When you're buying they don't cost you anything, they make there money on the other end. It's a lot easier to setup viewings going through them just have to make sure you have someone competent that's going to help you find the best house for your buck.

It really depends on the market you're in, and timing too. If you're in a high demand area with less inventory on hand at your time of listing, many buyers nowadays will find your listing and come to it anyways. If they like it, they know they will have to act on it quickly and get their agent on it, regardless of whether the buyer's agent is happy about the commission split or not.

If you're in an area or type of home that is dime a dozen, then yes, listing with 1% will get you less action as the realtors with the 'proper' firms will place your listing on the bottom of their lists, if not forego it completely. Maybe 4 or 5 years ago when homes were virtually selling themselves, it didn't matter who you list with they would sell relatively easily no matter who you use.

If you are willing to do the leg work, there are flat-fee listing real estate companies that will get your home up on MLS for something like $1500-2000 and take care of all the closing paperwork and contracts. You take care of the marketing and showing and all that stuff yourself however you want. But you'd have to make pretty clear that you are still willing to pay the 'regular' buying realtor's commission, if you are, to try and entice showings.

FWIW, our recent open house condo listed with a regular realtor. Of the traffic we got, 75% came on their own without a realtor anyways (though some of them were already connected with a reator).

ya i'm in the coquitlam center area...there's maybe 6-8 houses in the port moody/north coquitlam/poco area that would be similar but all my reno's are pretty high end and i have a finished suite ready to rent out

the "regular" realtor must have call me like 5 times yesterday saying how he'll guarantee the highest price and this and that....i think he's desperate for the sale as he knows it will take very little work on his end for my house to sell, he's just seeing a quick $12K+ (his cut)

Have you tried to negotiate off their 'standard' commission rates? Because if it will be an easy sale, I'm sure the agent would rather make say $7k versus $0. If there are agents competing for your listing, of course they will all offer the 'best service, highest price, etc etc...' But the only other bargaining chip they have is their commission structure. To the agent it's mainly about getting the listing. Sure he'd like to sell it and make some $, but if your house doesn't sell, he just says "sorry" and moves on, no skin off his back but wasted time and opportunity on your part.

You can check this out if you have the time and ability to market your own home: Homes for Sale By Owner Vancouver | One Flat Fee MLS Listings Service lots of other similar providers too. I think realtor's make pretty nice coin for the amount of actual work they do too, but also recognize that many realtors make maybe 1 or 2 sales a year, if that. The ones that do well do very well, but it also costs a lot to upkeep that business. The way I see it, I can probably learn to do all my own car maintenance and repairs in my garage, over time, with a couple screw ups here and there which will cost me more time and money. Or I can send the car to the shop and pay $100-150/hr to have the right people fix what needs to be fixed and get on with my life.

When we were looking the rental suite may or may not add value. Sure it's nice to have a mortgage helper, but your area isn't currently at the point where prospective owners NEED it to make the purchase sustainable (like most of Van/Bby currently). For those who don't want or need it, it takes away from their own useable space in the house. Just another perspective.

Lot's of agent is willing to reduce their commission if you ask.

1% Realty is cheaper than that website and i don't have to do any of the paperwork and they'll atleast hold open houses.

i've made it apparent to him that i don't like the fee's, he's already told me he's "giving me a deal" at 7/2.5% vs his regular 7/3.25%.....

i don't need the bull shit 4 page colour printed brochures, or staging company or all the other shit....MLS/other websites, 1% was going to do pictures

i think in this market right now that should be enough....i just hope i'm right

I think you can do better than that...7% and 1.5 or 1.75 is a decent deal.....I would solicit other offers.....nothing better than a little healthly competition for your business.......

An old article in FP cited that his Vancouver home was worth $27m in 2013.

Don Mattrick new Zynga CEO is Canadian, ?lives like a Saudi prince? | Financial Post

Overall.. :hat:

it's like the media is starting to finally talk about it. The currency and foreign money factors that I discussed a page or two back. Australia has seen the same type of increase in the last 5 months. There dollar has dropped just like ours.

Maybe we should seize properties and force it to sell like they did in Australia. From the same article:

Time to cash out your shack on the west side and buy a mansion in burnaby or east van?

I'm going to share my own 2 cents. Whether you guys choose to believe or not, it is up to you.

I'm going to split into two categories: Purchasing for Personal vs Investment

For Investment you can also drill down into:
1. Rent it out, hopefully, the rent will be at least 60% of your mortgage monthly payment
2. Buy and Sell later for profit

For Investment 1: I suggest you guys target UBC Condo or Condos near skytrain
For Investment 2: If a detach house is what you looking for and hoping to resell for more, I say you stop doing soon.

Why stop soon?

Yes mortgage rate is/was quite low, which makes getting a mortgage more appealing. However, who knows in a year or 2 from now. Bank of Canada is fish hooking lots of people, then raise the rate a year or 2 from now. And by then, people will likely sell their house due to high mortgage rate, but who's going to buy it when mortgage rate is high. Thus the price of the house will need to drop in order to get people's interests

reason #2 it is no secret that foreign buyer are buying most of the properties here. If the government decide to do what HK did, which is add addition tax rate for foreign buyer then it might reduce their chances of buying here, and focus more attention to Australia or elsewhere

For investment people out there, I say look for Option 1

Personal Purchasing I will split into 2 types:
1. FreeHold Strata (Condo/Townhouse/Duplex) | 2. FreeHold NonStrata (Detach House)

FreeHold NonStrata (Detach House): Definitely most appealing have your own land and control of the land. However, you are looking at 900K+ in the lower mainland. Even if you were to find in 900K zone, chances are the condition is terrible and over 70 years old. or in need of take it down and rebuild.

FreeHold Strata (Condo/Townhouse/Duplex): Also appealing since its cheaper(except duplex) and very convenient as your unit may have gym, swimming pool, etc... but you don\t have any control over the land

For Personal Purchase, I recommend Option 2 because I know single detach house will start dropping in 2 years from now and certainly will drop when government propose the foreign buyer TAX

Buy something cheap now, save on cash (or invest in mutal fund etc..) and wait and switch to a house in 2 years from now

-huge pane of glass falls from the Trump International Tower in downtown Vancouver:
:heckno:

A buddy of mine said that these luxury towers have off shore buyers who come here only for the summer. Most of these kinds of buildings are empty except for the contractors who come into the building.

A huge pane of glass falls onto Georgia Street | News1130

http://www.news1130.com/files/2015/0...Zt-668x501.jpg

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – We are receiving lots of calls about a huge piece of glass falling from the Trump Tower on Georgia.

The building is still under construction, there is no word on injuries.

Georgia is open in both directions but is traffic slow between Bute and Thurlow.

We’ll bring you more details as they come in.

i'm pretty sure i'm going to be going with the 1% realtor...she hasn't tried to blow smoke up my ass once while the other guy added $30K to what he thinks i should list for after "talking it over with people in the office"

he thinks i should list for $688K and hope to get around $665-670K

while she thinks $650-659K is the right number and appeal to more people and hope for a bidding war

Property owners: :smug:

Renters: :okay:

With personal use, I would rather rent. You made huge assumptions that the gov't will impose a foreign tax and BoC raising rates.

It's pretty clear that foreign buyers are immune to rates because they pay cash, or have cash ready. Gov't impose a tax is difficult because it's a Vancouver issue. Wouldn't this tax policy be at a federal level?

Sales comps will give you a clear idea what price range you're in. Also, don't assume discount brokerages and their fee savings benefit you always. Calculate what you pocket AFTER commissions. In my experience full buyer commission tends to yield higher prices, in most cases higher net for the seller even after their fees vs. the upfront commission savings. It doesn't make financial sense not to go with the agent who charges $10k more commission if it gets you an extra $25-30k or more especially in an overheated market.

If anything, be very wary of all agents who "bring" their own buyers. These are almost always buyers with no client/agent relationship. It's two-fold. 1. The listing agent collect both sides of the commission (don't kid yourself that discount agents aren't looking for this, if anything they are more motivated to sniff this out since they're discounting to begin with). 2. Buyers set the price so what incentive does the agent have in getting the Seller the "highest" price if they are also representing the Buyer? This is bullshit in this industry that 1 agent can represent both parties in a transaction. A notary/lawyer can't even represent both parties in the transaction and they just process the deal.

FYI, on offers, make sure to check if the buyer has no presentation. Agents have limited powers in "assisting" buyers who decline representation (aka: less work for the agent) but the agent still collects both sides of the commission. If you have a bone to pick about them earning the buyer side, get it out in the open before you give them the listing. Agent attitudes tend to change a little (again, the double-ending thing).

TL;DR:
It's all about net $$$ figures.

Like you now acknowledge, not every market is priced like Vancouver so the commission structure probably wasn't designed with current home prices in mind. Everyone basically asks for a rebate nowadays and to make deals work realtors frequently have to use a portion of their commissions. The worst prospects are the tire kickers who you basically spend months with and they do not buy for whatever reason.

If the realtor course is like the property management one, it was easy but VERY dry. They only allow you to submit 2 assignments a week for a total of 20 so it takes much longer than 6 weeks to complete (you are referring to those tutoring programs offered by companies). Most people aren't motivated enough to finish it that quick IMO.

All realtors are covered by insurance and there are many fees to be a realtor that most people do not consider - taxes on earnings, Real Estate Board fees, deal fees, monthly desk fees ($260 at a mid-tier brokerage to as high as ~800 I heard for Re/Max), referral commissions, cheque fees, etc.

Like many industries, 90% of the sales are going to the top 10% while the bottom 90% fight for the last 10%.

It's not as great as you think when everyone has a license.

but that's the realty boards problem not us the regular sellers/buyers

if it wasn't so easy to get the licence then there wouldn't be the overflow of agents "fighting" for work

A lot of agents are part time only. Also there are some pretty bad agents. Last summer I been to an open house and ask for the developer of the apartment she have no idea who that was....... at least do your homework :rukidding::rukidding::rukidding: and didn't like that I ask so many questions and look piss when I suggest maybe she should read more info on the apartment she is selling.

blkgsr: There are a few threads on RFD about the pros and cons of selling the house yourself. It sounds pretty feasible if you offer commission to a buyer's agent. In this market and with the dearth of realtors who probably know nothing about your property, it sounds like the way to go.

If you're in sales, you can sell anything including a house.

Yup. sell it yourself.

just state something that you are willing to offer Commision for the selling broker (realtor that brings you the client to buy your home).

Offer something along the lines of 3% on first 100K and 1.2% on balance.
They usually get offered 3.25% on 1st 100K and ~ 1.15% on balance.

I've read that some people just offer a flat percentage, say around 0.75%. On a 650K house, that's nothing to sneeze at, particularly for a buying agent that closes a couple of deals a month. Factor in another $1K in legal fees and another $200-300 for some professional pictures, another $500 for a listing fee, and you could easily save yourself $10-20K.

with the 1% and a house sold for $650K each realtor gets $3250 and the 1% realtor gets an additional $950 for "admin costs" for a total of $7450......now if the buying agents asks for more then this obviously changes

with what you guys are saying selling myself, the 3/1.2 puts that up over $9600 straight away plus i have to do extra work.....i'd rather take the 1% realtor, have them list it and handle the showings, pay for pictures etc and possibly offer an extra couple grand to a buying agent IF they ask for it.

the full fair realtor called me yet again today asking if i'd made my decision, even after i told him it wouldn't be till the end of the weekend.....he clearly sees the easy money but isn't willing to do anything for it