My experience is that the agents will all try to tell you 6% commission, which the seller pays.
Ha
Nice try.
In this market you can negotiate.
Frankly even 4% is too much, but if you get 4, you are doing ok.
You can probably get a better rate with you listing agent if you are buying another house at the same time. Say for example you live in parkdale and you are moving up to Forrest Hill.
You say to your perspective agent, ok, you can sell my house for 4% and you can then find me another house to buy (which they will get half the commision for.)
As far as home inspections go, they may or may not tell you what needs to be done to the house. (If they catch it.)
I know though that the way the market is these days (multiple offers, bidding wars) if i was selling my house and some dope tried to tell me that i had to put a roof on it before he will buy it, i would tell him to get stuffed.
It's supply and demand.
If you live in a hot neighbourhood - Beaches, leaside, Bloor West Villiage, Annex, Little Italy, there will be people lining up to buy your place, bad roof or not.
Makes you think you could bang a piece of plywood into your front lawn with 4 sale spray painted on it and move the house.
I agree with the above poster though that there are a lot of flakes out there.
If you wanted to try it yourself, you could merely say, i am taking bids on such and such a day. See what you get offered, then play one off against the other till you get the highest bid.
If you don't like what you hear, go the agent route. I firmly believe that you have nothing to loose since it is the lawyers who actually close the deal, not the real estate agent. If you can find a guy to buy your place at the price you want, just get his lawyer to call your lawyer and save the commission. On 300 grand, 5 percent is 15,000 bucks on a house that probably will be on the market for all of a week or two.
Plus i find real estate agents to think they are hot shit. Most barely have high school.
Location location location.
If you are in the right location at the current time, it's madness out there.
cheers
oh yeah, if anyone wants the name of a good real estate lawyer PM me. His price is reasonable, but most of all he's a good enough guy. He cut me some serious breaks in my break up with my ex. Serious breaks. I think he must have gotten fucked around by a woman in the past so he felt sorry for me.