Since You Need A Lawyer At Some Point In Your Real Estate Transaction, Why Not Start With One

Since you need a lawyer at some point in your real estate transaction, why not start with one. A team of lawyers in Eastern Canada has started a website were they handle all of your real estate needs. There is no need for a realtor and a lawyer. They are the same person. Read on to see how the firm also does good in the community.

Save money without realtors Innovative lawyers support GSC
(Aug 11, 2006)

Ten innovative lawyers have developed a new website in Hamilton to help people sell their homes without the need for a real estate broker. The website address is www.Propertyshop.ca.

"This allows home sellers to save thousands of dollars," said Christine M. Lewis, Hamilton spokesperson for the group behind the new project.

Sellers can list the details of their property on the website, add up to 20 pictures, as well as telephone and e-mail information. There is even a link to a map, therefore potential purchasers can see were the property is located.

Propertyshop.ca also provides a lawn sign with the price on it and a telephone-number to a voice-box-system, where interested people can receive information about the property for sale.

The lawyers involved with the website help with legal advice during every step of the selling-process. Therefore, vendors have the security of a lawyer protecting his or her rights throughout the real-estate-deal. While traditional realtors make commissions of $10,000 to $12,000 on a $200,000 house, Propertyshop.ca would only take $600 to $800. This includes the internet-fee and the fee for the lawyer, although the fee for the legal advice is negotiable.

Vendors selling homes totally on their own and abandoning any professional advice often run into problems, according to Propertyshop.ca. Purchasers and vendors finalize deals at the kitchen table with little knowledge of drafting a contact. So, these deals often make little or no sense.

"That is where we, as lawyers, come in and draft the offers and make sure the deal is structured properly," said Ms. Lewis.

Finally consumers have two advantages using Propertyshop.ca. First they save money, and second, they get better legal advice by real lawyers instead of realtors.

In fact realtors would mostly help vendors in legal questions and advise the consumer that with all these complications, a professional broker is necessary.

"In reality, the client needs a lawyer for these issues," Ms. Lewis said. And the marketing can be done by the vendors themselves, using the website to promote the property.

The model has already proved successful in Scotland. The Canadian company said that in Edinburgh for example, the website did 93 per cent of all real-estate-transactions in that city.

Today there is also a successful branch in Glasgow.

To show its social interest, Propertyshop.ca has just started a program with the Good Shepherd Centres (GSC) in downtown Hamilton. From each house they help to sell they will give $300 to GSC to help families in need of housing support. To date, the company has housed one family, which cost $3,000.

"As the new champions of this program, they will provide sustainable support for our organization and give deserving families what they need to stay together," said Cathy Wellwood from the GSC.

Hamilton Propertyshop.ca, according to the firm's statement, is the largest location of this new concept of house-selling. The concept has already been successfully operating in Owen Sound for four years and now there are subsidiaries in Toronto, Thunder Bay Kingston, Sudbury, Kitchener, Cambridge, Waterloo, Sudbury, Sauble Beach, Chesley, Kincardine and Elmira.

From the Hamilton Mountain News