March 31, 2006

So, I'm buying a house. Wow. There's a lot of stuff related to buying a house. So far things have gone fairly smoothly.

Neither the seller nor I have real estate agents. We're just using real estate lawyers. Want to know what the difference is?

1) Agents help you look for a house. Lawyers don't.
2) Agents take 6% of the house's value as a commission. Lawyers cost under $1000.

Consider a house that's worth $300,000. That means an agent would get $15,000 from the sale. See why we're not using agents?

Frankly, their only value is that they help you find a house you want. If you don't mind doing the house-hunting on your own, you can save a huge pile of money. And now that this newfangled "internet" is around, I really see no value to agents at all.

-ATW