We used Pamela Yee at Schmidt and Yee to help us sell our house. She is a great lawyer if you need a private attorney/lawyer to help you with a residential real estate transaction in Oregon (especially in the Portland, Hillsboro, Sherwood or Beaverton areas) without using a realtor or paying a realtor's fee or commission.
I wanted to do a private sale of my home to a friend without incurring a real estate commission. I already had the buyer and we'd agreed on the price. Even though I am a retired lawyer, I don't know much about real estate practice and had only ever bought or sold a house through an agent in the past, so I asked my colleagues to refer me to someone who practices in this area and I was given Pamela Yee's name by two fellow attorneys. I had never met her, but I trusted the judgement of the attorneys who recommended her.
She met with us right away, explained how the process worked, prepared the contracts, and directed us to a title agent to us that could explain the title process to us and had worked a lot with people who are doing residential real estate transactions without real estate agents. We had some amendments to the contract and she was right on it, getting the new documents to me within a day. She responded promptly to every email and was a pleasure to work with. She was so knowledgeable and made the private real estate sale an easy process.
Her fees were really reasonable - less than $1000 and would have been less had we not required several amendments. They might be higher if you had a lot of negotiations to do or a problem with inspection or something, but her hourly rate was reasonable if we had needed any additional assistance.
By using Pamela Yee to help us with the contracts and Oregon requirements necessary for the deal to close, we saved a 6% realtor fee in selling our house and were very comfortable with the process the whole way. It was the best decision we could have made. I highly recommend her if you want to avoid a realtor's fee/commission and are dealing with a buyer or seller on your own in an Oregon transaction. read more