Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You'd be better off paying someone to cut the grass of the realtor or do some work for the realtor like paint their house or some kind of bartering.
But if you ask me realtors make too much money. Especially in a sellers market. You can put a house on the market and it sells in a week and you have to hand then $20,000. Then each time the house is sold someone has to pay this.
The only thing a realtor might be good for is have them tell you the value of your home. If they have to show your home to 100 people over 6 months period they earn their money, but for a week or two their commission should be 1%. In fact that would be a good idea for someone to open a real estate company and base the commission on how long it takes to sell.
I know some charge 6% now. That would be $30,000 on a $500,000 dollar home. Explain this to me why this is even legal?
Look at my post from above in terms of why I am worth the fee that I collect.
As far as the fact that I should be penalized for the fact that I get your home sold faster, you must be on some serious drugs! I just listed a property that we got a contract on in 10 days and it only took that long because I did a delay in showings for a week, so in essence, it really sold in 3 days. During those 3 days, I called all local offices, faxed each office a copy of the listing, called other realtor friends, had a brokers/public twighlight open house, hire a professional photgrapher, had professional flyers made up, created a web commercial, sent 550 post cards to local residents, and placed ads on realtor.com, remax-nj.com, remax.com, my personal website, craigslist, zillow, and yahoo homes, and this is not all I did, I just can not remember the rest at the time. Now please tell me how I am not worth my commission in respect to this deal. I am VERY interested to hear your response!
You'd be better off paying someone to cut the grass of the realtor or do some work for the realtor like paint their house or some kind of bartering.
But if you ask me realtors make too much money. Especially in a sellers market. You can put a house on the market and it sells in a week and you have to hand then $20,000. Then each time the house is sold someone has to pay this.
The only thing a realtor might be good for is have them tell you the value of your home. If they have to show your home to 100 people over 6 months period they earn their money, but for a week or two their commission should be 1%. In fact that would be a good idea for someone to open a real estate company and base the commission on how long it takes to sell.
I know some charge 6% now. That would be $30,000 on a $500,000 dollar home. Explain this to me why this is even legal?
Here's the really cool thing; you don't have to pay it.
You can do it yourself.
You can hire someone to do it for $100. Or $1,000. Or $1,000,000
You can trade your lawn mowing services for their home selling service.
You can use the % of sale price model, and negotiate a lower rate.
You can negotiate a fee based on time it takes to sell the property. (Though, you seem to be of the opinion that the longer it takes to get the property sold, the more you are willing to pay the listing agent. This is contrary to what most of us would see as your goal, and rewards the agent for taking a longer time to sell the property. Odd, but whatever.)
I did the oposite of what the OP is imposing.
My realtor went thru hell with my buyers, She had to go way beyond her job, They wanted a Walk-Thru at 9pm at night, their realtor wanted her there for all of their 6 inspections, yes 6, they were nuts.
She also checked the pool filter when I left to move here before closing, to see if all was ok. She also checked the house.
I felt bad, and found out I could not write a check for a little extra to her personally but found I could send a gift card, as she deserved all the work she did.
If I take a listing and end up selling it myself, why should I discount myself so that I only get one side of the commission? When a contract is accepted, I now have to do double the work, so why would I discount myself. A good realtor who has to represent both sides has to:
List the property
Advertise the property
Bring in the buyer
Get both sides to agree on an acceptable price
Handle both side's attorneys to make sure deal goes smoothly
Help buyer order the inspection
Help buyer and seller agree on acceptable credit for inspection deficiencies
Work with the buyer to obtain a mortgage
Work with buyer to make sure mortgage commitment arrives on time
Work with the seller to get proper C/O & Smoke Inspection
Work with Buyer to make sure deposits are obtained at proper times
Ensure that buyer brings correct amount to closing
And this is not the half of it. It is only what I can remember off the top of my head. To say that a good realtor does not earn both sides if a deal results this way is absolutely ludacris!
Realtors are really funny, two weeks study course to get your license and now you are entitled to nice commissions (sometimes very large) .
Buyers and sellers attorneys, four years college plus two years law school and now you can charge a whopping $1,000.-$1,500 for their services while the realtor walks off with 25% of the 10-20-30K commission.
Yet if a buyer(who you have not chauffeured around looking at property) walks through the door with an offer (prepared by the undervalued lawyer) you are not willing to settle for your normal 25% commission , you now want the whole 50%.
It's no wonder realtor's are rated lower than used car salesman.
Are you saying that Realtors must work this way, as in they are required to? That would be wrong.
If what you are saying is that there must be some out there who work this way, then you would be right. There are. But then you dismiss that fact, saying you already know that no Realtor would agree to it. You're wrong, of course, but since you appear to know everyhting about this business, I guess you know that too.
Good luck to you.
A realtor would not agree because it means less commission. Is it more work for a realtor to sell a 400k house than to sell a 350k house? I doubt. So why make more in commission? As I suggested in my previous post, it would be nice if realtors worked for a flat-fee irrespective of sale price. Attorneys already work for a flat fee irrespective of the sale price. How rational would it be if attorneys started charging % based fee instead of the $800-1000 fee? Or even home inspectors charging a % based fee.
A realtor would not agree because it means less commission. Is it more work for a realtor to sell a 400k house than to sell a 350k house? I doubt. So why make more in commission? As I suggested in my previous post, it would be nice if realtors worked for a flat-fee irrespective of sale price. Attorneys already work for a flat fee irrespective of the sale price. How rational would it be if attorneys started charging % based fee instead of the $800-1000 fee? Or even home inspectors charging a % based fee.
First, you can certainly hire a real estate agent to sell your house for a flat fee. Stop complaining about not being able to do something you haven't even looked into enoough to know you can easily do.
Second, yes, it is harder to sell a $400k house than it is to sell a $350k house. The market for such a house is smaller. The marketing needs to be targeted to that pool of buyers. And while the difference in the marketing for a $400k and a $350k house isn't all that much, when you start getting higher in price, the diffences are more pronounced.
Real estate agents usually get a percentage for a few reasons. First, we are taking a risk. The risk that your house doesn't sell. If it doesn't, we get nothing. All that time, unpaid. And we are out the money we laid out to do the advertising, web sites, open houses, etc. Our risk, not yours. And the more expensive the house, the smaller the pool of available buyers, the greater the risk. More importantly to the seller of the house, the better your agent is at his job, the more money he is going to put in your pocket. They attorney, valuable as he is for protecting yrou legal rights, is not going to have much of an impact on the sale price of your house.
A realtor would not agree because it means less commission. Is it more work for a realtor to sell a 400k house than to sell a 350k house? I doubt. So why make more in commission?
Because utility of the realtors work to the seller, in dollar terms, is directly proportional to the selling price of the house.
"How much work" has nothing to do with how valuable the work is. If that were true, a brain surgeon would earn the same as a McDonalds employee.
Because utility of the realtors work to the seller, in dollar terms, is directly proportional to the selling price of the house.
"How much work" has nothing to do with how valuable the work is. If that were true, a brain surgeon would earn the same as a McDonalds employee.
i agree its based on value of work but a realtor who sells a 400k house is as valuable to his seller as is a realtor who sells a 300k house for his respective seller. to continue on your example of a brain surgeon, a doc can not charge more fees from a 180 lb patient than a patient who weighs 140 lbs.
anyway, we have discussed this way too much already!
Realtors are really funny, two weeks study course to get your license and now you are entitled to nice commissions (sometimes very large) .
Buyers and sellers attorneys, four years college plus two years law school and now you can charge a whopping $1,000.-$1,500 for their services while the realtor walks off with 25% of the 10-20-30K commission.
Yet if a buyer(who you have not chauffeured around looking at property) walks through the door with an offer (prepared by the undervalued lawyer) you are not willing to settle for your normal 25% commission , you now want the whole 50%.
It's no wonder realtor's are rated lower than used car salesman.
Yes I am entitled to my commission! I work very hard for a living, and I am entitled to everything I earn. If this job is so easy, why don't you go out and try it! I DARE YOU! If it was so easy, everyone would be doing it and making millions! Something I learned from day one; 90% of the real estate transactions in the world are controlled by the top 10% and I work hard to be at that level!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
