THE SAVINGS IN COMMISSIONS IS YOUR BONUS

25 years ago Homeowners Concept started as a real estate office to save sellers the huge 5, 6 or 7% commission. Today Homeowners Concept has evolved into a company where sellers can turn to for great service, top notch real estate expertise and great marketing. The savings in commissions is really a bonus.

Over the years we have developed a program that we can guarantee as the most efficient and effective way for selling homes. We have done this by providing more in marketing properties (having the most widely distributed homes magazine and a great website, among others) and having highly skilled, full time, long term agents who are truly dedicated to real estate. You see, the traditional high commission model of just hiring agents regardless whether the business is there or not saddles the system with mediocre agents who spend most of their time competing with each other offering the same thing and charging 5-6% commissions (see post of 8/26/09). There are way too many agents for the amount of sales and one can understand why the average agent does only a few deals a year and has just a few years in business. We on the other hand, limit the hiring to just the best in the business so our Realtors do a lot of sales saving you money from excessive commissions.

When you work with Homeowners Concept, you work with some of the most successful and most active agents in the area. Our Realtors know what’s going on in the market right now because they spend all of their time serving clients: touring homes, writing offers and closing deals. The savings in commissions again is your bonus.

The futile way of selling FSBO

The very reason we exist is a result of For Sale By Owners (FSBO). It was early 1984 when our founder walked away from buying a For Sale By Owner (FSBO) after he realized the legal cost involved and time away from work necessary to meet with a lawyer during business hours. He wondered how many other buyers walk away from buying a FSBO if Realtor assisted homes are easier to get. A little research at the central library consisted of calling 100 FSBOs from the newspaper ads of 3-5 months before, showed that very few sellers were successful (at that time only 12% of FSBOs were able to sell without any Realtor help - most recent national survey shows that only 9% are successful). Either way these numbers are dismally low. It was then that he realized that there has to be a better way for real estate to be sold and our Concept was born as the "missing link" for FSBOs to achieve the Realtor advantages without the hefty commissions.

This year alone we have tracked FSBOs in Wauwatosa (one of the healthiest in sales in the metro area). So far only one home out of 14 has sold this way. All others have turned to Realtors and 2 w/Homeowners Concept - one of which has sold, the other is pending.

Ordinarily, FSBO is the cheapest way to sell most of the time BUT that is only if you sell (although there have been cases where FSBOs have spent far more than our fee, mainly on attorney costs). Factoring in the extremely low probability of selling as a FSBO the cost of selling is substantially higher. It is the time one loses trying as a FSBO (usually 8-9 weeks) that damages the home's chance of getting sold at its highest price plus the money a FSBO spends on marketing. It is the buyers' reluctance to enter negotiations with the seller directly and spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars in legal fees plus maneuver through the transaction on their own that dooms the FSBOs. One of the fallacies sellers have is that a buyer will use "their" lawyer to do the buyer contract, counters, amendments, etc. That is extremely rare and besides, attorneys list their homes with Realtors at the same rate as any other profession (they know better). Over the years we have had hundreds of sellers who were trying completely on their own, then turn to our company and within a number of days to a few weeks got an accepted offer as a result of having someone the buyers could turn to.

Every year, $100s of millions of dollars are wasted by sellers trying to sell as a FSBO before they turn their home over to a Realtor to eventually sell it. If sellers knew all the facts, they would never resort to sell a property as a FSBO not as long as companies like ours are around.

Mortgage information you should be aware of.

More than ever we are finding that a mortgage banker has many more options to finance a purchase than a direct lender such as a bank, mortgage company or credit union. Just in the past few days we had 2 loans approved that had been rejected at a local direct lender.

The first was an FHA loan for a Wauwatosa home that Bank of America will not approve due to issues on the condition report which the buyer was accepting. Our preferred mortgage Banker Netcentral Mortgage placed the loan with a lender that does not require the condition report.

The second buyer was not getting approved for a Waukesha condo at Westbury Bank due to an association assessment. Again Netcentral Mortgage was able to place the loan with an underwriter that accepted the assessment restriction.

We suggest to buyers to avoid hassles, delays and even rejection of their loan by using a reputable mortgage banker. Mortgage bankers work with multiple lenders and know which underwriter will approve what. Furthermore, a mortgage bankers oftentimes have better rates or closings costs as different banks compete for loans. Netcentral Mortgage has beat or reduced closing costs for many buyers over the years.