I think the seller is contractually obligated to pay 6% or whatever commission is negotiated … more likely the listing agent will try to sneak in some dual agency paperwork or something else to keep the other 3%.

I think the seller is contractually obligated to pay 6% or whatever commission is negotiated … more likely the listing agent will try to sneak in some dual agency paperwork or something else to keep the other 3%.

The agent doesnt have to sneak anything in. Their contract is with the seller who is legally obligated to pay them whatever the agrred upon commission was. How they split that is up to them and they have no obligation to share it with you or the seller.

FYI, 6% is rare and most are 4 to 5% these days so you dont have as much to gain as you probably thought. Second, when the agent has to represent both sides (and legally it is not as easy as saying buyer is unrepresented) they deserve to be paid something for doing that also. How much depends upon what you could negotiate but why wouldnt they just sell it to someone else and let the buyers agent do all the work for the same amount? If you are lucky you may be able to squeeze out 1% perhaps as much as 2%. The question is whether it is worth giving up representation. You wont know until its over. Based upon your questions, it does not sound like you are knowledgable so my guess is you’ll probably get yours but you never know. Maybe it will work out for you.

The agent doesnt have to sneak anything in. Their contract is with the seller who is legally obligated to pay them whatever the agrred upon commission was. How they split that is up to them and they have no obligation to share it with you or the seller.

FYI, 6% is rare and most are 4 to 5% these days so you dont have as much to gain as you probably thought. Second, when the agent has to represent both sides (and legally it is not as easy as saying buyer is unrepresented) they deserve to be paid something for doing that also. How much depends upon what you could negotiate but why wouldnt they just sell it to someone else and let the buyers agent do all the work for the same amount? If you are lucky you may be able to squeeze out 1% perhaps as much as 2%. The question is whether it is worth giving up representation. You wont know until its over. Based upon your questions, it does not sound like you are knowledgable so my guess is you’ll probably get yours but you never know. Maybe it will work out for you.

The agent doesnt have to sneak anything in. Their contract is with the seller who is legally obligated to pay them whatever the agrred upon commission was. How they split that is up to them and they have no obligation to share it with you or the seller.

FYI, 6% is rare and most are 4 to 5% these days so you dont have as much to gain as you probably thought. Second, when the agent has to represent both sides (and legally it is not as easy as saying buyer is unrepresented) they deserve to be paid something for doing that also. How much depends upon what you could negotiate but why wouldnt they just sell it to someone else and let the buyers agent do all the work for the same amount? If you are lucky you may be able to squeeze out 1% perhaps as much as 2%. The question is whether it is worth giving up representation. You wont know until its over. Based upon your questions, it does not sound like you are knowledgable so my guess is you’ll probably get yours but you never know. Maybe it will work out for you.

This has been covered in a number of past threads, so you might want to do some searching.

But here’s a couple things to think about.

1) There’s almost no way the seller will get the 3% that would have gone to your agent. In most cases the listing agent gets the commission and isn’t likely to give much if any to you for not having an agent of your own.

2) You can always use a discount brokerage which will rebate some (not all) of the buyer’s agents commission back to you. (There are reasons for and against this, I’ll leave it to you to read up on it)

3) You should probably only try to go it alone if you are fairly knowledgeable about real estate transactions. It’s not rocket science, but you need to know how the process works and how to protect yourself and what to do if there are issues during escrow.

4) Depending on the price and details of the purchase, (is it an REO, short sale, or regular sale) using the listing agent as your agent might impact whether you get the house, or someone else does. But if you read various threads on this site, you’ll see this can cut both ways.

IMHO, bottom line to this is that it isn’t as simple as some make it out to be, (although it’s not impossible) there are definite issues and risks and it is not usually a benefit to the buyer to go without an agent.

To answer your last question: Because the realtors have a really good lock on the system, and there aren’t many good ways to get past it.

Hope that helps some,

XBoxBoy

This has been covered in a number of past threads, so you might want to do some searching.

But here’s a couple things to think about.

1) There’s almost no way the seller will get the 3% that would have gone to your agent. In most cases the listing agent gets the commission and isn’t likely to give much if any to you for not having an agent of your own.

2) You can always use a discount brokerage which will rebate some (not all) of the buyer’s agents commission back to you. (There are reasons for and against this, I’ll leave it to you to read up on it)

3) You should probably only try to go it alone if you are fairly knowledgeable about real estate transactions. It’s not rocket science, but you need to know how the process works and how to protect yourself and what to do if there are issues during escrow.

4) Depending on the price and details of the purchase, (is it an REO, short sale, or regular sale) using the listing agent as your agent might impact whether you get the house, or someone else does. But if you read various threads on this site, you’ll see this can cut both ways.

IMHO, bottom line to this is that it isn’t as simple as some make it out to be, (although it’s not impossible) there are definite issues and risks and it is not usually a benefit to the buyer to go without an agent.

To answer your last question: Because the realtors have a really good lock on the system, and there aren’t many good ways to get past it.

Hope that helps some,

XBoxBoy