[quote=urbanrealtor]I would probably approach the buyer agent first and not bother with the listing agent. Were it me, as the listing agent, I think it would start on the wrong foot to be asked to be the only pro and give up the cbb.[/quote]
I can certainly see your point, and I think whatever a buyer did, they would have to be diplomatic about it. In a case that got me writing the start of this thread, I had a number of conversations with the seller before ever talking to the seller’s agent. Then when I did talk to the seller’s agent, I first offered that they would be the broker for both, and asked if they would reduce commission or rebate commission, given that the seller and I found ourselves without the agent. At the same time, I offered the opinion, that for tax reasons the lower the purchase price the better for me, so rebating to the seller would be more beneficial than rebating to me. The agent understood this and was open to it. But by no means do I expect all agents to be open to this, and specifics of the deal were never fully defined.
But to come back to what I’ve learned from this thread, there are lots of variables and “angles” on the real estate commissions. If you want to do something different than the typical commission split between a seller’s agent and a buyer’s agent, you’re going to have to take a lot of peoples concerns (stakes) into account, you’re going to have to be diplomatic, and you’re going to have to creative in your negotiations. And yes after all that, you might just be better off to go straight to a discount broker and just use them having them rebate the commission back to you. (Redfin advertises that it will rebate 2/3rds of the buyer’s agent commission back to the buyer, so not sure how much better you’ll do on your own. And let’s not forget that others might also give 2/3rd back or maybe a different/better deal.)
