Who really needs a realtor? The financial institution doing the mortgage for the buys does all of the work.
We are in the final stages of getting a house ready to sell. We are in one of the hottest markets in the country. We are contacted almost every day by realtors wanting to list our home. We have put five years of time, money, and effort into this house... if it is like the other houses in the neighborhood... it will sell in a short period of time. I tell the realtors who contact us that I am going to be taking a bunch of professional quality photos and a 3D walk though, and writing a thorough description and putting a free listing with our phone number up on Zillow. Most of them just hang up at that point.
My only trepidation is my ability to screen the buyers to determine who is most likely to be able to follow through with the sale and what amount and conditions should be attached to a deposit.
Good luck...you may want a real estate attorney on retainer...could save you a lot of headaches.
Save for the thieves casing your house, how effective do you think the realtor is at screening? When we sold a house four years ago I interviewed realtors. Two out of the the four I felt were not trustworthy and a third was unprofessional if not incompetent.
Big money in realestate taking 6% out of every transaction for what little work they do. It is a racket. Anybody should be able to do what you do. You should even be able to require an application to buy so long as you don’t discriminate on race, color or creed and just financial qualification? Pre-qualification is so common now you should be able to stipulate that as a requisite to show. Deposit amount? Enough to hurt if they lose it. Most sane people are not in the habit of writing a contract on something they can’t buy but there are tire kickers who try to look at houses as a recreational activity and bring their kids with them.
When there was a showing I always asked about the client. Two tire kickers got through by the same agent and I told her via the agent I hired she could not show the house any more. I wanted to sell the house but I did not have to and I made that clear. It is the agents who have a key to the lock box you need to worry about. They leave the lights on, doors open etc.
Try screening to rent.
Request that all serious buyers provide a pre-approval letter from their lending institution.
I just sold our family house in California and am horribly disillusioned by my experience with realtors. The listing agent never showed up after the house went on the market; a few times she took days to return my messages. Not one of the people who visited the house were her clients. She took $25K in commissions and she didn’t even show up for the signing of documents in escrow, claiming covid restrictions.
It’s a racket.