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.
Just FYI, for a year I left my job as a paralegal to homeschool my impaired son with a therapy/educational program for a year and started a cleaning business. I had a few office accounts, but also took calls from two realtors to get out and help out homeowners prior to a showing--usually a very busy working mom with a couple of children who had to go but didn't get the kitchen cleaned or the laundry out of the way or the bathroom wiped down--always at the last minute. I usually charged $15 to $20, and spent a little over an hour or sometimes less. I didn't make a killing, wouldn't do it as a regular business as I'd lose money, didn't grab my son and rush out every day, but it helped keep us eating during a difficult window of opportunity for our son. I wondered if we were ever looking to sell our house if we would be able to find someone to do that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Bill
Obviously, I couldn't pay $50 per day to have someone come every day.
.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,761,129 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by RoaminRed
Well, correct me if I'm wrong but that's split a lot of ways. It doesn't all go to the person that you deal with -- they've got to share it with other people.
That is all fine and well for you but it sounds to me like you need to reform your own business model. I am willing to pay YOU 3% to sell my home for me. I am not willing to pay your boss to sit on his ass in the office all day. Solution- open your own office or work for yourself out of your home and keep ALL of what you make. As for the buyer, if the buyer is not capable of going on the internet or in the paper and looking at the listings and feels the need to have a Realtor do the looking for him then the BUYER should pay his agent! Not me and not you! Otherwise the buyer should do his own looking and call the agents of the homes he is interested in and go out and YOU show the buyer the house- not some other agent.
That is all fine and well for you but it sounds to me like you need to reform your own business model. I am willing to pay YOU 3% to sell my home for me. I am not willing to pay your boss to sit on his ass in the office all day. Solution- open your own office or work for yourself out of your home and keep ALL of what you make. As for the buyer, if the buyer is not capable of going on the internet or in the paper and looking at the listings and feels the need to have a Realtor do the looking for him then the BUYER should pay his agent! Not me and not you! Otherwise the buyer should do his own looking and call the agents of the homes he is interested in and go out and YOU show the buyer the house- not some other agent.
There are certain problems with go for it yourself. You basically have to set up certain financial arrangements and have a commercial site with a business license in most states. In Nevada you must have a sign on the brokerage that is visible from a public sidewalk. The laws are actually set up to discourage small firms. It is relatively easy to start a bigger one...but that is really a different business than selling real estate.
As a practical matter probably 80% of your buyer base comes through a Buyer's Agent. If you don't compensate them you lose 80% of your potential buyers. It is simply a fact of life. I happen to agree with you theoretically. I think Buyer's should pay their own agents. But I also believe they should have to employ an Agent or acquire a credential demonstrating an ability to represent themselves. Why? Because an unskilled person in such a transaction cannot carry their own weight forcing the other Agent to cover both sides...at a significant effort and risk.
That is all fine and well for you but it sounds to me like you need to reform your own business model. I am willing to pay YOU 3% to sell my home for me. I am not willing to pay your boss to sit on his ass in the office all day.
Do you really think it's to pay a BIC to sit around all day? That company split pays for paper, electricity, internet, the office building, the brand/franchise, copy machine, fax, telephones...basically all the things we need to market your home. Your paying the same either way, either I have my own overhead and keep it all or I use the company overhead, they manage all the accounts, and I pay them what it costs anyway. I more or less break even in the end either way on cost but being on my own is breaking even with more time requirements on me to manage the overhead.
I've done that of course. Unfortunately, especially in the past market, I found that (and I posted this upthread) if you don't respond with a bunch of homes you want to see in a week or so, you are viewed as a time waster and rapidly ignored. Seems it was more fun to work with the liars loan buyer who didn't give a d*mn what they bought.
I get that in a way - time is money. Unfortunately I have no interest in cookie-cutter development homes and have fairly specific criteria. The kind of house I want does come up around here reasonably regularly, but not every day and not always in the right location - so finding the right house will take a while.
I really do not want to feel pressured into making an offer on a home I am not 100% happy with because the agent I am working with has put some work in and "deserves" a pay day within a certain time frame. I'd much rather find homes I am truly interested in and have an agent be fresh and ready to work for me, not jaded and a bit frustrated.
It's got nothing to do with secrecy. It's to do with taking my time to make the decision that is right for ME. Plus, having been a salesman for many many years, I am highly sensitive to sales pitches and leading questions, to the point of irritation. I just can't be around them at all until I am really at that buying stage.
You raise some good points. The poster who said you need a meeting of the minds with a GREAT agent hit it on the head. I have actually worked with clients in the same manner you like to look. It's fine with me. Easier really. They are on an automatic mailer. If something comes up they like they drive by it and call if they want to see it. Works great, costs me less time, and I don't care when they buy so so long as they use me so I'm don't pressure anyone. It's more important that you are happy and send me referrals and use my services again than trying to rush you.
The important thing is to get an agent who's not hurting for a commission. They are desperate and just want to close a deal in a hurry. I would suggest meeting a few top agents and explain how you want to work. I think you'd be surprised at how willing they are to work with you the way you want. As a matter of fact, they've probably done with others in the past.
Real Estate Commissions - give agents a break please
I am a local real esatate agent, and often I hear the term as stated in this post why should I pay you ... such and such amount to sell my house, for the most part, my sellers have attempted to sell their house on their own and have failed, this market is not a market we have seen a few years ago, when you would list a house and do a little work and then get paid.
In today's market you work for 10-15 clients with the hopes that one deal will make it, the mortgage industry is getting tougher and unfortunately buyers and sellers do not see that we put in 40 hours a week and the average real estate agent only makes 25,000 a year. Yes there are occassions when you make a big sale, but the average properties by the time the commission is split between two agents and two brokers you get 1/4 of the pie.
For example if you sell a 200,000 house at 4% commission you make $2,000. If you do the math on the amount of time a house takes generally to sell, you make about $10 a hour. Plus we pay all our own health insurance, auto insurance, auto maintenance, advertise, promotional items etc.
For those of you that think real estate is easy, come to my office and work here for one month and you will see how we earn our money.
Also, there was a post about a buyer doing all his research, I bet he probably called about 10-15 real estate agents and asked them questions, so although he decided not to hire a buyer's agent to work for him (at no cost to him) he elected to do all the work himself. Which is foolish, buyers agents are compensated by the seller, so if you hire a buyer's agent it is usually at no cost to you. If a little more research was done you would see that buyers agents work for the buyer, each and every agent he called with their name on the sign was working for the seller.
I really care about my clients, and I work really hard for them. Unfortunately in every profession their are people that cut corners and do not provide full service, please do not stereotype our entire industry by one experience.
...Ocassionally someone will want the listing agent to be at every showing because they know the house better. That request is misguided.
I disagree........My house had lots of stairs, for a realtor to bring in a elderly couple was stupid and a waste of everyones time. Did this buyers realtor consider their clients needs, I think not..
The MLS sheet should show photos and also state if a home is single or multi-level. So, given that information, the agent should know if the client is comfortable with stairs prior to showing a multi level home. If they are not comfortable with stairs, then I agree, it's a waste of time to show it.
In November I had a situation with multi level homes.
I took a client who was 74 years of age to see a home that had stairs to a second level, and the home next door that had stairs to an upper loft office plus stairs to a basement living area. The home was listed by the same agent.
The owners were both home as I was showing their property.
One of them later mentioned to the listing agent that my client was "elderly".
The agent called me to ask for feedback, and discreetly stated that one of the owners asked why I was showing their home, with stairs, to an elderly person.
This is a classic case of where the buyers agent knows the client, and the sellers agent does not. My client knew exactly what he was looking for, and I also knew what he was looking for.
My client was a 74 year old Canadian snowbird. He is in excellent physical condition, and so is his wife. He lives in Vancouver in a 5 level home on the water. Not 5 stories, but 5 levels. He has a 60 foot boat that he drives and there are many stairs on that boat.
Stairs were absolutely no problem for him. He ended up buying a two level home in the same community across the lake from me. The house he purchased sits on one of the best lots in the community.
Because I am aquainted with the owners of those two homes, being in the same neighborhood, I asked the agent to please inform both owners that I knew the client had no problem with stairs, and that I would not waste their time showing it to someone who would not be able to live in a home with stairs.
She did tell them, and later I had the opportunity of having a discussion with one of the owners regarding a non-real estate subject, and I told him that my client bought the home down the lake from him.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,761,129 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by olecapt
There are certain problems with go for it yourself. You basically have to set up certain financial arrangements and have a commercial site with a business license in most states. In Nevada you must have a sign on the brokerage that is visible from a public sidewalk. The laws are actually set up to discourage small firms. It is relatively easy to start a bigger one...but that is really a different business than selling real estate.
As a practical matter probably 80% of your buyer base comes through a Buyer's Agent. If you don't compensate them you lose 80% of your potential buyers. It is simply a fact of life. I happen to agree with you theoretically. I think Buyer's should pay their own agents. But I also believe they should have to employ an Agent or acquire a credential demonstrating an ability to represent themselves. Why? Because an unskilled person in such a transaction cannot carry their own weight forcing the other Agent to cover both sides...at a significant effort and risk.
Then the laws need to be changed. You and any other agent should be able to sit up shop for yourself in you own homes or a small office. Perhaps 4 or 5 of you can get together and share an office as partners in a firm (such as attorneys do). I do not need to pay a "broker" to do anything for me. I am paying you to sell my house.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,761,129 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by KevK
Then the laws need to be changed. You and any other agent should be able to sit up shop for yourself in you own homes or a small office. Perhaps 4 or 5 of you can get together and share an office as partners in a firm (such as attorneys do). I do not need to pay a "broker" to do anything for me. I am paying you to sell my house.
If the buyer wishes to employ an agent, fine by me but I should not be expected to pay for his agent and the selling agent should not be expected to pay the buyer's agent either. It is the same as if I go to buy a car. If I hire somebody to inspect the car, I do not expect the care dealership to pay for him. I hired him. The buyer should pay his agent for the agent's time and services if he feels he needs an agent.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,761,129 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandon Hoffman
Do you really think it's to pay a BIC to sit around all day? That company split pays for paper, electricity, internet, the office building, the brand/franchise, copy machine, fax, telephones...basically all the things we need to market your home. Your paying the same either way, either I have my own overhead and keep it all or I use the company overhead, they manage all the accounts, and I pay them what it costs anyway. I more or less break even in the end either way on cost but being on my own is breaking even with more time requirements on me to manage the overhead.
You can run a small office with a fax machine and a T1 with 3 or 4 phone lines on it and a copy machine. It does not cost all that much. You can run a small office out of your own home for almost nothing. Most agents now days conduct alot of business on their cell phones anyway.
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.
Real Estate Commissions - give agents a break please
