Real Estate Selling Agent Commission

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I am not one for government interference in the free market but it sure seems like the private companies aren't stepping up to the plate and offering better choices in how to sell a home.
There it is, it already exists and why nothing better has been developed. How much cheaper can it get? To have personal representation, 24 hours a day, marketing and representing your home for sale until the day it sells.

Your other option is a cut rate broker, they exist too

Your other option is sell yourself

The general public doesnt care as much as you do, much like the general public doesnt care about losing 10% or more of the value of the car they trade in for a new one.
Sure, some, like yourself have a problem with it and of course mass media producing news stories on slow news days. Boy I remember decades back how the cut rate broker, cut rate websites, cut rate everything was going to put traditional brokers out of business. Where are the follow up news stories on those predictions that fell flat on their face?
The general public doesnt care. The cost is minimal, cheaper than a cut rate consignment store.

This is why your search for a better way doesnt exist, it's been here all a long.

Dare I say there has to be an EV at a better price without the taxpayers paying the difference of a Tesla? All the bragging of the 20% profit/markup ;) "there has to be a better way"
 
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The cost to the seller to sell a home is not minimal. Especially when the seller can expect to fork over $60,000 in commissions to his agent and the agent of the buyer.

Prior to my divorce my ex-wife and I decided to do a For Sale By Owner. She was a mortgage lender for a major bank and had a lot of industry contacts with whom she could call in a few favors and help us with the legal paperwork and other things for a very small fee or no cost at all.

Boy, the agents in my town about lost their minds.I can't count how many phone calls we got from agents wanting to argue with us about why they should get the listing and how many came to our open houses pretending to be potential buyers and then revealing themselves. I had to show many the door and almost grabbed one pencil necked weasel and physically removed him from the premises.

In the future I will either negotiate a lower rate with an agent, and of course I fully expect their cartel like collusion to make that a difficult task, or I will use a discount broker and refuse to sign any contract longer than the average time on market. If that discount broker is a lazy and ineffective agent like the last one I engaged he'll be cancelled quickly. If more people resisted the status quo we'd see some changes in the traditional and outdated commission structures.
 
The cost to the seller to sell a home is not minimal. Especially when the seller can expect to fork over $60,000 in commissions to his agent and the agent of the buyer.

Prior to my divorce my ex-wife and I decided to do a For Sale By Owner. She was a mortgage lender for a major bank and had a lot of industry contacts with whom she could call in a few favors and help us with the legal paperwork and other things for a very small fee or no cost at all.

Boy, the agents in my town about lost their minds.I can't count how many phone calls we got from agents wanting to argue with us about why they should get the listing and how many came to our open houses pretending to be potential buyers and then revealing themselves. I had to show many the door and almost grabbed one pencil necked weasel and physically removed him from the premises.

In the future I will either negotiate a lower rate with an agent, and of course I fully expect their cartel like collusion to make that a difficult task, or I will use a discount broker and refuse to sign any contract longer than the average time on market. If that discount broker is a lazy and ineffective agent like the last one I engaged he'll be cancelled quickly. If more people resisted the status quo we'd see some changes in the traditional and outdated commission structures.
I think your ex wife is semi professional so she can use her connection to get things done. However for most typical casual buyers and sellers they may run into problems on paperwork and checking, negotiation, etc. My parents used to be real estate agents in another country and they work till midnight closing deals all the time, and very often negotiation falls through or buyers couldn't get a loan without help from the right banks, etc. Very often we found sellers wanting to keep certain expensive items for their new homes (in the US it would be curtains, certain appliances, etc) and the buyers want to be compensated for a huge amount, and in the end one of the agents compensate the difference in cash back to the buyers to make them happy.

Like all industrial sales, it is easy to say the sales making 2-5% being too much but when you look at how much work it takes and how often they sit without any business (during the bad times), there is a reason an industry exists to support this many people and not more, not fewer.
 
Who do you think is setting the prices of these houses? The seller? LOL. Its the agents doing their due diligence and creating a sales price that has value and most importantly one that can meet the criteria for an appraisal. Do you think an appraiser is going to look at a FSBO as a comparable? Not likely because there is no way to know if it is a legit deal or not.

You people who are worried about what an agent makes are proably over paid hourly workers who don't have the skill set or balls to go out on your own and create a business and take on all the risk. It sounds like the people who bash big corporations too, why should we make the money? Because we take all the risk and have been doing so for many years.

Commissions are always negotiable and we can not fix those prices as that is illegal. Some of however can walk away from a seller not willing to pay what we are worth. I have never been afraid to step over a dollar and pick up a dime.
 
The cost to the seller to sell a home is not minimal. Especially when the seller can expect to fork over $60,000 in commissions to his agent and the agent of the buyer.

Prior to my divorce my ex-wife and I decided to do a For Sale By Owner. She was a mortgage lender for a major bank and had a lot of industry contacts with whom she could call in a few favors and help us with the legal paperwork and other things for a very small fee or no cost at all.

Boy, the agents in my town about lost their minds.I can't count how many phone calls we got from agents wanting to argue with us about why they should get the listing and how many came to our open houses pretending to be potential buyers and then revealing themselves. I had to show many the door and almost grabbed one pencil necked weasel and physically removed him from the premises.

In the future I will either negotiate a lower rate with an agent, and of course I fully expect their cartel like collusion to make that a difficult task, or I will use a discount broker and refuse to sign any contract longer than the average time on market. If that discount broker is a lazy and ineffective agent like the last one I engaged he'll be cancelled quickly. If more people resisted the status quo we'd see some changes in the traditional and outdated commission structures.
So you are saying you didn’t sell your last home by yourself and you needed an agent?
Only asking because you state what you will do next time you hire one.
Tens of billions of dollars (if not more) spent by technology companies and cut rate brokers trying to destroy and take over the industry, nothing but a big fail each time, billions lost, big fail.
They always miscalculated expenses and you talk of “cartel like collusion”?

Does the same go for any optional service you hire also qualify as collusion?
Landscapers, attorneys, doctors, dentists, plumbers, electricians, home improvement stores?

People have a right to hire someone for a service but no one is forced too and no one including the services mentioned above and thousands of others are forced to provide a service to you on your terms and pay.

Your free to sell your home anyway you want and no one is forced to work for you under your terms for any service, not just real estate, any service.

I don’t believe your are really saying that as you say if more people resisted that would force change.
If enough people resist any product, service or profession change would happen but the vast majority are happy with “traditional” real estate practice and why like any service (or product for that matter) it exists.
 
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The problem I see is there is little incentive by both agents to spend a lot of time with the sale. The more money the agent makes, the higher attention which will be spent on the transaction.
This. I sell all my homes without an agent and it's a bit more work because agents will not even show the property to a client that has retained them. It's a little more work selling myself but saving 6% of 500K makes it worthwhile, and I can price the home lower to entice a buyer. Last two I sold myself were in contract within 14 days.
 
This. I sell all my homes without an agent and it's a bit more work because agents will not even show the property to a client that has retained them. It's a little more work selling myself but saving 6% of 500K makes it worthwhile, and I can price the home lower to entice a buyer. Last two I sold myself were in contract within 14 days.
It’s great to have choices!
Something I have been trying to explain to others. No one has to buy a service (any type of service) if they don’t want to.
 
Thats brilliant, under price your home just to save a few bucks? How does that make sense at all?
 
Thats brilliant, under price your home just to save a few bucks? How does that make sense at all?
When you lower the price by 1/2 of what a commission would be it makes perfect sense ( 6% of a 500K sale is 30,000......do the math). My last home got into a bidding war and it sold at what would have been the price with a commission, so I made almost an extra 30K by lowering the price with no agent. All you need to do is pay a lawyer, which you would have had to do anyway.
 
Who is making you stage the house?
Personally I wouldn't buy a house that's occupied or staged.
Huh? So I have to move out, buy and new house, and move into it before you're willing to make a deal? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you?
 
Who is making you stage the house?
Personally I wouldn't buy a house that's occupied or staged.
My thought is if the house is occupied it's a good indication of how well the home owner kept the property. Kind of like looking at a private party used car vs a used car from car max where all the "evidence" has been washed away.

But I can see your point, you want to see the "blank canvas" that you're going to be working with. That makes sense.
 
My thought is if the house is occupied it's a good indication of how well the home owner kept the property. Kind of like looking at a private party used car vs a used car from car max where all the "evidence" has been washed away.

But I can see your point, you want to see the "blank canvas" that you're going to be working with. That makes sense.
I've purchased several occupied houses and it was never hard to envision where things would go and what changes I wanted to make. It just takes a little imagination.
 
Most likely yes. I can't properly inspect a house that's occupied. Plus I don't have to worry about when the previous people are going to leave.
I'm surprised since that takes a lot of potentially great homes off your list. It has been the rare house I've looked at that wasn't occupied. To each their own!
 
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