- Derrick Chou self-listed his New York City home in order to skirt real-estate agent commissions.
- He said he saved about $40,000, but had to deal with the “grunt work” agents usually handle.
- He said it was rough, but right for him at the time. Five years later, he would hire an agent.
Selling a home comes with a host of hassles, but what if you could save tens of thousands of dollars? The catch: you have to do all the work yourself.
Even before a federal jury found that real-estate agents and brokerages conspired to keep their commissions artificially high, some sellers have opted to cut out the middle men, and list and sell their abode themselves.
More and more sellers may opt for this route, especially now that agents’ commissions have been thrust into the national spotlight after the jury’s decision finding certain brokerages liable for about $1.8 billion in damages.
Take Derrick Chou, who in 2017 chose to forgo a real estate agent and avoid the up to 6% commission that would have been split between his and his buyer’s agent upon closing. His 535-square-foot New York City condo wound up selling for $830,000, and he was able to keep the about $40,000 he would have had to pay his broker, who would in turn give half to the buyer’s broker.
Of course, he had to pay certain fees out of pocket, like the $500-a-month listing fee on StreetEasy, a Zillow-owned listings website for New York City properties for sale or rent. But Chou told Insider he doesn’t regret selling his apartment himself.
“It was a lot of money,” Chou said. “It was a seller’s market, and because of that I felt well-equipped to be able to do so myself and wound up saving anywhere between $30,000 and $50,000 in commission.”
Grunt work and mishaps
Though Chou’s home sale was successful, “there’s a lot of grunt work to do it consistently on a weekly basis,” he said, such as answering emails with tons of questions. It’s more time-consuming than he expected, he explained.
He also found himself besieged by relentless real-estate agents. They had seen his for sale by owner, or FSBO, listing, and each broker was trying to pressure him to enlist their services.
“If you decide to sell on your own, be prepared to hear nonstop pitches,” Chou wrote in a post published on Medium in March 2018. After going through all of his emails, Chou realized he was contacted by a “total of 110 brokers,” he said.
He also faced a setback when a cleaning mishap forced him to pull his listing from the market. In an attempt to showcase his condo’s views, he hired window cleaners. When a window accidentally broke during the process, plummeting 20 stories to the streets of New York, Chou was forced to briefly take the home off the market as he endured a five-month wait for its replacement.
“I think it was morally right,” Chou said. “I don’t know if you can sell an apartment that doesn’t have a window.”
While the window was being replaced, Chou and his family temporarily vacated the home. Over the next few months, they found themselves shouldering the expenses for two New York City apartments, a costly situation that almost pushed him to consider using a broker.
“Right after the window incident happened, it crossed my mind a lot,” he said.
Yet, Chou persisted. Seven months after the window incident, he put the home back on the market. It sold within the year to a buyer who also did not use a broker — a rarity in New York’s competitive and inventory-starved real-estate market.
“I figured it was going to happen,” Chou said, adding that “It takes a lot of time and hard work, but it’s not necessarily too complex. It’s just a matter of doing it.”
Five years later, with two kids, Chou said he would work with an agent if he were to sell again. “I don’t know if I have the time,” he said, noting the kids’ packed schedules and other family obligations he has to attend to.
Chou has turned his acquired real-estate knowledge into a business venture. He is now the founder of Transparent City, an apartment listing website that provides renters information on every no-fee management company in New York.
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