As a homeowner for the last 24 years in our current home and 7 in our first home which we sold before the current one, we are now considering it’s time to move again, potentially out of state. Living in southern California has gotten to be quite expensive and our thoughts are on how much our retirement dollars will stretch in the future living in another State, where the cost of living may be substantially less than here. Of course, we’ll miss the weather, the ocean, the city, and all its beauty but having grown up in the same town, I’m feeling the need to spread my wings and venture out to newer horizons.
There is quite a bit to consider, before pulling up stakes and moving, especially to another state. We’ll definitely be visiting different places that we may be calling home, but in the meantime, there’s plenty of work to do to prepare for our exit.
So we’ll be spending the next 2 years doing repairs and upgrades to get the most out of the sale of our property and enjoy the fruits of our labor for a bit before we go.
Determining your selling price and more
So when we expressed this to a few friends, they immediately asked if we were working with any realtor, which we are not. (Frankly, every time I’m introduced to someone who is a realtor, they jump on the chance to represent us.) They usually offer some suggestions as to what we should do repair wise to get the greatest bang for our buck and what we could reasonably expect to receive as offers, based on comps and our location which is pretty great given our views of the bay, city, and ocean.
And that got me thinking, what kind of commissions should we expect to pay and how much can we can negotiate on commissions? The high is 6% but with lots of brokerage firms to work with, we’re certainly going to aim for a lower commission agreement.
Armed with this information I began to do some research and found several calculators to consider and I landed on mortgagecalculators.info. After perusing the numerous types of calculators available – which I’ll be using for future home buying – I focused on the one that offers you the ability to see just how much commission I can expect to pay from the high end to the lowest.
Now for the feedback
And I have to say I was a little surprised to see just how much commission a realtor would get should I sell my home for top dollar. I had no idea that it could potentially be in the 6 figures and that got my attention! Plus with the ability to put in variables based on current mortgage and original purchase price we could see what the ballpark net proceeds and net gains would be as well as the various net commissions.
As consumers, we must do the necessary research whether we’re buying or selling a home and I found some great information on investopedia.com
on avoiding mistakes when selling a home that you’ll want to check out if you’re planning on selling.
Mortgagecalculators.info has a variety of calculators from basic calculators such as monthly payment, minimum income requirements, home loan limits to advanced calculators such as rent or buy, amortization to refinance calculators and so much more. Be sure to check them out for all your mortgage needs when needing sound advice on all things mortgage, buying, selling, renting, and more!