Real estate agent (buyers) commission refund (flat fee, short sales, foreclosures)

[blitz7619]

I am in the process of a buying a house in Sterling. I have seen lot sites like redfin and myzip etc offer a part of the real estate commission. Have any of you received such refunds..if yes what part of 3% commission can be expected to be refunded.

Thanks
Blitz

[kevinm]

Why would a real estate agent sign over part of his/her paycheck to you?

[Margery]

I would not rebate to a buyer if I had to drive them all over the place to see listings, that is very time consuming. Buyers are a lot of work. Most of the agents that do this are just getting started in the business or are not doing very much business and need the work. I do offer a lower commission for sellers if they will pay for any print ads (very expensive). Have you checked to see if you have to pay taxes on this as income? And, by the way, don't count on the commission to a buyers agent to be 3%, many short sales and foreclosures are much less and Redfin may not work with a buyer on these.

[Tish Thompson]

I agree with Margery. I'm working with 5 buyers, most of them I've been with since May of this year. Even in a market like we're in now, it shouldn't be this hard to get buyers under contract. Although I've counseled them on how to write an offer that will be accepted, and send them the settlement details on every house we've written on and were beat out, they still want to write the same offers that won't be accepted! With one couple, I wrote their offer, the seller countered...a minimal counter...and the buyers changed their minds because the seller countered! I told them to expect a counter, and the dollar amount I told them to expect was much higher than where the seller countered. Now I realize why I'm a listing agent...although I have found that buyers above a certain price point are much better behaved.

[Jlyles]

Kudos, Tish! Are those special clients still telling you it's a buyer's market? I got two to the table in the past two weeks ... six months chasing the market and writing a lot of contracts. Good luck.

Originally Posted by Tish Thompson

I agree with Margery. I'm working with 5 buyers, most of them I've been with since May of this year. Even in a market like we're in now, it shouldn't be this hard to get buyers under contract. Although I've counseled them on how to write an offer that will be accepted, and send them the settlement details on every house we've written on and were beat out, they still want to write the same offers that won't be accepted! With one couple, I wrote their offer, the seller countered...a minimal counter...and the buyers changed their minds because the seller countered! I told them to expect a counter, and the dollar amount I told them to expect was much higher than where the seller countered. Now I realize why I'm a listing agent...although I have found that buyers above a certain price point are much better behaved.

[Brujaroja]

Blitz,

I am a member of Redfin and I use their internet site to review real estate listings. I plan to use them when I find the condo I want. Obviously, those of you who have replied to the poster are not familiar with Redfin and sites like it.

In answer to your question Blitz, you get the full 3 percent rebate. I know a couple of people who have used Redfin and their home purchases went very smoothly. In the age of computers and information technology, I believe that buyers agents have become obsolete.

You do not need a Buyer's Agent to drive you around and show you estate. You can review the listings on-line, at your convenience and liesure, and if you see a home that you like, you contact one of Redfin's agents, and then you go to the listing -- no agent takes you around. When you decide on a home that you want to buy, their agents take care of all the necessary arrangements pertaining to the purchase and drawing up the closing documents.

[rubytue]

With redfin you do not get the full 3%! You get any commison in excess of their set fee. If you use the redfin site, it tells you what you would get back. It's about 3% of the price above 175k. But their flat fee is 3% of 175k

[ACWhite]

Why would a buyer pay income tax on a discount given on an amount she or he is paying in commissions? The buyer doesn't get to deduct the cost of commissions on a tax return.

http://www.fool.com/School/Taxes/1999/taxes991210.htm

[GoHokiesGo]

I received a rebate from my realtor when I bought my house this past december. We worked with I-Agent as our realtors.

If their agent commission is 3%, they kept 1% and gave 2% to us with a minimum of $3k going to them. IE - $300k house means 3% is $9k, they keep $3k and rebate $6k to you; however, a $200k house means 3% is $6k, and they keep their $3k minimum and give you the remaining $3k (1.5%).

For us, I-agent worked out great as opposed to a regular full-service realtor. They were younger agents, but were always quick to respond to questions via email, phone, or texts even. We searched the MLS listings ourselves (I liked using Redfin since they had the easiest layout for me), and then we emailed them once a week with our list of houses we wanted to see over the weekend. After finding houses we liked, we would fill out our offers online and the agents would email them over.

I found that while looking for a house, I spent half the day searching real estate listings anyways, so it worked out that we did the searching work; you do need to be a proactive buyer by searching yourself and not expect to sit back and have them do everything for you, but they emailed similar houses to us at times and were always quick to answer questions and make time to schedule viewings. There were a few times that I wished we could've gotten them to push more with some offers, but with foreclosures the banks were in control most of the time anyways. Once we finally found our house, we got our rebate a few days after closing and were able to use it to do a ton of upgrades to the house we wouldn't have had cash laying around for otherwise. I haven't worked with any of the others, but i-Agent was great for us.

[Tish Thompson]

They sure are. And it's my fault we have to write so many offers....my clients seem to think I have some secret "in" to get the seller to refuse to review other offers and just take the one I submit. I wish!

Originally Posted by Jlyles

Kudos, Tish! Are those special clients still telling you it's a buyer's market? I got two to the table in the past two weeks ... six months chasing the market and writing a lot of contracts. Good luck.