Just got this testimonial from a client who sold her place. Really makes us happy to see how clients are saving money and enjoying our service.
“Three years ago we listed our home with the realtor who had sold it to us seven years before. We thought he’d appreciate the return business, especially since we were listed at $1,250,000.
We rented a storage locker, decluttered and staged the whole house (I’m an interior designer, so that part was easy). He posted it on MLS (also easy) and asked to have an agents’ open house. I cleaned, I baked. No-one came. I later found out he hadn’t told the other realtors in his own office about our listing, never mind any others; even his own branch manager didn’t know he had the listing.
We had three open houses. I cleaned some more, baked some more, went out for 3 hours to stay out the way each time (tedious). No-one came. He got the dates wrong. Twice. There were no other viewings either. Not one. By this time that storage locker had cost us almost $1,000.
It was hard to choose another realtor, so we went with the well-known guy with his face on the side of buses and the back of the Lower Mainland telephone directory. Our flashy new realtor posted our listing on MLS. He sent an assistant to do a realtors’ open (yes, folks, apart from the initial meeting with him, we were only allowed to speak to his staff, usually via voicemail or e-mail, often with much delay). No-one came… and he never brought a single buyer to see our carefully cleaned and staged house! Déjà vu.
We considered the FSBO (for sale by owner) option, but the biggest hurdle was not having access to MLS, and everyone knows that’s how most buyers find new homes these days, especially now that we’re all so tech savvy and connected. How I wish oneflatfee.ca had been around at the time!
Eventually we gave up and took the house off the market. Fortunately, we weren’t desperate to sell.
But this year the time came to sell a condo we’d bought with our son. And this time oneflatfee.ca was making waves on the real estate scene. Imagine – we could be on MLS at a fraction of the price of signing with an old-fashioned realtor. And my previous experiences had taught me that all realtors really want is one’s listing… after it goes up on MLS, they don’t seem to do much else! What I really wanted most of all is for old-fashioned realtors to wake up to the 21st century… no more money for nothing!
We did however ask two traditional realtors to come and view the condo to give us an idea of a listing price. They came up with $269,000 – less than its assessed value. We just couldn’t afford to list at that price given our initial investment plus reno costs, never mind pay TWO realtors’ commissions.
So we listed with oneflatfee.ca at $299,000 and I didn’t even have to leave my office to do it. We figured if it didn’t sell at that price, we’d take it off the market and rent it out, because with oneflatfee.ca there is no contract – one can delist at any time, or keep it on the market for as long as one wants.”