We've recently found out that we'll be moving in about five months for my job. Just as we started to think about when/how to put our house on the market, we were contacted by two different people looking to buy in our neighborhood. We have a somewhat unusual house for our neighborhood (attached garage), and apparently inventory is tight this year. Both potential buyers indicated that their timeline is flexible - they'd be willing to do a late closing and/or rent us back the house for a few months. One came and toured yesterday, and indicated that she's interested in putting together an offer. The other is coming on Monday. If at least one of these folks makes us a good offer (and I do have a decent idea of what "good" is for our neighborhood and house), where do we go from there?
One has a buyer's agent, who we would be happy to pay a 3% fee to; the other does not. I assume that the buyer's agent could walk us through the logistics of signing a contract, but if we sell directly to the other people, how do I go about making sure that all of the paperwork is done correctly?
I've thought about just calling a realtor and asking if they can do it for a reduced fee (1%? Which would be about 2k for us). But are there other, potentially cheaper, ways to ensure this? Should I just be calling a real estate lawyer directly, or a title company?
