<p>That’s very reasonable. An agent should be able to tell you what you need to do in order to get it ready to sell, particularly cosmetic items. My agent always has a list of people who can do the work. Sometimes it’s helpful to have your own inspection done and then fix the items on the list. We’ve done that with the last few houses we sold and then sold it ‘as is’. That avoids a lot of the back and forth on fixing items on the inspection report.</p>
<p>I feel your pain about work…will you be permanently retiring?</p>
<p>The top Realtors in my town get very involved in preparation of houses for listing. At a minimum they will order inspections and do a permit search, plus advise on staging. Of course, a lot depends on what the owner is willing to do. </p>
<p>An agent who lives in my neighborhood sold 2 houses on my street. One was after the death of the elderly owner. She basically took charge of the entire preparation; she hired painters, landscapers, repair people, stagers, the works. I saw her walking between her house and the one she was going to list almost every day for nearly 2 months. There was a huge amount of work to be done. When the house finally went on the market, it was immaculate and sold in less than a week with 8 offers. The second house sold quickly as well - I think the main thing she did there was supervise the painting and staging.</p>
<p>When I sold my house last month, I had spent over a year gradually fixing up and decluttering (freecycle was my friend!) I didn’t select a Realtor until a month before we went on the market. As a result, my Realtor didn’t get involved until the very end, but when he did he was incredibly pro-active. He has a small army of handymen and tradesmen at his beck and call. He ordered all inspections (house, chimney, pool, termite, roof) and was there for all of them. He was there during the staging. He bought a home warranty for us right after we signed the listing. He advised us on what should be fixed vs what to just disclose. When the inspection found a leak in a pipe running down an outer wall, he immediately got the home warranty company to send out a plumber, and followed up with a stucco guy to fix the 2’x2’ hole in the outside wall that was created by the repair. He gave us the contact for someone in our county who deals with rodents (ancient history of rats in our crawl space) and had our gas company out to give their advice on a question about the gas fireplace that had come up during the inspection. All of this was done before the house went on the MLS. We sold in 3 days.</p>
<p>I should mention that our Realtor didn’t really give a lot of advice on staging. He pretty much deferred to the stager’s experience in that area.</p>
<p>The house we’re going to put an offer on had another very busy listing agent. The owners live in Europe and it has been rented for the past 3 years. The agent hired someone to put in a new kitchen, all new windows, a new master bath, and paint inside & out. She arranged all inspections and hired a stager to stage the house. She also had new sod put into the back yard. Not that it’s relevant, but we really wish she hadn’t done all these things; we prefer not to pay a premium for cosmetic work as we’d rather do all of that ourselves.</p>
<p>The kitchen is fine, I like the choice of frameless cabinets. But there’s no room for a table so we would have bumped it out and added a kitchen seating area. I also would have preferred a double oven, and I wouldn’t have used pre-fabricated granite. The master bath tile job is very sloppy, and the bottom of the shower door frame comes to about 5’8 off the floor…who would put in such a low frame so that a tall person would have to duck to get into the shower? </p>
<p>We haven’t seen the house inspection, only the termite. Based on that, it looks like the hall bath (not redone by the agent) will have to be completely ripped out to remediate mold issues. Plus there’s $5500 of other termite work to be done. House inspection will be available tomorrow - we’ll see what other goodies come up. Also tomorrow is the final city inspection - at least all the work the agent did was done with permits.</p>
<p>Its the competition that makes the agent do this. Here in the Bay Area, everyone has a real estate license and the competition is cut throat as the residential market is very active, in a good location, you can sell the house in a week. Without the service, an agent is in a disadvantage.</p>
<p>It is normally the owner pays the out of pocket and the agent put in sweat equity.</p>
<p>No, there’s no separate compensation although my neighbor probably paid 6% in commission rather than the prevailing rate of 5%. Yes, the agent is assuming the role of a GC. The owners typically pay for all labor & materials. As I said previously, I really wish agents wouldn’t do this because I don’t want to pay a premium for cosmetic upgrades. However the vast majority of buyers can’t be bothered and want a house that they can move in to without doing any work.</p>
<p>My agent gets nothing in return for his referrals to tradesmen. We decided to not use his painter and he was totally fine with that.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention that my agent also kept my cat while we were out of town when the listing was active. He’s truly a full service agent ;)</p>
<p>Are they separately compensated for this, beyond the commission? </p>
<p>she might also have been the property manager for the absent owners. my hubby manages a lot of rentals, for a % of the rentals , on top of his real estate broker business. he oversees a lot of the fixups needed before a listing hits the market.</p>
<p>I’ve been in this job for 15 months and I’m on my fourth boss. (The first and the fourth are both nut cases.) I anticipate the newest boss will stay for a while, and that – ummm – does not appeal to me. </p>
<p>In addition, I have three subordinates, and two of them left in the last six months – so I’ve got two newbies working for me now.</p>
<p>I live in NJ all week and am never in my house.</p>
<p>About 90% of what I earn goes to maintain the house I’m never in. Another 5% or so goes to pay the nice landlady in NJ so I can stay there during the week.</p>
<p>The broker I used to work for had a saying “There is only one reason a house won’t sell… the price is too high”</p>
<p>And, she was right. If you want your house to move quickly, clean it up, paint the old paint, & fix what needs to be fixed, take all the other agent advice about flowers on the doorstep, etc, but price it right at or slightly below what your best comps sold for.</p>
<p>It’s awful for people who paid more than their house will currently sell for, to hear that, but it is true. Best thing for them is to hang on if at all possible & sell when the market in one’s area improves.</p>
<p>Thanks for asking about my husband’s health. Yes, he is fine now. He had a very scarey bleeding episode last March resulting in a hospitalization, biopsy, and a bunch of other stuff but – aside from the fact that he has the prostate of a 60-year-old – he’s fine. And given that he’s 60 years old, that’s not inappropriate. </p>
<p>The stress of trying to change my circumstances while continuing to live in my circumstances is becoming overwhelming.</p>