Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is the total cost when I list my house with Ledgewood Realty?
When you list your home with us, there are two main costs:

1) What you pay us: Our compensation will be a relatively small component of your marketing costs.

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2) The commission you offer to the buyer’s agent. This is usually around 1.5% to 3% of the price you ultimately negotiate with the buyer of your home. Sometimes the commission is even a little more or less than these percentages, depending on your preferences. This commission is included in the details of the MLS listing once it is published.

Why should I offer as much as 3% to the buyer’s agent, instead of just selling exclusively for-sale-by-owner, and avoiding paying any commissions whatsoever?
Despite all the for-sale-by-owner signs you may see in your town, the vast majority of real estate buyers employ agents to aid them with their home searches. Therefore, if you don’t list your home in the MLS and you don’t offer a competitive commission to buyers’ agents, you are likely to shut out the majority of potential consumers. And this could mean getting a lower price for your property than it’s really worth. Consider that there are over a million licensed real estate agents in the United States. You’ll likely want the ones in your market to be incentivized to sell your house.

If I list my home with Ledgewood Realty, can I still sell my home for-sale-by-owner and avoid paying the buyer’s agent a commission?
Yes, you can. You are welcome to still sell your home to people who are not working with real estate agents. And if you’re able to find buyers on your own and they don’t use an agent, you’ll save additional money because you won’t need to pay a buyer’s agent commission. Many traditional real estate agents do not let their seller-clients avoid paying commissions, even if the seller finds a buyer on their own. We don’t have an interest in charging you for buyers you find on your own.

What is the MLS?
MLS stands for multiple listing service. The MLS is a powerful database managed by local realtor associations throughout the United States. The vast majority of real estate buyers employ real estate agents to help them find a home. These agents typically rely heavily or exclusively on the MLS to help them find homes for their buyers. In addition, the buyers themselves have access to much of the information in the MLS because portions of the databases are made available to consumers through numerous Web sites. Realtor.com is one such site. With over one million unique visitors each month, Realtor.com is the most visited real estate Web site in the U.S. With Ledgewood Realty, your listing will be available on Realtor.com as well as many other real estate sites that draw data from the MLS.

Isn’t it true that you get what you pay for? Won’t I have to sell my home for less if I don’t use a full-priced real estate agent? Won’t it take longer to sell?
We know of no studies or evidence to suggest that real estate sellers can obtain higher prices or sell their homes any faster when they sell through full-priced agents. The only guarantee when you list your home with a full-priced agent is that if the home sells, the commissions you pay will be much higher than they would have been had you sold through us.

There are only a few agents that get most of the listings in my neighborhood. Isn’t it important that I list my house with one of them?
No, in our opinion. Real estate buyers are unlikely to care whether you list your home with one of these agents or not. Buyers’ primary concerns in choosing a home are common-sense issues such as price, features, location and condition. Most couldn’t care less who the listing agent is. Usually the agent who lists a property is not the agent who represents the buyer anyway.

If I list my home with Ledgewood Realty, I won’t have an agent to advertise my home in the local newspaper or to arrange open houses. Isn’t that going to make it hard for me to sell my house?
Again no, in our opinion. Print advertising and open houses do very little to sell homes. In fact, even many full-priced Realtors have reduced or eliminated these services because they are not a good use of time or money. Most people find homes primarily via Internet searches, through their buyers’ agents and – to a lesser extent, by driving around neighborhoods and finding ‘for sale’ signs. Your listing with Ledgewood Realty should help you get the promotion you need. Print ads and open houses are used by agents largely to promote their own names anyway, rather than to market their clients’ properties. However, if you want to hold an open house, you’ll still be able to do that on your own if you list with Ledgewood Realty.

What areas are currently served by Ledgewood Realty?
We serve North Carolina and Tennessee.

If I use Ledgewood Realty as my buyer’s agent, what percentage rebate can I expect to receive?
Normally you can expect to receive about 1.5% of the home’s value back as a rebate. We can split one half of our commission back to you. Usually the commission offered to the buyer’s agent is about 3% - sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. So you can expect to receive about 1.5% of the home’s value as a rebate. Note: we can tell you the commission rebate on a home before you put an offer on that home. For buyers looking for low-priced homes, we decide commission rebate percentages on a case-by-case basis. We reserve the right to offer a percentage lower than 1.5% under certain circumstances - for example, when the home a buyer is interested in s low-priced.

Note: In Tennessee, Ledgewood Realty can not offer the 1.5% rebate in the form of cash due to local real estate regulations. Instead we can offer a similar incentive in the form of a non-cash prize. Please call for details.