I have bought and sold dozens of properties over the years. I have dealt with a large number of realtors on one or both sides of the transaction and done many non-realtor deals. Of the realtor involved deals, there are two realtors I respect a lot, one has passed away, and one I thought was okay. The rest were douche canoes of the first order.
The only way they sell properties faster than you can on your own is by lowballing the list price. Remember, you drop your price $50 thousand it all comes out of your pocket but only costs them $1,500 off their 6% on first 200K and 3% on the balance commission. They are well invented to sell fast and cheap. The games they will play with sellers and buyers are varied and often used. They make used car salesman look like saints.
Do you really want to pay $20,000 for some pictures, a lawn sign, maybe one open house and an advert in the paper, all of which you can easily do or hire done for far less. Outside of that what does the Realtor do to sell your home? Rarely is the listing realtor the guy that sells the house too. I can see paying 3% and 1.5% to a realtor that actually brings you a buyer and I would include those terms in the advertisements but I would never pay for a listing realtor.
Just my thoughts based on my experience with Realtors.
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