realators are good that 6% hurts but all they do is sell n meet people.
This is wrong. Brokers do not actually sell your house, they just broker the business. Two different things. The realtor's job is exposing your house to as many potential buyers as possible and selecting the few that they feel have the potential to end up buying the house. HOWEVER, they will make it very clear that the decision is yours and will keep their mouth shut when asked "what do you think?"-caliber questions.
Thankfully this broker business is going to die very soon, as the 2-5% commission is WAAAAAAY above what they deserve, and the internet is basically rendering their model to shit.
Depending on how much time you've got, try getting the realtor license and that'll cut the commission expense a lot.
When I bought my house the realtor asked me if I didn't mind if he were to act as dual agent (agent for seller and buyer) and got stiffed BIG TIME. Guy never told me the deal on the other side was a three million dollar home (mine was 700k) so, although after the deal was done, when he came clean and told us, he swore it made no difference to him. Of course it made a difference! We told him we wanted to put an offer in at 650k and he basically came out and told us that the family would "never accept" and that it was best to "offer what they asked". Since money was not an issue we said "Aw... fuck it". WROOOONG. We should've negotiated it down and dropped this guy of an agent.
In essence:
1) Find a house you like by using the internet;
2) Find out if it is for-sale-by-owner;
3) If #2 is negative, find the cheapest broker in the area and work with them. If # 2 is positive, work directly with the owner and find the cheapest licensed internet agent you can get;
4) The most important: Find yourself a good and honest inspector. Take as many tests as you can, asbestos, termite, CO2, roof,
et cetera. Use ANY and ALL negative feedback as part of the negotiation. Even if the owner decides not to sell you the house, you have a legal right to sell/share the inspection report with any prospective buyers;
5) It's a buyers market: Low ball the offer by at the very least 10% under the
market price. If they're eager to buy, they will bite. Before I bought my house, which was 700k, we looked at a townhouse in a very nice private community, so much so that we put an offer in for 550k even though the owner wanted to sell it for 650k. We argued that the house was in dire need of renovations but the owner didn't budge. He ended up selling it for 350k 7 years later. Fuck him. And yes, the guy had the nerve to ask our agent at the time to call us up and see if we were still interested at 550k. People are like that, hence expect the worst.
6) Be patient and do not sacrifice what you want for less money.
My two cents.
