I’ve done off market sales a couple times. They worked well and saved me some money. In both cases I knew the property and the owner. I just used my usual attorney to handle the paperwork after we negotiated a price. Agents protect you in the negotiating process and potentially get you a better price by exposing you to more buyers. The actual legal transaction is the same regardless.

We recently sold a house in Phoenix to a friend and NEighbor. We just used a highly rated title company. They actually had a real estate contract. There were no realtors involved. The gift of a finders fee is a lovely thought. You could also give her a gift card to a restaurant…

My mother sold her mother's house with no RE agent involved. The estate lawyer wrote up a contract and coordinated with the title company. (Mom also financed the sale for the buyers.)

Don't discount the value of a good realtor's knowledge of the local market and ability to price a property properly. Even if you don't hire an agent, ask 3 agents for free market analyses.

If you have a buyer all you need is a real estate attorney - much less expensive than a realtor and more competent that many of them.

I echo the above: an attorney is perfectly capable of making sure all the documents are correct, and they only charge a few hundred dollars.

If you wanted an assessment of the value, you could also spend a few hundred dollars on an appraisal instead of paying an agent 6% to run you through the appraisal computer program. :-)

Agents don't charge 6% for a competitive market analysis.

@bsgibbs Can you tell me how it works if the buyer has an agent of his/her own? What does that mean for me and/or does that change anything? ty!

If the buyer already has an agent that sort of changes everything. You need to decide if you will pay the agent commission or if you will make the buyer pay that. Also who is negotiating- you and buyer or you and their agent?

@sabigabatini - if the buyer approached you with an agent you are not obligated to pay them a commission. They may be on the hook to pay that agent, though, depending on if they signed a contract stating so.
Frequently the agent will write an offer for the. and put a commission

Oops. Hit the wrong button.
Frequently the agent will write an offer for the buyer, and put a commission in the document. If you sign and agree to that, you will be obligated to pay it.

We had a commercial property sale where we got all the details established with the buyer and had the attorney write the contract. It was almost a copy of the standard realtor contract but without the paragraph numbering and multiple choices.
The buyer hired a realtor and had him rewrite it on the standard realtor contract. I assume he agreed to pay the realtor a fee for doing this. The realtor checked the wrong box on property taxes and ended up costing the buyer about $8000.

@bsgibbs @HALLETT & Co. ok thank you, so it sounds as if the question of who pays the buyer’s agent is a negotiable one and that it should be duly noted before signing any offers/contracts (for sure).

As for who is negotiating… I’d expect and endeavor to have that between me and the buyer especially since this will be expected to occur privately at least initially but still I was curious about how a buyer’s agent might enter into the mix (if it did). Appreciate the inputs.