Reliable Real Estate Agent in Dubrovnik

[janan]

We want to sell our house near Dubrovnik, and we were hoping that someone could recommend an agent that they have had a good experience with. We bought the house through Croatian Sun and were very pleased with them, but they seem to have closed down now.

If anyone has any advice I'd be very grateful

[janan]

At this stage I'd even be grateful for names of estate agents, whether you have had experience with them or not

[janan]

I've been able to contact one estate agent in Dubrovnik. They have quoted 4-5% seller's commission and no buyer's commission. Does anybody know if this is normal? Please help!

[zvekov]

The agent charges that fee, but it is normal to be split between buyer and seller. So standard practice, is you pay half that amount. The market is very quiet & some agents are trying to push for a change to attract buyers, but i hardly think so. There are many other agents

[janan]

Thanks for explaining that Zveko. I thought it was a bit high, and when we bought the house we certainly had to pay a buyers commission.

Do you know of any estate agents in Dubrovnik?

[keepsmiling]

We have a place near Dubrovnik which we would like to sell, but we have given up trying. Rather steep commission. We know of an "unofficial" agent but he didn't send one single viewer.

[janan]

Oooer, doesn't sound good for us, Keepsmiling
We have had someone approach us about buying the property, but we wanted to get a agent first ar at least get a valuation before we started talking to them

[keepsmiling]

We have had lots of window shoppers by word of mouth but they were looking for dirt cheap houses by the sea. Janan, it very much depends on how quickly you wish to sell and what you are happy with.

[delta]

Agency commissions are quite different from one agency to another and they also depend on location of agency. For instance, max fee set by law is 6 % and is mostly charged on the coast. Such 6 % commission is usually split between buyer and seller.

In Zagreb fees are smaller, with lots of agencies charging 4 % or sometimes even 2 % to seller only. However, there is a problem sometimes when buyer does not want to pay anything, but still demands work done for him.

[delta]

I had a client last year that purchased a flat in Opatija and she was complaining she had to pay 3 % commission with seller paying the same. I wasn't involved in that deal directly, she just told me so.

Since 2008 I see that people inquiring to purchase are less inclined to pay anything, often they hang up the phone if they hear there is a fee. Approach that I have now is that I will charge commission to buyer only if I have something that is really attractive.

Almost all of my clients are Croatians and they often complain about our fees. How is with foreign clients, from what I hear, higher commissions are quite usual in western Europe and USA, no?

[delta]

That is not that much. I found a link about average commissions in different countries:

ilovecommission.com/investment/real-estate-investment/what-is-a-fair-real-estate-commission

In USA it used to be 6 %.

money.cnn.com/2006/03/31/pf/saving/willis_tips/

[ivetron]

In the USA it is still 6% (seller pays the listing agent 3% and the buying agent 3%). This is very much the norm. There are discount brokers out there that will charge less and only do the bare bones minimum. In other words put it on the multiple lising for all to view. However, they don't market your home, show your home, help with complicated paperwork or provide valuable info and advice. Negotiating down the 6% to say 5% with the regular full service agents is not uncommon these days.

[alibaba]

I am trying to sell my restaurant and have the same problem with agents! Any suggestions on reliable real-estates??

[Carol]

Does reliable mean "will find you a buyer" and "will charge a reasonable fee for introducing the buyer and presiding over the sale"? If it does, then here is the problem... there are very very few buyers around and those that are interested to buy want a good property for a low price. IME sellers with good properties want to charge relatively high prices. The market si so weak right now that is hard to make any accurate valuation because there are almost no other similar properties sold recently with which to make comparisons.
That means agents are earning very little commissions and when they do they've got to try to make the money last a long time. Even if agents were to work for nothing, it would make no difference to the market because even at low prices there are only a few buyers out there these days.
My best advice would be to wait a couple of years if you can.

[delta]

alibaba, I have an inquiry for a restaurant; can you give more detail about its location and characteristics? Did you consider to rent it? You can send me a PM.