If you’re looking to sell your house or investment property in Wisconsin without using a real estate agent, you might want to read over this quick article first.
AT Home Buyers always recommends listing with a real estate agent if you want to sell your house at the highest value. But keep in mind, after the costs of repairs, closing costs, agent fees, months of utilities and taxes, you can expect to net about 85% after a sale.
There are many seasoned Wisconsin brokers and real estate agents that do excellent work and earn their commission. Yet, in the height of every market, there is always an increase in new agents wanting a piece of the pie. So you’ve asked yourself…
“How Do I Sell My House Without An Agent in Wisconsin?”
There are a few ways to avoid paying high commissions in Wisconsin.
First, there’s a tricky custom that you’ve gotta know about.
In most sales in Wisconsin, roughly half of the commission you pay as the seller goes to pay for the buyer’s broker.
Doesn’t make much sense, right?
Why should you pay for the agent on the other side of the table?
It defies logic – it’s just what’s typically done and we’ve accepted it as the norm.
BUT… You can use that to your advantage in a few ways.
First, factor in the commissions paid when you’re looking at the comparable sales. If the properties similar to yours sold for prices that included commissions, take that into account.
Don’t underprice your property – be aware that a savvy buyer may expect to take a discount too. If you’re doing the work of one agent, you can expect to save that money.
In Wisconsin, there may be some buyers who aren’t represented by an agent. Don’t be surprised if the buyer negotiates a lower price since they don’t have an agent. Commend them for knowing this fee and using it as a tool.
You may want to consider offering 2.5% to buyer’s agents who will bring their clients to show your property. Sure, it’s a lot of money. If you’re pricing your property including that commission, you can always negotiate a better deal for a purchaser who comes without an agent.
But, if you don’t leave room for the buyer’s agent’s commission, you’ll be excluding most of the buyers in the market in Wisconsin.
Over 90% of transactions happen through the MLS – that’s the Multiple Listing Service. All brokers in Wisconsin use the MLS to access information for their clients on houses, condos, land and investment properties for sale. Brokers also use the data on sold prices in the area to find an appropriate market value.
It used to be you had to pay full commission to get your property on the MLS. Now in Wisconsin there are a few brokers who will charge you a nominal fee to only list your property on the MLS. Oftentimes, you spend a few hundred bucks and you only pay a commission if the sale closes.
Compared to the cost of a newspaper ad, the MLS is a cheap way to market your property to a very wide audience.
All the major real estate search sites like
Realtor.com,
Zillow,
Redfin, etc. get data from the MLS.
When you submit your listing to the MLS in Wisconsin, the information on your property will end up on most of the major sites within a few days.
Each of those sites make money by selling packages that let you pay to enhance your listing on their website. They might feature your house at the top of the search or provide you with other tools that might or might not get an interested buyer to buy your property.
Advertising is a gamble. Sometimes open houses in Wisconsin can be a great way to sell a property, and sometimes they’re a waste of time. Same with newspaper ads, craigslist postings, fancy signs – sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t. Part of the cost of marketing is testing what works in your market city.
To effectively sell your property on your own, you have to market it well.
Putting up fliers and signs around your neighborhood can generate some calls.
There’s also a lot of free websites where you can post your house for sale (Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace). Putting up flyers and an open house isn’t enough if your house doesn’t appeal to the average home buyer.
In theory, real estate agents charge big commissions because they have to spend a lot of money up front to advertise your property. The way agents make good profits is by advertising lots of properties at once and selling lots of houses.
Some properties might need thousands of dollars in advertising expenses before the right buyer happens to see the ad and call.
If you want to avoid paying any commissions, you can also sell your house to investors like us for CASH
We pay fair prices for properties – and we can close fast (in as little as 15 days if you need to).
We typically purchase Racine, Kenosha, and Milwuakee County houses, fix them up, then rent them out… sometimes we’ll fix them up and sell them to other people looking for great homes in the area – but we love to hear from people like you who are thinking of selling anywhere in Wisconsin.
We’re investors who care a lot about Wisconsin and if you’re not in a city where we buy houses, you can still reach out to us and we can find a trustworthy investor in your area that will buy your property with cash.
We close fast and pay cash in as little as just 3-5 days. Give us a call now at 262-228-8505 or fill out the short form over here.
