Good evening,

My wife and I are ready to leave the FSBO market for a full service real estate agent, however, we are looking at a very thin margin on our house sale and need all the help we can get. We have a nice, family home in the Auburn area that is listed at $279,000. We have had interest, but only one formal offer and it was well below the amount we needed to clear a 10% down on a similar home in another area.

To be specific, we are looking for an experienced, full service real estate agent that will provide the typical services (lock box, signs, MLS listing, flyers, open houses, etc.) for a flat, $5000 commission on the sale of the home. Also, we can not guarantee we will use the same agent as our buying agent.

If you are a real estate agent that is interested in this arrangement, please call 253-632-XXXX so we can discuss it further.
Thank you for your time,
John

John, where ever you are, what makes you think you are going to get a full service agent with experience that will get the work done for $5,000.  To be realistic if an agent is going to get a property sold they have to offer the buyers agent at least 2.5%.  That works out to $6,975 alone.  I understand that times are tough and sellers don’t have the equity to spare, but some things are just a reality.

Leaving the insane commission aside, lets look at the second part where he says he won’t guarantee that he will use the same agent that is selling his house to buy the next one.  WHAT?  So you want an experienced, full time agent to take in the shorts to sell your house and you don’t have the decency to at least give them a shot at making some money on the buying side of things?

John, wherever you are, you need a reality check.  Good agents aren’t crying for listings and don’t want another pain in the butt seller with prices that are too high and that are offering crap commissions.

For those of you that don’t know, I am married to Jacquie Cliff, who is one of the best real estate agents you will ever find.  I know how many hours she put in, and if she took a listing for that kind of money, I would literally kick her in the ass. 

Good real estate agents put in a lot of time and money marketing a house and for $5,000 all John is likely going to get is desperate schmucks.