Question about listing

[buyorhold]

Hello…

I’m a little frustrated with our listing agent. We signed w/her for a 6-month term to post our townhouse onto the market.

For the last month since we’ve signed with her, we’ve been getting the house ready to put on the market. And not until today did she prepare our listing to post on the MLS.

Out of no where, she is asking us to give another 0.5% in addition to the 5.5% we had originally agreed upon to give to the buyer’s agent. Her reasoning is that it would be a lot easier to sell our property if we offer a higher commission to the buyer’s agent.

I am just a little frustrated because she waited to tell us this after we have spent almost $2000 fixing up the place. I mean, why didn’t she tell us this sooner?

Also, can I suggest to her to give 3% out of the 5.5% to the buyer’s agent we had originally agreed upon?

What do you guys think??

[bsrsharma]

I think it is just the realtor frustration showing at the slow pace of sales. With fewer sales, their motivation is suffering and they come up with this bribery scheme to gain some advantage.I think what she is suggesting may be illegal or unethical.

[bsrsharma]

I think it is just the realtor frustration showing at the slow pace of sales. With fewer sales, their motivation is suffering and they come up with this bribery scheme to gain some advantage.I think what she is suggesting may be illegal or unethical.

[bsrsharma]

I think it is just the realtor frustration showing at the slow pace of sales. With fewer sales, their motivation is suffering and they come up with this bribery scheme to gain some advantage.I think what she is suggesting may be illegal or unethical.

[FormerOwner]

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%.

[FormerOwner]

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%.

[FormerOwner]

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%.

[SD Realtor]

buyorhold –

Personally I advise sellers to consider advertising a competitive commission for the selling agent, (buyers agent). We sit down TOGETHER and I pull up all of the comps in that area, be it complex, subdivision or zip code, and we break down the co-op commission. In every case we DO NOT find a correlation between the HIGHEST commission paid to the selling agent, and the number of sold properties. We always do find that the combination of price, and quality of the listing is what sells the home. So in a given situation of say 25 homes, if the breakdown is 13 have 2.5%, 11 of them have 3% and 2 of them have 3.5% AND the home is good condition then I will recommend the 2.5%. Other agents may disagree with this but in my studies I have found that the raw data does not back up the bias.

Have your agent give you this breakdown. That may help.

*******

I am a bit puzzled by your description. So when did you sign the listing agreement? When you signed didn’t your agent give you a timeline of events? Like when the pictures would be ordered, the sign installed, the flyers done etc? Also I am confused about your commission structure. On the Residential listing agreement there are 2 sections where the commission is discussed. The first section is for the compensation to the listing agent. So what was the commission specified here? Was it 3%? Then later down on the page is where the selling agent coop commission is specified. What did you specify in this section?

I will tell you this… For an agent to play with the commission after you have signed the listing agreement is very unprofessional.

Sounds like you are paying for “full service” and you are not really getting the full service treatment.

SD Realtor

[SD Realtor]

buyorhold –

Personally I advise sellers to consider advertising a competitive commission for the selling agent, (buyers agent). We sit down TOGETHER and I pull up all of the comps in that area, be it complex, subdivision or zip code, and we break down the co-op commission. In every case we DO NOT find a correlation between the HIGHEST commission paid to the selling agent, and the number of sold properties. We always do find that the combination of price, and quality of the listing is what sells the home. So in a given situation of say 25 homes, if the breakdown is 13 have 2.5%, 11 of them have 3% and 2 of them have 3.5% AND the home is good condition then I will recommend the 2.5%. Other agents may disagree with this but in my studies I have found that the raw data does not back up the bias.

Have your agent give you this breakdown. That may help.

*******

I am a bit puzzled by your description. So when did you sign the listing agreement? When you signed didn’t your agent give you a timeline of events? Like when the pictures would be ordered, the sign installed, the flyers done etc? Also I am confused about your commission structure. On the Residential listing agreement there are 2 sections where the commission is discussed. The first section is for the compensation to the listing agent. So what was the commission specified here? Was it 3%? Then later down on the page is where the selling agent coop commission is specified. What did you specify in this section?

I will tell you this… For an agent to play with the commission after you have signed the listing agreement is very unprofessional.

Sounds like you are paying for “full service” and you are not really getting the full service treatment.

SD Realtor

[SD Realtor]

buyorhold –

Personally I advise sellers to consider advertising a competitive commission for the selling agent, (buyers agent). We sit down TOGETHER and I pull up all of the comps in that area, be it complex, subdivision or zip code, and we break down the co-op commission. In every case we DO NOT find a correlation between the HIGHEST commission paid to the selling agent, and the number of sold properties. We always do find that the combination of price, and quality of the listing is what sells the home. So in a given situation of say 25 homes, if the breakdown is 13 have 2.5%, 11 of them have 3% and 2 of them have 3.5% AND the home is good condition then I will recommend the 2.5%. Other agents may disagree with this but in my studies I have found that the raw data does not back up the bias.

Have your agent give you this breakdown. That may help.

*******

I am a bit puzzled by your description. So when did you sign the listing agreement? When you signed didn’t your agent give you a timeline of events? Like when the pictures would be ordered, the sign installed, the flyers done etc? Also I am confused about your commission structure. On the Residential listing agreement there are 2 sections where the commission is discussed. The first section is for the compensation to the listing agent. So what was the commission specified here? Was it 3%? Then later down on the page is where the selling agent coop commission is specified. What did you specify in this section?

I will tell you this… For an agent to play with the commission after you have signed the listing agreement is very unprofessional.

Sounds like you are paying for “full service” and you are not really getting the full service treatment.

SD Realtor

[GoUSC]

SD Realtor,

This brings up a good point. In light of the falling business overall, have you seen pressure down on commissions. Seems like there are many more hungry brokers out there that would be willing to give up some commissions to get some more listings…

[GoUSC]

SD Realtor,

This brings up a good point. In light of the falling business overall, have you seen pressure down on commissions. Seems like there are many more hungry brokers out there that would be willing to give up some commissions to get some more listings…

[GoUSC]

SD Realtor,

This brings up a good point. In light of the falling business overall, have you seen pressure down on commissions. Seems like there are many more hungry brokers out there that would be willing to give up some commissions to get some more listings…

[SD Realtor]

Radelow yes in fact I have. I have been to a few listing appointments where the potential sellers have told me that they spoke to listing agents who were indeed cutting their commissions.

******

On the flip side here is something that I run across as well. I have a listing in Ramona. It is a friend of a friend and he is NOT a motivated seller. He has priced his home well overmarket. He was listed with a local agent in Ramona and it didn’t sell then he called me and I listed it. Of course it is dead as wood out there and he has gotten no activity. So the listing expired the other day and I asked him if he wanted me to remove my signs and stuff. He said no and he asked me what I thought he should do. I told him to cut his price to what I originally recommended and he said he could not do that. So I said I had no advice for him other then go to a local agent up there who could market it and hope for the best.

He said that he has received at least 20 calls in the past day from other listing agents who said that they had buyers for him but would not be able to bring them by his home unless he would list with them. He asked me why they did that. I told him that is something that I cannot answer. I told him to put their money where their mouth is and to go list with them and see.

I always think that is hilarious.

SD Realtor

[SD Realtor]

Radelow yes in fact I have. I have been to a few listing appointments where the potential sellers have told me that they spoke to listing agents who were indeed cutting their commissions.

******

On the flip side here is something that I run across as well. I have a listing in Ramona. It is a friend of a friend and he is NOT a motivated seller. He has priced his home well overmarket. He was listed with a local agent in Ramona and it didn’t sell then he called me and I listed it. Of course it is dead as wood out there and he has gotten no activity. So the listing expired the other day and I asked him if he wanted me to remove my signs and stuff. He said no and he asked me what I thought he should do. I told him to cut his price to what I originally recommended and he said he could not do that. So I said I had no advice for him other then go to a local agent up there who could market it and hope for the best.

He said that he has received at least 20 calls in the past day from other listing agents who said that they had buyers for him but would not be able to bring them by his home unless he would list with them. He asked me why they did that. I told him that is something that I cannot answer. I told him to put their money where their mouth is and to go list with them and see.

I always think that is hilarious.

SD Realtor

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