4% Home Listings – Is it Cheap or a Great Value?
What's it Cost to Sell a Home?
According to Homes.com, 6% is the most common listing fee for a licensed realtor to sell your home. Most brokerages list between 5% and 8%, and rarely do you see 4% listings advertised. In fact, we can't name another local brokerage besides us who guarantees 4% listings.
Unfortunately, many big-brand name brokerages won't even allow their agents to list for less than 5%, at least not without special permission. This leaves clients giving up huge portions of their home's equity to realtor fees and other costs. According to Rocket Homes, the average seller gives up 10% of their total sale price to commissions and concessions.
4% Guaranteed
With Southern Bay Realty, we're 4% guaranteed. This means any home we list is listed for just 4%. But how much does that really save you?
For every $100,000 you list your home, each 1% of listing fees costs you $1,000. So, a $250,000 home listed at 6% costs you $15,000 in realtor fees, where with us at 4% it is $10,000. That 2% saved on a $250,000 home saves you $5,000 in real money. On a $300,000 home you save $6,000, on $350,000 you save $7,000, and so on.
What's the Catch?
We understand when we advertise for so much less than our competition that you might think there must be a catch. The truth is, though, we aren't cheap, the other guys are expensive.
Back in the day, real estate was more complicated. Listing a home required a lot more time and effort to upload your listing to each and every website, to prepare paperwork on actual paper, and overall to try and promote it without digital marketing and social media. But it isn't like that anymore. These problems and others have been solved over the years with new technology. Technology has made listing a home much simpler, and digital marketing and platforms like Zillow have made advertising a breeze.
At 6% back in the 90's a realtor was charging a fair fee. That realtor had to really work to advertise your home. They needed a personal network, to push fliers and other in-person, real-world advertising. Now it's all digital and streamlined through automation. Listing a home and advertising it to the whole world takes little to no time and only a few clicks.
Yet, as the process has become simpler and the technology more and more affordable, most real estate brokerages have not changed their fees. They're still charging what they used to instead of passing their savings on to their clients.
With Southern Bay, we've recognized that it's just not as expensive and time consuming as it used to be, which is why we've decided to pass that savings on to our clients. At 4%, we still make a fair wage without overcharging our clients. It's important to us that we help you keep more of your home's equity instead of giving it all away in realtor fees.
Do You Get the Same Service at 4%?
There is such a thing as a 'discount brokerage'. This term refers to a brokerage that has cheap fees because they have cheap service. Whether a low percentage or a low flat-rate amount, a discount brokerage offers their services for less because they are providing less service. Discount brokerages often won't hold open houses, or they won't do a complete analysis of your home's value, or they won't help negotiate or advise you, or they may sacrifice any number of other standard services to be able to afford charging you less.
At Southern Bay, however, we are not a discount brokerage. We are a full-service brokerage offering complete listing services at a more competitive rate of 4%. This includes everything you'd expect, like open houses, listing your home on the MLS, Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, and all related online listings, as well as contracts, negotiations, and everything else a full-service brokerage is expected to provide.
Are There Other 'Hidden' Fees?
Our competition sometimes can't believe that we list at 4%, and so we've heard it said that we 'surely must have a bunch of hidden fees' that make up for our low listing percentage. So, do we have hidden fees? No, not even one.
What we charge is our listing fee of 4% and an industry standard documentation fee that nearly every brokerage charges. Documentation fees, or 'doc fees', are standard and range from $125 to $350 per contract depending on the brokerage. For us, our doc fee is always $225, right in the middle of that standard range.
There are no other fees when listing with us. You pay only your industry standard doc fee and your 4% listing percentage.
Ready to Get Started?
Whether you're ready to get started or just have a few questions, we're happy to help. Simply give us a call to get started with a free consultation.
