Using a realtor to negotiate with a builder

[FalconheadWest]

Originally Posted by Austin-Willy

This is completely misleading. A builder can certainly reduce the purchase price for one buyer if their closing costs are lower than they would be for another buyer.

No it's not misleading. It's against RESPA, the end. A builder cannot negotiate with their marketing budget with a buyer who comes in without a Realtor. They would be out of business so fast. And Realtors would stop showing their communities so fast they wouldn't know what hit them.

Builders depend on Realtors to bring them buyers. WHy do you think they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year marketing to Realtors? They don't want to bite the hand that feeds them.

[Austin-Willy]

Originally Posted by FalconheadWest

No it's not misleading. It's against RESPA, the end. A builder cannot negotiate with their marketing budget with a buyer who comes in without a Realtor. They would be out of business so fast.

Prove it.

I negotiated with a builder who agreed to reduce their price by 3% because I was not represented by an agent. The listing agent also agreed to accept only their 1/2 split as opposed to a full 6%.

[woodinvilleguy]

When I negotiated with a realtor when got a 10% reduction.

[FalconheadWest]

Originally Posted by Austin-Willy

Prove it.

I negotiated with a builder who agreed to reduce their price by 3% because I was not represented by an agent. The listing agent also agreed to accept only their 1/2 split as opposed to a full 6%.

You're a lawyer. They are allowed to do it with lawyers because you are allowed to draw up your own contracts if you wanted to and represent yourself. They probably begged you not to mess with their contracts.

A "common-folk" is not a lawyer, and they have no right to any commissions as they're not licensed.

[Austin-Willy]

Originally Posted by FalconheadWest

You're a lawyer. They are allowed to do it with lawyers because you are allowed to draw up your own contracts if you wanted to and represent yourself. They probably begged you not to mess with their contracts.

A "common-folk" is not a lawyer, and they have no right to any commissions as they're not licensed.

You are mixing your laws. State laws regarding commissions differentiate lawyer-buyers from non-lawyers, but RESPA doesn't.

And in fact, I didn't receive a commission, which is a critical fact to understand. I didn't want to pay income tax on it, so instead I negotiated with the builder / seller to reduce the price by an extra 3% and made sure the listing agent would also reduce their commission by the 3% that would normally be offered to the buyer's agent. Any ole Joe Plumber off the street can do the same. It's not a RESPA violation.

I'm interested to see what provision of RESPA you think is invoked by this situation.