13 Feb How Much Does it Cost to Sell My Own House?

It’s a common question of home owners thinking of going the for sale by owner route.

How much does it cost to sell my own house?

The answer, it depends.

It depends on how you go about finding a buyer, if a real estate agent is involved and what forms of advertising and marketing you employ during the selling process.

Let’s take a closer look.

Advertising and Marketing Your Property

Your ability to successfully sell your own home comes down to just one thing.

Can you find a buyer willing to pay your asking price, or at least close to it, in a reasonable amount of time?

In order to find that perfect buyer you must get the word out that your property is for sale.

There are lots of options to do this, such as:

• Kijiji, Craigslist and other classified websites
• A Mere posting on REALTOR.ca
• Yard, Directional and other neighbourhood signage
• Open houses
• News paper classified ads
• and more

The effectiveness and cost of these methods varies. The one method we believe works the absolute best is getting a for sale by owner MLS® listing, also known as a mere posting.

A mere posting will cost somewhere between $500 and $1000, depending on where you’re located, the duration you want the listing live for and if you opt for any additional products or services available from the brokerage that posts your property.

Having your property listed for sale on REALTOR.ca will put it in front as many buyers as possible. There is no other website in Canada that gets as much buyer traffic as REALTOR.ca.

Potential Cost: $500 – $1000

Is a Real Estate Agent Involved

The second thing that can cost a home owner money when selling themselves is if a real estate agent is involved in the sale.

You might be thinking: “but I want to sell my own home and not use an agent”.

That’s fine if you don’t want to use a listing agent, however that doesn’t stop buyers from working with an agent. Trust me the majority of buyers are working with agents. Why? Because it doesn’t cost them a cent to take advantage of their advice and guidance.

Here’s how a scenario like this usually works.

1. An agent with buyer clients interested in your home will contact you to arrange a showing
2. You agree, because after all who is going to turn away a potential deal
3. The agents clients love your home and want to make an offer
4. The agent presents you with a buyers agreement outlining the percentage of commission they are to be paid upon closing
5. You either agree to the terms or let the offer walk

Agents are usually happy with around 2% commission. If you’re prepared to pay that then everything should go smoothly.

Potential Cost: 2% of your selling price (e.g. $6,000 on a $300,000 home)

You might be thinking it’s better off just hiring a full service real estate agent in Halifax, and in some cases you’d be right, but don’t forget when you go full service you forgo your option of selling privately to someone not working with an agent and avoiding all costs and commissions.