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The result is that contract forms have become a sort of IP-free zone. Exactly. One of the sleaziest tricks used by Realtors (most Realtors are not lawyers) is

The result is that contract forms have become a sort of IP-free zone. Exactly. One of the sleaziest tricks used by Realtors (most Realtors are not lawyers) is getting clients to sign their forms: their terms usually have the word "percent" hard-coded into the contract. Rather than opening the door to hourly or fixed dollar amounts, they insist that their forms are the "standard". I heard one recently say in a public forum that banks "require" these specific forms that only Realtors have... this is a total lie, and anybody that tells you that you can't negotiate to create your own contract for a deal should be prosecuted for coercion. I've been trying for a long time to alter the common perception that Realtors add value; they don't. They take value out of transactions -- equity that's taken literal years to build up -- gone in one (fell) swoop. People need to be way more aggressive in their negotiations with real estate salespeople, and it all starts with the contract. This is still a small, WIP, side project (free, open-source contract templates); however, you can get the idea: http://ecosteader.com/docs http://ecosteader.com/docs

paulcole 10y ago
>I've been trying for a long time to alter the common perception that Realtors add value; they don't. I don't know anything about the law so I hire a lawyer I trust. I don't know anything about buying a house so I hire a realtor I trust.
- reneherse 10y ago
  The type and amount of training required for those two fields isn't even remotely similar.
  - randomdata 10y ago
    Does that matter? You're not hiring them because there is a high bar of training. Heck, programming is literally done by schoolchildren for entertainment, myself included, yet people are quite happy to hire us because they understand the value of delegation.
  - cowsandmilk 10y ago
    That is true. But the value added by a good realtor can produce as much value add to a transaction. I've talked to enough people who had bad realtors that I know they can literally be useless. But I've also worked with a buyer's agent who got 3% knocked off the price of the home I was buying. This is in the city of Boston, where most houses go for over asking, so I might have viewed this move as risky without my realtor's experience backing me up. And I had none of the issues people complain about online (no pushing a particular home inspector or lender, etc.) Additionally, I've done enough deals involving lawyers to know there are some incredibly crappy lawyers, despite all their training.
    - wtetzner 10y ago
      On the other hand, is it possible you could have gotten a lower price by not having a realtor? Since the seller wouldn't have to give up a percentage of their earnings to you realtor, they might have been happy to lower the price.
  - paulcole 10y ago
    yeah and it takes longer to become a doctor than a lawyer but I doubt you'd argue against hiring a lawyer for that reason
  - empath75 10y ago
    It doesn't take a lot of time to learn how to change your oil, but i still pay a guy to do it.
    - jjeaff 10y ago
      But would you pay him $1,000 to do it? At some point, you would do it yourself. I think when people say they add no value, what they mean is, they don't add $35k of value on a $500k home purchase.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  That's fair. You can certainly make some big mistakes when buying/selling a house. E.g. neglect to have it inspected by due diligence deadline. I used a realtor (with a discounted fee) for my first house. Now I'm buying the second by owner, because I know how the circus operates.
  - danielweber 10y ago
    If you get a lawyer for your house transactions, you will pay a flat fee of less than $1000 and still get the advice to always have it inspected.
    - rtkwe 10y ago
      Here in North Carolina the buyers realtor fees are entirely paid by the seller so there's really no reason not to get one. Ours was really helpful in getting things lined up and providing checklists and support when we had questions.
      - adanto6840 10y ago
        If the seller stands to pay your agent 3% of the sale proceeds, the seller will typically be happy to reduce the price by 3% if you don't have an agent. I just sold a condo in Minneapolis using a flat fee company -- fantastic experience and will never use a realtor again, save for maybe if looking internationally in a very unfamiliar area perhaps.
        paulddraper 10y ago
        I just use flat-fee agent in Utah. $95. Same experience. If you want an industry ripe for disruption, consumer real estate is HUGE. Got a couple start ups in my area trying to do that.
        flamedoge 10y ago
        area where it concerns overhead due to law seems does seem ripe for disruption. But my concern is that this isn't a technical challenge, but rather political/legal one.
- chime 10y ago
  > I don't know anything about buying a house so I hire a realtor I trust. You can hire a lawyer for exactly the same purpose. You will still need to hire inspectors, title companies regardless.
- avn2109 10y ago
  >> "... hire a realtor I trust." To a first approximation, 0% of real estate people are trustworthy. Doubly true in hot markets.
  - moftz 10y ago
    If they are selling your house, they are looking for the highest sale price they can get which benefits both of you. Only the buyer should be worried about a scummy or just inexperienced realtor.
- charlesdm 10y ago
  Most lawyers, however, are acting in your best interest. Most realtors are out to make a quick sale (at whatever price, they don't care as long as they get their commission)
js2 10y ago
Nit: one fell swoop. It's from Macbeth.
- CobrastanJorji 10y ago
  Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
- wtetzner 10y ago
  One swell foop.
JangoSteve 10y ago
> I've been trying for a long time to alter the common perception that Realtors add value; they don't. I've heard this before, but when we bought a house, our realtor added a ton of value. She went out and found houses that we wouldn't have found; sure, most of them came from MLS, but there were a few she found just by driving by or by asking fellow agents. She even triaged a couple for us (by going to look at them without us once she had gotten a sense for what our common feedback patterns were, and only making us come along when she thought it was worthwhile). She pointed out things we would have never noticed, like windows that had condensation around the edges, which indicated the seals were bad and that when the seals on one window were going out, it was likely they were all on their way out. She'd point out cracks that we didn't notice or water stains (acknowledging she's not an inspector, but it certainly gave us things to ask the inspector about). She noticed when parts of the yard looked worrisome in how it was eroded or angled toward the house. And she could usually estimate for us off the top of her head what things would cost to fix, replace, remodel, or update (or she had someone she could call to ask for an estimate if she didn't know). EDIT: She also put pressure on the lender when they were delaying the mortgage approval, did all the negotiation on our part with the selling agent, followed up with the sellers to make sure they did all the fixes our inspector found and were put into our contingencies. She also figured out what to do when she reviewed the contractor receipts and found out they had lied about fixing one of the things in the contingencies on the morning of the closing to make sure the deal didn't fall through, as well as how to resolve the issue that the sellers had left a giant moving pod blocking the driveway/garage and went on vacation the day we took possession of the house. I suppose I could imagine buying a house without her if you had the experience, but there's no way we even came close to matching her years of experience. Of course, most of the people I talk to have said their experience was nothing like ours. But it makes me think that the problem isn't that realtors bring no value to the table, but rather that maybe there just aren't very many good realtors.
- danvasquez29 10y ago
  all of that you either could have done yourself, or your inspector would have done for you. I don't begrudge anyone who wants to pay someone else to take a task off their hands, I do it all the time with various things like my lawn service, housekeeper, etc. But was the time they saved you worth the commission they made? When you're making 7% of the selling price, the answer to that seems likely to be no in many cases. There's a price point where it's no longer worth it to outsource the work, and I suspect many home buyers run over it without realizing it or considering they have a choice.
strictnein 10y ago
Every time I buy or sell a home, I'm very thankful that one of my friends has a realtor's license. None of that 7% BS. None of the dumb games they play. How it came about that the services of two realtors was worth $35k on a $500k home is beyond me. Especially in this day and age, where we all just look online and tell our realtors what houses we want to go to. Half the work they used to do is now done by the client.
- _ao789 10y ago
  I completely agree with you on this sentiment. I've often been quite disenfranchised by this whole palaver around financial reward around realestate percentages... From your wording it sounds like you frequently buy/sell houses.. Or is this just me reading into things?
  - strictnein 10y ago
    Well, we're on our third house. We bought our first one in 2008. We may be on to house #4 this year. We're weighing remodeling our current place or moving, so we've looked at some homes recently. Not sure if that makes us frequent home buyers or not. My friend has also worked with my sister, so all told he's helped myself or someone close to me with buying and/or selling 6 homes and maybe a 7th.
- dotnetisnotdead 10y ago
  I would have to disagree. Yes, much of what they do as far as finding houses can be done online these days, but there are many edge cases where a (good) realtor can save you. When I first purchased a home my credit history was.. interesting. The value the realtor provided was putting me in touch with the right grants, forms, etc and ways to build and fix my credit. They helped me not get scammed with a high interest or ARM loan. Their knowledge helped me. Also she steered me away from a couple houses due to inspection concerns that would have cost me time. Fast forward to now my credit is awesome, the homes I can afford are in a far different category and my last home purchase was fairly routine, so my realtor didn't do as much but I still value their knowledge and experience because you won't need it until you need it.
rootsudo 10y ago
As someone looking to purchase, thank you for this tidbit.
codazoda 10y ago
What does everyone think about Homie and how they try to tackle this with a flat fee? https://www.homie.com https://www.homie.com
nso 10y ago
Sold my apartment myself without involving realtors. They wanted what amounted to 10% of what I made on the sale. It was a bit of work getting everything right, but it was well worth it.
kbenson 10y ago
Keep in mind there are also different types of realtors. Commercial, hard (private money), etc. My mom has owned a mortgage company for decades, but her business is about connecting a network of private investors with borrowers that can't get conventional loans. The value she adds is not just in connecting these people, but also in making sure she matches the correct risk and reward based on the borrower and investor. An example of the deal she might broker would be a contractor that has a plot of land he/she wants to develop or buy and develop into a few houses (e.g. 4-6 houses). A conventional loan may not be possible (it may be viewed as too risky), but private money may fund such a deal at something like 10% APR (expected to be paid off within a few years at most I expect), but the risk is in whether the people borrowing can be trusted to finish on time and within expected costs, and that's something you learn from experience dealing with the people and industry over time. In a perfect world, some wealthy doctor could just pick someone to invest in and do so, but in reality it's generally a network of 3-6 investors all putting a portion of they money into a deal, and the borrower has done this multiple times over the years as well. Coordinating that takes experience and contacts.
lettergram 10y ago
I just bought a house, and I will say, I'm glad I had a realtor guiding us. Because I am the buyer I had to pay her nothing, she just gets her 3% - 6% on the sale, and honestly I have no idea what that number is. The seller pays. That being said when I sell, I definitely do not plan on using a realtor. As you said, it's super easy to sell online and I agree. I even found the house I bought without the realtor, we literally just said "we want to see this house." What she did provide was insight into the market, the area, she showed us comparable houses, explained the history of the builder, etc. This is where she brought value. In selling a house, the only value they bring is customers. That usually (car sales, medical sales, etc.) is a percentage of sale type of transaction. So, to me it appears fair to give them a percentage. If you choose not to use them, you can! Unfortunately, I believe in the state I am moving to I am required to pay for the buyers realtor (although I am not 100% sure). That's typically 6%, but technically, I don't have to sell to them. Sooooo I can negotiate and work with them to get say 3%.
- mahyarm 10y ago
  That 3% that the seller 'pays' for is really yourself paying for it. You could probably negotiate that fee away if you didnt have a realtor on your side for example
  - lettergram 10y ago
    Probably, but I did play super hard ball in negotiations with the builder. Without the realtor as the intermediary, I think we would have paid more. Basically, the realtor provided a barrier between the builder and my wife who super loved the property. The realtor also had a relationship with the builder, so when I asked the builder to do X, I got a response super quick at 11:30 at night. Don't underestimate the value of having connections. FYI my house appraised at like 10% higher than I purchased it, so we did get a deal.
  - avn2109 10y ago
    >> "Because I am the buyer I had to pay her nothing... the seller pays..." This is literally the second most breathtakingly naive comment I've ever read on the internet.
mahyarm 10y ago
You can hire a lawyer and pay a flat fee for labor if you want to avoid the percentage comission model. There are also discount brokers out there that take less. That can work if your more DIY about buying and selling houses.
golergka 10y ago
> and anybody that tells you that you can't negotiate to create your own contract for a deal should be prosecuted for coercion As long as you can decide not to sign it, it's a negotiation. Pretty shitty and one-sided negotiation, but still negotiation.
- sowbug 10y ago
  But the resulting agreement might not be enforceable. So in a contract-law sense it's not negotiation. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract.
Spooky23 10y ago
People suck at negotiating. Last time I did a buy/sell we did a deal with the real estate broker where we paid her $1000 upfront (0.5%) to sell the house for a 3% commission vs 7%. The trick was we gave her 60 days to sell the house exclusively without going on MLS, and she would credit the $1000 after 60 days if it sold on MLS (which means she gets almost nothing).
- triangleman 10y ago
  Wait. So you got a selling agent (Realtor) to sell a property without using the MLS and I am assuming without using buyer's agents? Like just marketing the house directly to the public? And then if it didn't sell in 60 days, she would get almost nothing, and would also have to split almost nothing with the buyer's agent? And she agreed to that?
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    I forgot to add that we agreed to let her be our agent for the home we were buying. We didn't need a quick exit. This particular realtor focused on building a client base and having the shortest listing time. Her average time on market was 1.2 day. The 60 day thing was a luxury for her. It's a metric hack that allows her to get more listings and be more selective. People make all sort of wacky deals to spike metrics. We also ended up buying another of her listings, so she did well.
- mtreis86 10y ago
  They really do suck at negotiating. I tried to buy the house I was renting, and as part of their negotiation 'tactics' they threatened to have me evicted if the sale fell through. Of course, the sale fell through. No eviction. They should have let their realtor handle negotiating with me, but for some reason they took it on themselves. What is the realtor for, if not to prevent things like bad negotiation tactics. Taught me a lesson though.
chrisweekly 10y ago
Four letters: FSBO
brandnewlow 10y ago
Check out OpenListings. They're giving buyers a big chunk of the buy-side realtor fee to use how they see fit in the negotiations: https://www.openlistings.com/ https://www.openlistings.com/ (Am an investor)

paulcole 10y ago

>I've been trying for a long time to alter the common perception that Realtors add value; they don't. I don't know anything about the law so I hire a lawyer I trust. I don't know anything about buying a house so I hire a realtor I trust.

reneherse 10y ago
The type and amount of training required for those two fields isn't even remotely similar.
- randomdata 10y ago
  Does that matter? You're not hiring them because there is a high bar of training. Heck, programming is literally done by schoolchildren for entertainment, myself included, yet people are quite happy to hire us because they understand the value of delegation.
- cowsandmilk 10y ago
  That is true. But the value added by a good realtor can produce as much value add to a transaction. I've talked to enough people who had bad realtors that I know they can literally be useless. But I've also worked with a buyer's agent who got 3% knocked off the price of the home I was buying. This is in the city of Boston, where most houses go for over asking, so I might have viewed this move as risky without my realtor's experience backing me up. And I had none of the issues people complain about online (no pushing a particular home inspector or lender, etc.) Additionally, I've done enough deals involving lawyers to know there are some incredibly crappy lawyers, despite all their training.
  - wtetzner 10y ago
    On the other hand, is it possible you could have gotten a lower price by not having a realtor? Since the seller wouldn't have to give up a percentage of their earnings to you realtor, they might have been happy to lower the price.
- paulcole 10y ago
  yeah and it takes longer to become a doctor than a lawyer but I doubt you'd argue against hiring a lawyer for that reason
- empath75 10y ago
  It doesn't take a lot of time to learn how to change your oil, but i still pay a guy to do it.
  - jjeaff 10y ago
    But would you pay him $1,000 to do it? At some point, you would do it yourself. I think when people say they add no value, what they mean is, they don't add $35k of value on a $500k home purchase.
paulddraper 10y ago
That's fair. You can certainly make some big mistakes when buying/selling a house. E.g. neglect to have it inspected by due diligence deadline. I used a realtor (with a discounted fee) for my first house. Now I'm buying the second by owner, because I know how the circus operates.
- danielweber 10y ago
  If you get a lawyer for your house transactions, you will pay a flat fee of less than $1000 and still get the advice to always have it inspected.
  - rtkwe 10y ago
    Here in North Carolina the buyers realtor fees are entirely paid by the seller so there's really no reason not to get one. Ours was really helpful in getting things lined up and providing checklists and support when we had questions.
    - adanto6840 10y ago
      If the seller stands to pay your agent 3% of the sale proceeds, the seller will typically be happy to reduce the price by 3% if you don't have an agent. I just sold a condo in Minneapolis using a flat fee company -- fantastic experience and will never use a realtor again, save for maybe if looking internationally in a very unfamiliar area perhaps.
      - paulddraper 10y ago
        I just use flat-fee agent in Utah. $95. Same experience. If you want an industry ripe for disruption, consumer real estate is HUGE. Got a couple start ups in my area trying to do that.
        flamedoge 10y ago
        area where it concerns overhead due to law seems does seem ripe for disruption. But my concern is that this isn't a technical challenge, but rather political/legal one.
chime 10y ago
> I don't know anything about buying a house so I hire a realtor I trust. You can hire a lawyer for exactly the same purpose. You will still need to hire inspectors, title companies regardless.
avn2109 10y ago
>> "... hire a realtor I trust." To a first approximation, 0% of real estate people are trustworthy. Doubly true in hot markets.
- moftz 10y ago
  If they are selling your house, they are looking for the highest sale price they can get which benefits both of you. Only the buyer should be worried about a scummy or just inexperienced realtor.
charlesdm 10y ago
Most lawyers, however, are acting in your best interest. Most realtors are out to make a quick sale (at whatever price, they don't care as long as they get their commission)

js2 10y ago

Nit: one fell swoop. It's from Macbeth.

CobrastanJorji 10y ago
Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
wtetzner 10y ago
One swell foop.

JangoSteve 10y ago

> I've been trying for a long time to alter the common perception that Realtors add value; they don't. I've heard this before, but when we bought a house, our realtor added a ton of value. She went out and found houses that we wouldn't have found; sure, most of them came from MLS, but there were a few she found just by driving by or by asking fellow agents. She even triaged a couple for us (by going to look at them without us once she had gotten a sense for what our common feedback patterns were, and only making us come along when she thought it was worthwhile). She pointed out things we would have never noticed, like windows that had condensation around the edges, which indicated the seals were bad and that when the seals on one window were going out, it was likely they were all on their way out. She'd point out cracks that we didn't notice or water stains (acknowledging she's not an inspector, but it certainly gave us things to ask the inspector about). She noticed when parts of the yard looked worrisome in how it was eroded or angled toward the house. And she could usually estimate for us off the top of her head what things would cost to fix, replace, remodel, or update (or she had someone she could call to ask for an estimate if she didn't know). EDIT: She also put pressure on the lender when they were delaying the mortgage approval, did all the negotiation on our part with the selling agent, followed up with the sellers to make sure they did all the fixes our inspector found and were put into our contingencies. She also figured out what to do when she reviewed the contractor receipts and found out they had lied about fixing one of the things in the contingencies on the morning of the closing to make sure the deal didn't fall through, as well as how to resolve the issue that the sellers had left a giant moving pod blocking the driveway/garage and went on vacation the day we took possession of the house. I suppose I could imagine buying a house without her if you had the experience, but there's no way we even came close to matching her years of experience. Of course, most of the people I talk to have said their experience was nothing like ours. But it makes me think that the problem isn't that realtors bring no value to the table, but rather that maybe there just aren't very many good realtors.

danvasquez29 10y ago
all of that you either could have done yourself, or your inspector would have done for you. I don't begrudge anyone who wants to pay someone else to take a task off their hands, I do it all the time with various things like my lawn service, housekeeper, etc. But was the time they saved you worth the commission they made? When you're making 7% of the selling price, the answer to that seems likely to be no in many cases. There's a price point where it's no longer worth it to outsource the work, and I suspect many home buyers run over it without realizing it or considering they have a choice.

strictnein 10y ago

Every time I buy or sell a home, I'm very thankful that one of my friends has a realtor's license. None of that 7% BS. None of the dumb games they play. How it came about that the services of two realtors was worth $35k on a $500k home is beyond me. Especially in this day and age, where we all just look online and tell our realtors what houses we want to go to. Half the work they used to do is now done by the client.

_ao789 10y ago
I completely agree with you on this sentiment. I've often been quite disenfranchised by this whole palaver around financial reward around realestate percentages... From your wording it sounds like you frequently buy/sell houses.. Or is this just me reading into things?
- strictnein 10y ago
  Well, we're on our third house. We bought our first one in 2008. We may be on to house #4 this year. We're weighing remodeling our current place or moving, so we've looked at some homes recently. Not sure if that makes us frequent home buyers or not. My friend has also worked with my sister, so all told he's helped myself or someone close to me with buying and/or selling 6 homes and maybe a 7th.
dotnetisnotdead 10y ago
I would have to disagree. Yes, much of what they do as far as finding houses can be done online these days, but there are many edge cases where a (good) realtor can save you. When I first purchased a home my credit history was.. interesting. The value the realtor provided was putting me in touch with the right grants, forms, etc and ways to build and fix my credit. They helped me not get scammed with a high interest or ARM loan. Their knowledge helped me. Also she steered me away from a couple houses due to inspection concerns that would have cost me time. Fast forward to now my credit is awesome, the homes I can afford are in a far different category and my last home purchase was fairly routine, so my realtor didn't do as much but I still value their knowledge and experience because you won't need it until you need it.

rootsudo 10y ago

As someone looking to purchase, thank you for this tidbit.

codazoda 10y ago

What does everyone think about Homie and how they try to tackle this with a flat fee? https://www.homie.com https://www.homie.com

nso 10y ago

Sold my apartment myself without involving realtors. They wanted what amounted to 10% of what I made on the sale. It was a bit of work getting everything right, but it was well worth it.

kbenson 10y ago

Keep in mind there are also different types of realtors. Commercial, hard (private money), etc. My mom has owned a mortgage company for decades, but her business is about connecting a network of private investors with borrowers that can't get conventional loans. The value she adds is not just in connecting these people, but also in making sure she matches the correct risk and reward based on the borrower and investor. An example of the deal she might broker would be a contractor that has a plot of land he/she wants to develop or buy and develop into a few houses (e.g. 4-6 houses). A conventional loan may not be possible (it may be viewed as too risky), but private money may fund such a deal at something like 10% APR (expected to be paid off within a few years at most I expect), but the risk is in whether the people borrowing can be trusted to finish on time and within expected costs, and that's something you learn from experience dealing with the people and industry over time. In a perfect world, some wealthy doctor could just pick someone to invest in and do so, but in reality it's generally a network of 3-6 investors all putting a portion of they money into a deal, and the borrower has done this multiple times over the years as well. Coordinating that takes experience and contacts.

lettergram 10y ago

I just bought a house, and I will say, I'm glad I had a realtor guiding us. Because I am the buyer I had to pay her nothing, she just gets her 3% - 6% on the sale, and honestly I have no idea what that number is. The seller pays. That being said when I sell, I definitely do not plan on using a realtor. As you said, it's super easy to sell online and I agree. I even found the house I bought without the realtor, we literally just said "we want to see this house." What she did provide was insight into the market, the area, she showed us comparable houses, explained the history of the builder, etc. This is where she brought value. In selling a house, the only value they bring is customers. That usually (car sales, medical sales, etc.) is a percentage of sale type of transaction. So, to me it appears fair to give them a percentage. If you choose not to use them, you can! Unfortunately, I believe in the state I am moving to I am required to pay for the buyers realtor (although I am not 100% sure). That's typically 6%, but technically, I don't have to sell to them. Sooooo I can negotiate and work with them to get say 3%.

mahyarm 10y ago
That 3% that the seller 'pays' for is really yourself paying for it. You could probably negotiate that fee away if you didnt have a realtor on your side for example
- lettergram 10y ago
  Probably, but I did play super hard ball in negotiations with the builder. Without the realtor as the intermediary, I think we would have paid more. Basically, the realtor provided a barrier between the builder and my wife who super loved the property. The realtor also had a relationship with the builder, so when I asked the builder to do X, I got a response super quick at 11:30 at night. Don't underestimate the value of having connections. FYI my house appraised at like 10% higher than I purchased it, so we did get a deal.
- avn2109 10y ago
  >> "Because I am the buyer I had to pay her nothing... the seller pays..." This is literally the second most breathtakingly naive comment I've ever read on the internet.

mahyarm 10y ago

You can hire a lawyer and pay a flat fee for labor if you want to avoid the percentage comission model. There are also discount brokers out there that take less. That can work if your more DIY about buying and selling houses.

golergka 10y ago

> and anybody that tells you that you can't negotiate to create your own contract for a deal should be prosecuted for coercion As long as you can decide not to sign it, it's a negotiation. Pretty shitty and one-sided negotiation, but still negotiation.

sowbug 10y ago
But the resulting agreement might not be enforceable. So in a contract-law sense it's not negotiation. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract.

Spooky23 10y ago

People suck at negotiating. Last time I did a buy/sell we did a deal with the real estate broker where we paid her $1000 upfront (0.5%) to sell the house for a 3% commission vs 7%. The trick was we gave her 60 days to sell the house exclusively without going on MLS, and she would credit the $1000 after 60 days if it sold on MLS (which means she gets almost nothing).

triangleman 10y ago
Wait. So you got a selling agent (Realtor) to sell a property without using the MLS and I am assuming without using buyer's agents? Like just marketing the house directly to the public? And then if it didn't sell in 60 days, she would get almost nothing, and would also have to split almost nothing with the buyer's agent? And she agreed to that?
- Spooky23 10y ago
  I forgot to add that we agreed to let her be our agent for the home we were buying. We didn't need a quick exit. This particular realtor focused on building a client base and having the shortest listing time. Her average time on market was 1.2 day. The 60 day thing was a luxury for her. It's a metric hack that allows her to get more listings and be more selective. People make all sort of wacky deals to spike metrics. We also ended up buying another of her listings, so she did well.
mtreis86 10y ago
They really do suck at negotiating. I tried to buy the house I was renting, and as part of their negotiation 'tactics' they threatened to have me evicted if the sale fell through. Of course, the sale fell through. No eviction. They should have let their realtor handle negotiating with me, but for some reason they took it on themselves. What is the realtor for, if not to prevent things like bad negotiation tactics. Taught me a lesson though.

chrisweekly 10y ago

Four letters: FSBO

brandnewlow 10y ago

Check out OpenListings. They're giving buyers a big chunk of the buy-side realtor fee to use how they see fit in the negotiations: https://www.openlistings.com/ https://www.openlistings.com/ (Am an investor)