[quote=bearishgurl]
[quote=CA Renter]OTOH, I really do feel badly for agents who show clients 40 houses, then have the buyer go with another agent. For this reason, there should be “menu pricing” where a buyer can pay for individual services (like unlocking/showing a house, writing up a contract, ordering reports, etc.) as opposed to the agent being paid by commission only. What’s funny is that most agents will fight this tooth and nail, but then complain about the “unreasonable” buyers.[/quote]
CAR, I don’t think buyers should have to pay anything to an agent. All the commission should be paid by the seller, who will be reaping the proceeds from the sale. The only exception to this *rule* is if a buyer has hired a “relo agent” to find them suitable property to fly out and look at and has given them the exact specifications they are looking for in a property. The buyer in this case would be located out of town and the agent locally tied to the area the buyer was shopping in.
If this case, the buyer would sign a contract with the relo agent who would receive a finder’s fee for each property they showed the buyer which met all of their specifications but which the buyer did not place an offer on. If a serious offer (not drastically lowball unless the prop. warrants this) is placed by that agent on behalf of that buyer, then the normal agency agreement would apply for a commission instead of the finders fee. This keeps the buyer from flying out to view properties which are unsuitable and keeps the agent looking out for a buyer’s best interest who is not even in the local area yet or who may not even possibly end up moving. The reason I made mention of “lowball” offers is because many transferring employees from other states are SHOCKED at what they can buy here when they actually VIEW properties in person in their price range. They immediately make a comparison to what their families are already living in, in say, Houston and decide not to take the transfer, after all. In this case, the agent needs to protect their many hours of work. Sure, you and I can look at properties in Denver on the internet but we can’t tell SO MANY THINGS from that description and those photos. There’s nothing like being there in person!
Many discount brokers already have piecemeal pricing as you describe in place for SELLERS but I do not believe these services are a good idea for most sellers. They are okay for sophisticated and repeat sellers who know how to perform many selling functions by themselves properly, such as staging, showing and qualifying the persons their property is shown to. These sellers are far and few between and the rest of the sellers need an agent that will TAKE CONTROL of all aspects their listing and run with it and deserve every penny of their full commission upon a bona-fide sale.[/quote]
BG,
It’s all about perspective, but many buyers (myself, included) feel that the **buyers** are the ones paying at least half of the commissions anyway. The buyers are the ones bringing money to the table, nobody else is doing so. If the sellers were paying the commission, I’d like to see them pay it out of their own pockets (outside of/before the transaction), not out of profits on the sale. Those profits were paid by the buyer, so from my perspective, the buyer is the one who paid all the commissions.
If a seller is selling a house for $100K that he purchased for $100K, and is paying the commission out of his pocket (not from profits on the sale), then I could see the argument that the seller is paying the commission.
Just for the record, I personally dislike commission-based sales. I favor fee-for-service, as a general rule.
When we sold our personal residence, we paid a broker a few hundred dollars to list it on the MLS, sold it within an hour, and had a fairly easy and drama-free escrow/closing. Of course, that was during a very active seller’s market, and my family was in real estate, so I’m comfortable around it. It also helps when you’re not trying to be a greedy jerk — profit is profit, and if we’re making a profit, I don’t try to max it out, nor do I have some preconceived notion of what I’m “entitled” to. Still, it’s not that difficult, and I know a lot of people who didn’t have any RE experience who’ve sold their own homes without any problems. None of the FSBOs I know had any problems, as a matter of fact.
