What I did was list my house at the full 6% commission – the selling agent’s office always gets half – so that would be the normal 3% incentive for them to show my house. My realtor (listing agent) wrote up a little agreement for me, agreeing to credit me back .5% out of his half.
This means that, while I paid a 5.5% commission, the SELLING agent got 3% and the listing agent got 2.5%. You want the selling agent to have an incentive to sell so I would NEVER have anything less than 3% going to them. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having more than 3% go to the selling agent either. This is how it was explained to me by my realtor and it seemed to work – the place sold and I paid 5.5%.
