How James & Mary Sold Their Home With ISoldMyHouse.com

James & Mary: We didn’t necessarily want to move but James received a promotion at work but it required him to move to another location that was out of state. We loved our house but we could have used some more space anyway, so in the end it was for the best. We just didn’t want to go through the hassle of selling.

James & Mary: Mary had the idea to sell FSBO to save some money and she started doing some research online and came across a lot of disadvantages about selling a house by owner but they were all written by real estate agents or companies that support real estate agents.

Once she looked into it more, she realized that these agents don’t like showing FSBOs because they don’t get paid at all. Thats when she came across the concept of flat fee MLS and the benefit of saving the listing agent commission but still offering a buyers agent commission. It seemed like a perfect compromise and we thought it would work well for us.

James & Mary: We had a small condo that we owned when we first were married and we listed it with a Realtor about 7 years ago, we sold it and thought the process overall wasn’t terribly complex. Mary actually thought about getting her real estate license but never did, so I guess she always had an interest in the business. But neither of us had ever sold a house ourselves before.

James & Mary: Well, we are big on researching our options to make sure we don’t rush into something and end up with regrets. James was busy with work, so I went online and started searching around and reading all I could. Thats is how I came across ISoldMyHouse.com. I don’t remember what was the first piece of content I read on your website but I kept reading more and more because it was so helpful, I still can’t believe how much information is on your website.

I then started reading reviews and what would be considered the “fine print” of both ISoldMyHouse.com and your competition. There are companies that offer a lower price online but they have a lot of additional costs or they have bad reviews and probably most importantly, their websites are not helpful at all so we knew they just wanted to take our money.

We realized that ISoldMyHouse.com was a reliable and established business that just wanted to help their customers sell their home. So that’s why we decided to work with you.

James & Mary: Well, as you might already be able to tell, Mary does all the research. She followed the advice on your website and staged the house to sell by doing all the standard best practices and then we hired a professional photographer to come out and take photos of the house. We can’t stress enough how doing those two items really was worth the effort and spending a couple hundred extra dollars.

Mary also keeps an eye on the market and she knew that we needed to price our house appropriately. We had a few neighbors try to sell unsuccessfully by asking for too much money. They had told us before they moved, that as soon as they listed again with a correct price, they sold in a few weeks.

So Mary came up with what she thought was an appropriate listing price, but I was greedy and wanted more money and said lets increase the asking price by $10,000. She hesitantly agreed but said lets see how it works and adjust our price quickly if we don’t sell.

James & Mary: Once our flat fee MLS listing went live, we had 3 showings the first week, which we thought was just ok. The agents contacted us and setup a time to show the house, most showings were in the afternoon or early evening. We didn’t want to be home during the showings so we had a lockbox on the door so they could let themselves in. I recommend, having the agent text you a copy of their business card so you can verify who they are before giving them the combo to your house.

After the showings, I called the agents to see what their buyers thought. Two of them said they liked our house but they were still looking, the other agent, I couldn’t get ahold of.

After that first week, there was not any more showings scheduled and we didn’t receive any more inquires. So… we decided to drop our price to what Mary had originally came up with! That did it, once we had the correct price, we had 4 more showings over the next few days and 2 offers to choose from! One offer was from a buyer that was working with an agent and the other was from a buyer who wasn’t working with anyone.

James & Mary: Well, we really wanted to take the offer from the buyer who was working on their own. Obviously, we would have saved a lot more money by not having to pay the buyers agents commission. But their offer wasn’t as strong and after consulting with our attorney on the offers, she advised us to take the offer from the buyer working with an agent.

Our attorney said there was a greater chance of the deal falling apart if we choose the other offer because they were not putting much money down, they had a strange looking pre-approval letter and they wanted too much time for the inspection and mortgage contingencies.

Overall, the buyer we worked with was very strong and presented their offer well. The agent they were working with was very professional and she represented her clients well and made the process smooth. So in the end we didn’t mind paying her commission at all.

James & Mary: Very smooth, thanks to our attorney who handled all the work that goes on behind the scenes. The buyers did ask for a few items to be fixed before closing but we would have wanted the same repairs done if we were buying the home. We didn’t even have to attend the closing, we met our attorney the day before and signed all the paperwork. She called us after the closing was completed and told us it was a done deal.

James & Mary: It definitely was worth it, dealing with hassle of selling without a listing agent was not bad at all. I’m not saying that selling by owner would be for everyone but if you are a savvy person who wants to save a good amount of money, then go for it. We ended up selling our house for $378,000, which means with the 2.5% we would have paid for a listing agents commission, we saved a total of $9,450! I highly recommend selling a house with flat fee MLS and will never do it any other way.