I don't like real estate agents

I guess I should clarify that. I don't like the real estate agent profession. Mostly because I think they're unnecessary, and overpaid for what they do. But also because some of them come across like smarmy used car salesmen. 

Unnecessary because selling (or buying) a house is not that difficult. You choose a price that you're happy with, you advertise it, and you show it to people who are interested in buying it. If nobody buys it in three months, then your price was too high to begin with. Look at the market and decide what's reasonable. Don't be greedy.

And overpaid, especially now that the prices have skyrocketed. The average selling price in Canada was $662,000 in the month of July. I simply can't imagine paying out 4% to 6% ($25,000 to $40,000) of that as a cost of selling. Yikes.

I sold our house privately in 2007. I still think that we received a fair price at the time, and so did the buyer. I also sold my mother's condo in 2011 (?) privately after a real estate agent couldn't perform the task in the six months he tried. It was kind of funny because I even said in the advert that real estate agents weren't welcome. The person who bought (at my advertised price) had to pay a 2.5% commission to her agent to get out of her agreement with them even though the agent didn't do anything.

Ever since 2018, selling prices in Canada are publicly available online. The Canadian competition bureau finally decided that it wasn't fair that only real estate people had access to this information, and that it should be publicly available. So it's relatively easy to come up with a realistic selling price.

But Ruth's dad's property is unique. Nothing similar has sold in that area in the last five years. We had to get a certified appraisal done for probate as of the date of his death last November and even they couldn't come up with a figure. The  appraisal simply stated "between $485,000 and $750,00". (Of course all of these dollar figures are Canadian dollars).

That's a pretty wide range!

But it's because it's a unique property. The house was originally built in 1893, and it's a township heritage home. There was a full addition put on in 1984, and the original part of the house was also completely renovated. There is a big heated insulated garage/workshop, a big garden shed, and a smaller tool shed. It's nicely landscaped, and the front porch faces the river.

The front of the house.

The back of the house.

On the down side, while the steel roof is structurally sound, it needs paint and it doesn't look the best. It's too late in the season now to get someone to paint it. Much of the interior of the house is now dated looking and unfortunately he didn't fix things up as they went bad. We have already spent over $50,000 fixing the more serious issues, but there are still some minor things that the new owners will have to look after as they see fit.

I'm going to paint the basement floor and walls, and we have to give the rest of the house a good cleanup, but that's where our physical work there ends. Then I will sell it.

I'll advertise it on all the free online platforms, and I'll pay the minimum to get it listed on the Canada wide MLS service. I'm going to list it for detailed sealed bids over $485,000 with a (yet to be determined) deadline date in September. Highest or any offer not necessarily accepted. If someone is using their own buyer agent, they will have to include the 2.5% buyers fee as necessary.

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Nice deal on the base model Coredy Vacuum Cleaner.

And in Canada...

First Aid Kit