Advise needed for selling my flat

its_cool

New Member
Hi all ,i need advise-is it a must to sign an exclusive rights with my agent to sell my flat?what if i have sign it ,can i back out from it?
 


Unless you are very confident with ur agent…..Signing an exclusive with an agent means you allow him to be ur sole agent to market ur flat for a certain period of time until ur flat has been sold hence during this period of time you are not allow to look for other agents...

Most of the time why agents require you to sign the exclusive with them is because of the cost/time/effort which will involve in advertising Ur unit for you. If it requires them to put in the time/the effort/ the $ to advertise for you. They will need you to commit to them too.

Before signing anything...I suggest u allow other agents to help u ...make sure u are very confident and comfortable with them...U can reject them if they insist you to sign it because you don’t even know how good or bad their service is. Some agent will not just let u sign the exclusive abruptly. They will guide u thru the whole process to make sure u are comfortable with their service b4 they let u sign it..

If u have sign it…Yes, of cos you can terminate the exclusive with the agent during this period of time if he is not effective /no sense of urgency in marketing ur unit./service not good enough etc..

Hope it’s helpful to u...
 
Hi smileguy do you know what is the minimum or period of signing an exclusive rights with an agent?My agent told us that we have to sign a 3mth exclusive rigths with him.isit too long?
 
I think you can still sign the "exclusivity" contract but make sure the contract documents that this is a short-term arrangement of, say, three months, a reasonable time frame for the agent to market your flat and find a buyer eventually.
 
we are still considering whether to sign the exclusive thingy with him or not.As we are not too sure how it works actually.I do heard of pple saying we can pull out when we sign it too but i am not too sure under what condition or is there any penalty to it.Some of my friends advise me not to sign some say its normal for agent to do that.
 
Agree with doll….3mth exclusive is very reasonable for ur agent to market ur unit…If you are asking abt the minimum period of exclusive …I would say it must be a reasonable time frame for the agent to help you do the marketing..3mth is consider very ”normal”..

i have seen agents who help their clients to market their unit and sold it within 2 weeks even if the exclusive is 3mths...but by all means the choice is urs…If u are still unsure about it maybe u can go to website like propertyguru/Singapore expat/ to check it out..in fact there are many other websites which can be helpful to u.. try to search online.
 
hi hi thanks alot for the advise
happy.gif
 
Don't give them the exclusive. try to advertise yourself and offer agent a sum of money like 1k if they manage to get a client to buy your house. In this way, you save a lot more on commission and u have more ppl helping u to find buyers.
 
1k? u might end up with really desperate agents who are more keen on the commission than pple who can do the right job.

if there's 1 lesson i learnt in this world, it's not to deprive brokers of their commission. nobody likes to market and work for free, and that includes u and me... if u treat pple like that, it's better u dun set this condition in the first place, and just sell the house yourself from offset.

for an asset of such high value, dun be cheap on a few thousand dollars... get the best broker. it could mean a difference in price of 10-30k... i've never seen pple being cheap on commission and still get the best deal out of a broker... this isn't IT Fair where u get a cheap LCD tv.
 
powder,
you're very wrong...dun tell me you're a property agent??? hahaha

may be you might not be able to haggle for 1K commission, but you can save a lot of commission when doing DIY. DIY doesn't mean you need to do all the HDB paperwork. It's silly to pay 2% commission to the agent if your unit is a good unit.

hubby sold his parents flat, his SIL's flat and our own flat through DIY and paid only 0.5% to the buying agent. similarly, we paid 0.5% to the seller agent when we bought our resale unit. and mind you, they did all the paperwork for us. The DIY thing that we did is only advertise newspaper, get valuation done (easy job, just apply via HDB website), entertain agent calls, organise open house and negotiate with agents on the selling/buying price and commision.

imagine, if you sell your 5 room flat for $400K and if you pay 0.5%, you only pay $2000 only. if you pay 2% commission, you pay $8000!!!! that's a huge saving!

well, unless you're darn rich and owns a prime location condo or bungalow, of course, what's these few K means to you?? but if you're just an HDB owner, these $$$ means a lot.

Anyway, DIY selling/buying your HDB is not your cup of tea, if you're a a person who's afraid of hassle..
 
well mrc,

u're assuming the prices u get were the best at that time... u're also assuming u're getting the best network of customers from a pool of agents willing to work for 1-2k... but if u're dangling 1-2k commissions... u'll be getting the 2nd tier/3rd tier customers... those cream customers who Can Pay - i dun think the agents would bring to your house for viewing in the first place...

no doubt your savings on commission, but your losses on selling cheaper than IF u had been willing to pay and get agents to give u their best customers... compared with the so-so ones... meaning u could have gotten 420k instead of 400k which means an extra 12k to your pocket. But of cos, this part can only guess...

whilst i understand where u're coming from, telling me i'm 'very wrong' might be being overly certain in the pool of buyers u were shown.

i'm not a housing agent. i'm just someone who believes in paying for good service and not depriving pple sincerely providing good service - from their due rewards. of cos there's alot of scumbag agents around, tat's for sure. on the contrary, i paid my agent an extra 0.5% out of my own free-will becos he got me my place at 50k below the final price. til today, he is still showing me the best deals and offering me quality updates.. of cos i'm sure there are agents desperate enough to take small commissions, whether tat's the right thing to do i shall not contest.

i guess there'll always be 2 schools of thoughts... just as u would never know if the buyer willing to pay 420k was even brought to view your place.
 
its_cool,

Exclusive can be gd or bad it all depend how you see it! Are you comfortable to deal with lots of agent or you just want to deal with one?

For me it depend on the location of the ppty! If your house is in a gd location why sign exclusive & let only ONE agent do the work as many agents will be knocking on your house with potential buyers! Moreover you are paying the commission so why not let more agents help to sell your house?

On the other hand if you trust that AGENT it not a bad idea to let him/her to sell your house exclusively then you just have to sit back & relax let him/her do the job!

Whatever it is the main thing is you sell your house @ the best price! You make sure you do your homework & set a target price make sure your agent can @ least sell @ that price or best even higher!

That's my point of view hope this will hekp u! Gd luck!
 
ya i'm not an advocate of signing exclusives, and another thing i avoid is using relatives and frens just cos they're agents.. just network with the agents and let the one with the best offer have the deal...

DIY is fine, just make sure u dun make others run circles then u DIY and waste pple's time.
 
Anyway, offering extra income is a bonus to agent. They still want to get a higher price, as they charge the buyer 1%. The lower the price, the lesser the commission they are getting. So, in this case, I don't see why its_cool will be on the losing end.

Not trying to find fault with anyone. But agents with exclusive rights tends to call the shots. Even if you have told the agent to let go at, lets say at 300k. He might think, your flat could be sold for 330k. So, under table, he will reject ppl that offer 300k. End of the day, you might even end up selling lower than 300k.

Afterall, buying and selling a flat, as long as you are happy with the price. I don't see any problem in that. For HDB, we can always check recent transactions via HDB website, and with valuation. Selling price won't differ alot. There are no BEST price or WORSE price. It kinda depends on individual. Not all flats in the same estates can be sold at the same price. So, if you think the price is right for you. You feel comfortable with it. Then its a good deal.
 
powder,
actually before you sell your unit, like silly woman said, you need to set a target price and that target price cannot be absurb as in the COV must be around market price or a 10-15K higher if your unit is in tip top condition. else you will take a long time selling your place...when it's our turn to buy a resale unit, we visited many units and some agents were really so silly and think we dumb dumb or what.. asking 20-40K COV and there's little reno and still yaya...i bet these are the pool of rojak agent who will never be able to sell of these units..if and agent can get another 20K above our expectation (say our expectation is 25K above COV), that's 45K above COV! in this case, we definately willing to top up the commission but in these kind of economy, i doubt so.. and if i dumb dumb listen to agent who said he can get me 45K above COV, i think i have to wait neck long long before i can sell off my place..

and without an agent, i definately have more agents come knocking at my door. my hubby actually did engage an agent once and he could tell the agent was not doing a good job and his unit was at his mercy..afer 3 months, still not able to sell his place. in the end, my hubby sold it to his neighbour and did all the paperwork himself.

it's cool,
haha.. like i said, if you're a person who's afraid of hassle, DIY is not your cup of tea. good luck to you for getting a good agent.
 
mrc,

glad things went well for u guys... my whole point is actually not to be cheap when it comes to high-worth assets, and in trying to save a few thousands... end up losing more than that.

i note however that your hubby eventually sold it to his neighbour.
 
code, you are so wrong. most agents will take a quick sale over waiting for a higher selling price to materialize. if you think otherwise, you are not the sharpest tool in the shed. the best selling price is a function of market forces and your holding power. knowing the market doesn't hurt.
 

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