You want to sell your house and you’re looking forward to putting some money in your pocket. The plus side to owning real estate is being able to cash out and turn that appreciation into money! But not many people talk about all the different ways you can sell your house and cash out. You usually only hear of one route and that’s by listing through a real estate agent. That’s exactly why I wanted to break down and explain what the different fees paid are when paid to an agent versus paid to an investor.
It’s true… selling your house can sometimes mean that you have to pay fees in order to do so and because of this, I want you to know about the different fees you have to pay. This information may help you decide whether to work with an agent or sell your house directly to an investor.
What Are The Different Fees Paid To Agents Versus Paid To Investors? — Agent Fees
We all have a general idea of what an agent is. But just in case, here’s a brief explanation. A real estate agent is a salesperson whose job it is to assist you by marketing your home in hopes of finding you a buyer and then they manage that transaction for you until it closes.
By hiring an agent to do these things, you will need to pay them out of the proceeds from the sale of your home. The fees you can expect to pay are around 6% of the sales price of your home. For example, if your home sells for around $300,000, then you’re looking to pay around $18,000 in just realtor commissions. But that’s not it, there are other fees you will need to pay on top of the realtor commissions. These other fees are referred to as closing costs. You must close at a title company and generally, those closing costs add up to 2.5% of the sales price, which is an additional $7,500 based on a $300,000 sales price. That would bring your total to $25,500 that you would be paying at closing.
What Are The Different Fees Paid To Agents Versus Paid To Investors? — Investor Fees
This is the part that surprises most house sellers: If you sell to an investor rather than a realtor, then most of the time that investor covers all of these fees. Investors commonly take care of all fees associated with selling the property other than paying the property taxes. Plus since there won’t be any real estate agents involved, you won’t have to worry about paying any commissions.
What are the different fees paid to agents versus paid to investors?
The One “Fee” You May Not Be Thinking Of
There’s one more cost that you might not be thinking of: when you work with an agent, they’ll want you to fix up your house to get it “show” ready. Most homes aren’t ready to be listed after they’ve been lived in for a while. Those issues that you’ve been ignoring or stepping over for years, you probably don’t even notice anymore. But when a buyer comes in to see the home, they will notice everything! That’s why an agent will want you to fix up as much as you can, so that way it looks more presentable to buyers when they walk it. So the repairs are just one added cost to go with an agent.
The cost of the repairs is not the only added cost when listing your home with a real estate agent. You will also need to continue to pay your mortgage payments and monthly utilities. All of these things are just chipping away at your net profit by the time you finally sell the home.
So although this isn’t a fee to the agent, it’s a cost you’ll have to pay because of the agent… yet when you sell the house to an investor, they buy quickly so you end up saving this cost as well.
So what’s right for you? It depends on how much you’re willing to pay and how quickly you need to sell.
If you want to go over this in more detail or confirm that we won’t charge you any fees if you sell your house to us then please get in touch and we’ll be happy to walk you through it.