Is It Easy To Sell A Hdb Flat Without Using Agent

[Steffan 0]

Looking to sell the house and would like to seek your opinion if it is easy to sell it off without an agent.

Hope to get some insights from you all

[Piazza 0]

Looking to sell the house and would like to seek your opinion if it is easy to sell it off without an agent.

Hope to get some insights from you all

I am a property agent so answering this question seems inappropriate, as one might think that my thoughts are naturally skewed towards promoting agents' services..

well, it's definitely do-able to sell on your own, paperwork and co-ordination might be quite a challenge but it should still be able to iron out and follow through

I think the tricky part comes when in the sale process, ie. during viewing, and selling the good points of the house to your viewers, there's often some reservation between the owners and viewers, this is a hindrance in the convincing portion, also some viewers will proscastinate even at initial viewing..we all know if there's no viewing, how can there be chance to sell..in this case the agents can persuade potential buyers to view but it will be quite strange for the owner to do that..

As for negotiating, when details and requests are discussed owners often get personal and emotional and this is same for buyers, so another hindrance here, note that there are deals that fall thru because of this..having said that, it is why agents would request owners to entask them this function to act for his interest and to arrived at the same agreeable point with the buyer or buyer's agent and to close the sale.

then lastly agents can access to the multi listing network to make known to all agents of your property for sale thereby achieving effective and faster results.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Piazza

[lobo76 0]

Actually, I tot the viewing part is the easy one. When you are free, post on property guru and declared open house for that day. Pple should come.

I only have 1 personal experience to share since I only bought flat once... My buying process was simply go to property guru, search and filter to what I want, call up for a visit. If open house, I don't have any problem also.

[GoalHome 1]

Sold one DIY last year. Not difficult IMO. Don't let the co-ordination and paperwork put you off. Just go to HDB website and read through all the steps and information before you proceed. It is just a fixed set of rules, just follow it will do.

Prepare the flat for sale. Arrange for valuation (online). Book your newspaper advertisement online (they'll call you to confirm and payment via credit card. $11 per line, minimum 3 lines, excluding GST). Prepare a simple flyer to market your flat. Get someone ready to be your witness.

Newspaper Advertisement: http://www.cats.com.sg/default/bookyourads

Booking Deadlines: 2pm for next day's publication / Friday 5pm for Sunday and Monday's publications

One thing to note is that you'll have lots of agents calling you after the ad is published. Some will try to get you into signing an exclusive agreement with them, or others will try to seek commission from you. Based on my limited experience, you will get a mix calls of both agents (more) and direct buyers. IMO, i think DIY have more pros than cons. Some exclusive agents will refuse to co-broke with other agents and thus seller may lose out on the highest offer. If you wish to use agent, you may consider open listing whereby you agree to pay a certain percentage when asking price is met.

For my case, the flat was sold during the first open house. Nego on prices took about a week, and closed before the next weekend. Buyer had agent but i make it clear that no commission will be given to the buyer's agent. Just in case if you're wondering if the fast sale is due to low pricing, i can assure you it's not, the flat selling price was the second highest in the vicinity.

[tanya77 0]

I completely agree with what Newbie stated above..

[Piazza 0]

on the part on why there's a need to signing of exclusive, they have been many stories behind, perhaps agents to agents knows best, and I don't mean to sound rude here..

other than that, any agent would be most happy and most wholeheartedly market a listings that has been assigned to him 'exclusively',

nowadays agents would do-away with the exclusive papers if the owner prefers, and it is basically just mutual agreements arranged.

On the part of cobroke, CEA has already put a watch on agents who are unwilling to cobroke..add to that the council ruling forbids dual representation by agents, with hefty fines and revoke of license imposed, leaving agents acceptance for cobroke as the way to get going. this is especially true in HDB resale, due to the paperwork involved and declaration.

well I have heard of some owners sharing of some agents willingness to cobroke with their own selected agents only,in this case, I felt this agent has already in breached of the Act; i.e NOT looking after the seller's best interest..as the above poster has mentioned, the OTHER agent might have a buyer that can pay more, in this case sellers/owners should dismiss/replace the agent.

Hope this clear some air

Overall I felt it could be the level of trust between the seller and agent or just simply between 2 parties that are comfortable with each other as that would take away a lot uneasiness and doubts

Edited January 16, 2012 by Piazza

[Piazza 0]

just want to share somemore..when the listing is open, the agent knew he might lose the listing or having another agent 'steal' the listing,

naturally less time and effort is expensed especially on marketing such as sms broadcast to agents or listing on networks or social media,

then to make it worse sometimes the other agent might 'steal' the listing when they get the marketing info..

when there's direct buyer call in enquiry, the tendencies to quote lower prices is there as he is probably 'worried' he might lose the buyer interest

as he knew the other agents with the open listing might be doing the same

when the buyers come with expectation of a lower price, a higher closing price becomes unlikely

back to when a listing is not widely marketed, I personally felt this is unfair to the owner as you can't really say it's the best possible price

But I agree in the end all goes down to the preference of the sellers, afterall what better way to sell your house than being in 100% full control over it!

Cheers!

[GoalHome 1]

For open listing, other than print advertisement, owners can list it on http://www.nationproperty.sg/

No fees, and this portal will blast it out to all the agencies. There are so many agents on the market, not all has ready units for sale on their hand, but they may have ready buyers. Compare the number of properties available for sale /rent versus total number of agents. For agents with no sale units, they'll just be as hungry enough to help market your unit and find buyers since they still need to find their 'salary'.

Of course agents won't outright say no cobroke, there are so many variation answers to this questions. Else, why would agents still be asking such a question - "Can cobroke? ". Try putting up an ad, you'll get almost all agents calling or sms asking this question.

Go do some viewings as a buyer, after a while you'll know how this game plays.

[Piazza 0]

Hi Goalhome

the question 'can cobroke?' is a result of training by our trainers..they have said it's a courtesy gesture..new or humble agents still doing this..of course there are agents who will just call and run through their list of questions.

when we ask this questions, at the same time we also get to know if it's owner's listing or not.

regards,

[GoalHome 1]

Hi Goalhome

the question 'can cobroke?' is a result of training by our trainers..they have said it's a courtesy gesture..new or humble agents still doing this..of course there are agents who will just call and run through their list of questions.

when we ask this questions, at the same time we also get to know if it's owner's listing or not.

regards,

Hi Piazza, good point! Of course, i know what information the agents are trying to fish!

Hi Steffan, if you're still reading this thread... the above knowledge will help if you plan to DIY selling w/o agent. Think why is it crucial for agents to know if it's owner listing or not. Learn how this game plays and you can beat them! There are different techniques for your interaction with direct buyers and agents.

[kamikaze 0]

Hi Piazza, good point! Of course, i know what information the agents are trying to fish!

Hi Steffan, if you're still reading this thread... the above knowledge will help if you plan to DIY selling w/o agent. Think why is it crucial for agents to know if it's owner listing or not. Learn how this game plays and you can beat them! There are different techniques for your interaction with direct buyers and agents.

I think the issue for the thread starter was on whether he could handle everything on his own while trying to get the best price for his house..

I express no doubt that there are people who have successfully sold their flats on their own without any major hiccups, and it is truly commendable that you are one of the few successful ones, but we must also keep in mind of the fact that there are also many unsuccessful stories of which you won't find many people sharing.

The primary reason for agents to know if it is an owner's listing or not has to do with the fact that an agent needs a product before he can sell it. This is unlike any other sales job where a product or a range of products are already available.. So it is critical for any aspiring property agent to learn how to continuously generate leads and quickly follow up on prospects hoping to land a listing. Conversely, if an agent is not aggressive in looking for new listings, chances are low that he would be aggressive in looking for buyers.

Having said that, there are always some desperate or unethical agents out there who will take a listing at any price even when it is unrealistic to sell at the owner's price resulting in conflicts on all sides; seller not happy that the house is not selling, agent not happy about throwing money at advertising, time and effort in open houses etc since he gets paid only when the house sells and thus at this point, he would be pushing the owner to sell at a lower price. Something he should have stated from onset. Prices don't go up all the time, just look at the stock market.

My point for writing this is that there are more agents out there who are just trying to make a honest living and it is a matter of survival to them.

Both agents and owners should pre-qualify each other prior to any engagement and expectations should be kept within reasonable limits. Constant communicayion is of course a must. A the end of the day, the buyer set the selling price, not the agent or owner. The job of an agent is to bring in enough qualified buyers to keep any price bidding competitive while neotiating the best price for the seller, that is all. Vice-versa, if he represents the buyer.

A good scenario I can think of is, if a Toyota costs $10,000. Why would a person buy it for 15,000? Two possible reasons, only when it is the only Toyota out there or there is some feature that attracts the buyer. The unlikely third reason is he got money to burn.

If an owner can achieve it on his own, that is of course the best scenario. If not, he should look out for the right person to do the job.

Btw, I'm a real estate salesperson to be. So my views could be considered biased.

[kamikaze 0]

just want to share somemore..when the listing is open, the agent knew he might lose the listing or having another agent 'steal' the listing,

naturally less time and effort is expensed especially on marketing such as sms broadcast to agents or listing on networks or social media,

then to make it worse sometimes the other agent might 'steal' the listing when they get the marketing info..

when there's direct buyer call in enquiry, the tendencies to quote lower prices is there as he is probably 'worried' he might lose the buyer interest

as he knew the other agents with the open listing might be doing the same

when the buyers come with expectation of a lower price, a higher closing price becomes unlikely

back to when a listing is not widely marketed, I personally felt this is unfair to the owner as you can't really say it's the best possible price

But I agree in the end all goes down to the preference of the sellers, afterall what better way to sell your house than being in 100% full control over it!

Cheers!

Hi! I disagree with the marketing part. If the job of testing the unit sold can be done with 50% of costing, why not? It makes business sense to do it this way. No person will pay more if he doesn't have to. If an agent is able to get qualified buyers in and achieve the agreed selling price or higher, why would an owner complain about the listing not being widely marketed?

Yeah. An agent shouldn't quote anything lower than the agreed price.