0704242200 Real Estate Agents

The house is for sale and we have an inspection on Thursday at 5:30pm. We listed our house online with DIYsell.com and had the first call the next day.
Real estate agents are a mystery to me – I don’t understand how they justify their cost. We had an agent knock on the door and ask if we were planning on selling in the near future – I asked him what was it going to cost me to sell the house. He worked out that it would cost about $10,000.

“So that includes the legals and the conveyancing, all title searches and council approvals including an add in the local papers and a sign for the front yard?” asked me in a manner that must have seemed to him naïve and stupid.

“No, you will have to pay for the legal work, unless you do it yourself – and we charge and additional fee for advertising” was his smug answer.

“What does the $10,000 cover?” I ventured, expecting that a real estate agent was needed in the sale of a house. We do need real estate agents don’t we? Surely they are needed – don’t they have some legal powers like auctioneers? Nope. Not at all. Not even bleedin’ close matey. They are parasites.

“That is my commission” was his timid and slightly embarrassed answer.

“So I pay for everything that needs to be done, including advertising and then give you $10,000?”

“Yes, that’s right – but you can save $400 by doing the legals yourself”

I showed him the door, and then the driveway. He then tried to convince me that I should not only use a real estate agent, but that I should use him, as the best agent around, by showing me how much money he had taken from his last victims. One entry stood out among the others - $0.oo – it was from a colleague of his who could not be charged for “ethical” reasons.

For $10,000 I want it sold in 10 days with a penalty clause of $1000 a day.

He did not take up my offer.

references:

http://www.diysell.com.au/realestate/detail.asp?PropID=P16241&loc=Mt+Warren+Park+Real+Estate

http://www.domain.com.au/Public/PropertyDetails.aspx?adid=2006394401