Stephen Knight

Should I skip the agent and save on the commission?

Or are real estate agents really worth it?

Now, let's say you do decide to sell your house, yourself, Andrew.

How much money could you save?

Well, let's just think about it from how much an agent charges you, first of all.

Now, forget the GST all the time.

It's an extra 15%.

Oh, that's 4% of the first one, 2%.

Oh, I hate it.

And I mean, that's real money, right?

Like if you think about it.

Real cash money.

Well, if you're selling your own house and going to buy a different house, I always think you don't realize how much you're paying the agent.

But because you're potentially going to take a mortgage out on your next house, you're effectively borrowing the money to pay the real estate agent in many cases.

Now, there is a bit of a catch to this because I saw some analysis from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand that showed that the median sale price that an agent gets is about 11% higher than a private sale.

Now, can I just stop there and just, oh no, maybe actually... No, you can.

Go on, stop there.

Because all of their members are real estate agents, right?

That's how they keep the doors open.

Yeah, there does seem to be a bit of a gap there because what we tend to see is if you've got a really cheap property, then maybe you go, no, I'll just sell it myself because somebody will buy it at this price.