Question for realtors... Am I being selfish?

im in a similar situation as you, but i havent even put it on the market yet


but after 5+ years, my equity is not where i pictured it, and selling it, after commission, would likely let me break even at best, which is why i'm just staying put


i don't know if its the right decision or not, i know nows the time to seize the lower rates if you want to be somewhere for a long time, but the math just doesnt work for me

My wife had bought her house a little over 3 years before we got married and moved, so we decided to rent the house instead. Rent is 25% above mortgage with escrow. We do not use the extra income. Everything in high interest savings account. Anything above 3 months of note in account gets thrown back at mortgage. We have really seen the equity start growing.

Just a CapitalOne360 savings account. I get 0.75% on the money. Not much, but better than nothing.

1. Renter mails me rent check.
2. Take picture with app to deposit.
3. Set up automatic payments for mortgage.

Only downside is the deposit is held for a couple of days, but it has become shorter since it is the same one deposit every month around the same time.

You can set up 25 savings accounts for free if want to separate the money from different rentals. I like keeping it away from my other accounts, so I don't get tempted to use it.

I'm a Realtor so I'll take a shot at answering this question.

An old saying in real estate is that if a house doesn't sell it has to because of one of the following three things: Market Conditions, Price, or Exposure. One thing you control (price), one thing the Realtor controls (exposure), and the last thing cant be controlled by either of you.

First thing, you said in the post that you are a little high on price. You need to fix that first. An overpriced house doesn't sell. Seems simple and it is.

Second thing, you need to make sure that your Realtor is doing their job to get the house sold. Did the Realtor hire a photographer to shoot the pics or did they do it themselves with a cheap point a shoot camera? This is so important! Houses with great photos online sell for higher prices. It's been proven. Is your Realtor also using unconventional places like Facebook and Craigslist to increase the exposure of the house? Are they doing Open Houses? Realtor Open Houses? Make them work for their money.

Finally I'll give my two cents about the FSBO idea. I'm not anti FSBO. In some cases it's a great option. But, if you are thinking of thinking of dropping the price of the house the amount of his commission you wont be saving any money when you sell and you'll be losing valuable exposure even a bad Realtor provides be not being listing on the local MLS.

You aren't being selfish at all. Sounds like you priced the house high so that after paying Realtor fees you'd still walk away with some money in your pocket to show for all the mortgage payments you've made. Unfortunately, that's not always possible.

Good Luck to you!

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Haughton99

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I am a Realtor as well and I cosign everything you just posted.

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FSBO has a feature you can buy for 400bucks that allows it to be posted on MLS for 6 months and realtor.com.

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I did this. Well worth it IMO. If you aren't in a hurry I'd try FSBO for awhile and see what kind of feedback you get.

tigerlee

do you have a gmail address you can post. something to send you.

(no message)

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he took were iphone shite pics

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You hired a bottom feeder. For a professional company to shoot a house up to 2800 sq ft with about 35-45 pics and a website (since only 20 pics can be used on our MLS, website can show all) it costs me & any other realtor in TN as little as $99. Now if you have 10k sq, ft and need 75 pics, of course it's more.

Whether you're house is 100k or 1M, there is no excuse for a realtor to use iPhone pics.

Off my soapbox now.

Ygm