Selling a house direct to a buyer

Has anyone here done this...I mean not going through an auctioneer? How did it turn out for you?

What's the average auctioneer commission on the sale of a house anyway? 3%?

I did it - but not in Ireland unfortunately.

We managed to find a motivated buyer who wanted to move in next to her friend next door. In fact the neighbour found her, not us. We got market value in a stagnant 1990s US market, we were happy enough. We saved the standard US commission, whatever it was, honestly can't remember, but in the kind of slow market at the time it was a significant saving and allowed us to break even on the house (after about 3 years of owning).

There were a lot of time wasters though - that was the depressing part, having to vet potential buyers ourselves. And several people didn't show up having made appointments. You'd worry about some of the psychos out there too! At least the slow market meant there weren't that many people to not show up in the first place...

I think auctioneer commissions are pretty negotiable. Don't know though, have never sold here.

Generally here is 1.25% + VAT of the sale price but some agents are going lower than this.

We sold our house through daft without any agents within 48 hours of putting the house on the site. Prior to this we had had the house with an agent with only one viewing in 5 months and no feedback! I would recommend not using an agent as it worked for us though it can be difficult dealing with the buyer direct when there are a lot of phone calls over minor matters.

There were a number of discussions on this topic around this time last year. We sold through an ad in the paper - one ad that cost €95 or thereabouts. Had 3 viewings - open - and negotiated directly with buyer rather than through agent. I suspect we were a little lucky because things went totally hitch free - but we didn't see any reason FOR US to use an agent. Others have their own reasons for doing so. We saved an awful lot of money in the process.

Prudy - I had a search for the discussions. Have a look at the following Threads

"Estate Agents"
"Selling Agent Fees"
"Selling your house without an agent"

Hi we are in the process of selling our house privately, and so far, so good.Its important to maintain good lines of communication with your buyer in order to eliminate any confusion as regards price , house contents etc.. it is vital that both of you engage the services of a solicitor though. Best of luck if you choose to go down this route.

daithi

We sold our house in Ennis last October without using an estage agent as we are in the web design business and felt we could easily do it ourselves. The house sold within two weeks and I have to say it was very easy to sell. People often worry about negotiating the price but to be honest that took care of itself as we just had to inform the bidders of the latest bid.

We were so impressed by the ease of the sale that we have now set up a website www.SellItYourself.ie to allow sellers to sell direct.

Sorry Annemarie but at €375.00 to advertise daft @ 90.00€ would appear to be the better option!

For €375 sellityourself.ie allows you to post a property ad with 6 photos, delivers a professional signboard (statistics show that 15-30% of enquiries will come directly from people having viewed the signboard). They also produce the advertising for local / national press. It basically replicates the services offfered by the traditional estate agent but the seller takes care of the viewings and negotiations themselves.

Cheap at €375 compared to 1.5%! This is the site to watch.

PS Not to mention the huge amount of resources and advice to help you sell it yourself.

I sold my first home privately (in Dublin 12). I didn't intend on going down this route, but I mentioned to my next door neighbour that I was thinking of selling and within days she had met a woman who was desperate to buy in the area. I got the house valued and she agreed to pay the price I thought was fair. Her husband didn't even bother taking a proper look!! It was the locality that was important to them, not the actual building. All in all it was a very straightforward transaction, my solicitor took a booking deposit from her and looked after everything else. The only drawback I would see is that there was no 'bidding war' but in my particular situation I was more concerned with getting a quick sale, because I'd already found my next property. Good Luck!