Probably not too surprising if you’ve read this newsletter for awhile.
We lived in our previous home almost 3 years and we decided to sell it recently & move on to our next project.
Our friends & family joke that after we’ve lived in a home 2-3 years, we start getting the itch to move again. They’re certainly not wrong!
Because my wife and I both have a real estate license (and own a real estate brokerage), we knew we’d be able to list our home on the market without having to pay half of the commissions, since we’d represent ourselves, or without having to pay any commissions if someone came & represented themselves.
Like many people who bought a home before COVID, our house had gone up a lot in value.
We knew that commissions could take a huge chunk out of our profit, so we hoped to work directly with a buyer who didn’t have an agent.
We hosted 2 open houses, where many people came to look that weren’t working with a real estate agent. What’s great about open houses is that people can get into the house without needing an agent to come & let them in.
We began to receive offers on the house & one of the people who attended our open house offered to execute the transaction “for sale by owner” — meaning, without agents involved. We were thrilled!
Their offer was certainly more attractive to us than any other since we knew we wouldn’t have to pay any money in real estate commissions. And they knew this too, so they were glad to make an offer unrepresented to make their offer look better.
After doing some calculations, we realized we ended up saving over $40,000 in commissions we would’ve had to pay to real estate agents.
And the only thing we did to earn that money was have a license where we could list our own house.
Having a real estate license & representing a few clients each year can provide a great extra stream of income.
And it can really save you money when you sell your own house too!
