented by an agent, it’s important to remember to negotiate the buyer’s side commission out of the price for themselves. You may want to offer something like 2.5% to buyer’s agents when they show your property to their clients. That’s a lot of money, but if you include it in your asking price, then you can always negotiate a better deal for a purchaser who comes without an agent. 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 Stockton.
Over 90% of transactions happen through the MLS: The MLS stands for Multiple Listing Service. This is the database that every broker in CA looks at get their clients information about properties and sale prices. You used to have to pay a full commission if you wanted to feature your house on the MLS, but now you can get a broker to do it for a small fee or spend a few hundred bucks and you only pay a commission if you close the deal.
Maybe that sounds pricey, but it’s a lot less expensive than buying a long-term newspaper ad. Better yet, all of those real estate search websites like Zillow, Yahoo Homes, Realtor, and plenty more get their information from the MLS. That means once you get listed, you might pop up on those websites. That means plenty of interested buyers will stumble upon your Stockton home while browsing the web.
Advertising is a gamble. If you want more exposure, you can buy marketing platforms from the websites to make your listing more appealing, show it to a wider audience, feature it at the top of a search, and plenty more. Of course, advertising isn’t a sure-fire strategy to sell your home. You can market a house showing all you want, but open houses in Stockton CA won’t always help you sell your home. The same goes for ads in the paper, posting on sites like craigslist, or posting signs around the area.
To effectively sell your property on your own, you have to market it well.
If you’re still wondering “How do I sell my house without an agent in Stockton CA?”, so far we’ve covered some basic pricing information and a bit on marketing. Ultimately, marketing your property is your best bet to find a buyer, though, as we just covered, it doesn’t guarantee anything.
Still, the exposure is worth the effort. Consider hanging up some signs around your neighborhood to pull in some phone calls, and take advantage of the many free websites that let you post real estate information. Though fliers and basic outreach might not be enough to attract serious buyers, it’s worth a shot. After all, the reason real estate agents make so much through commission is because they spend a lot of money on advertising for your home, so take marketing seriously. It’s possible that your property will take over a thousand dollars of advertising before the right buyer comes along.
Avoid marketing and commissions and sell your house to investors like us for CASH
At MCB Homes Inc., we pay honest prices for houses – and we can close deals in as little as 7 days. Because we’re a house buying company, you don’t need to worry about marketing, repairing, or paying commissions. We simply buy your home, fix it 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 CA. We’re investors who care a lot about Stockton. We close fast and pay cash in as little as just 3-5 days. Give us a call now at (209) 400-6500 or fill out the short form over here.