Agent, Schmagent: Make That Florida Home Loan Deal Yourself

Selling a home can be difficult enough. Many recent owners have been hoping to find a Florida home loan deal on their own through auctions; others, meanwhile, are turning to the Internet. In either case, real estate agent use isn’t required.

Going through the buying/selling process on your own has become easier and easier with the recent emergence of online resources. You can relax from the comfort of your home these days and sort through Florida home loan options.

For sale by … you

Dozens of for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) websites have sprung up to help with this cause. Most charge a flat fee to list homes, and offer Florida real estate forms, tips and research links to help people close their own deals.

These sites provide a way for users to subvert the monopoly of the U.S. National Association of Realtors (NAR), which charges about 6 per cent commission for listings and sales rights. This adds up to the cool $60 billion a year that lands in the pockets of agents, brokers and real estate companies. The seller misses out on all this cash via his/her Florida home loan transaction.

The 6 per cent commission (technically a “negotiable fee”) has come under fire recently from consumer groups, even landing the NAR in court last September at the hands of the U.S. Justice Department, which claimed that the NAR’s monopoly was keeping commissions artificially high.

Florida real estate agents, of course, are dismissive of this new do-it-yourself trend and claim that homeowners using websites can undersell their homes. They say agents are trained to negotiate, analyze markets, organize paperwork for closing and find the best price.

But in the recent bestseller, Freakonomics, authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner explain that hefty commissions aren’t enough to motivate selling agents to get the best price for a house. Instead, agents often opt to sell quickly, closing as many deals as possible without waiting around for the volatile market to change in their favour. The authors discovered that real estate agents’ own homes stayed on the market significantly longer than those of their clients, while the agents patiently waited for the highest bidder.

Most sites urge FSBO buyers and sellers to invest time in doing the proper research and to hire a lawyer to check paperwork. Makes sense. The Florida home loan process is extensive, but well worth it - especially if you can bypass an agent and earn extra money for yourself.