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Tom, no offense, but sellers don't care how the 6% breaks down. They just (and should) just care that they are paying 6%. A seller will shell out $24,000 in realtor fees on a 400K house. That's ALOT of money. Also, there are closing costs, transfer taxes, etc....
Also, I don't feel sorry for alot of realtors because business overall was outstanding for them in the early to mid-00's.
Business was oustanding, but we still worked hard for the money. Many buyer's agents in my area didn't earn 3% then and now the seller's agents aren't earning 3% either. It is indeed a very expensive job where we are quite often out of pocket and never recoup the money. We also have to pay for our own health insurance and all of our taxes without help from an employer.
Hey, 5% isn't that bad. I'm paying 6%! We've been on the market 4.5 months, but things seem to be picking up for us as we've had 4 showings in the past 2 weeks (hey, that's a LOT for us) and we even have our first 2nd showing coming today. However, I'm not attributing this pick-up to anything our realtor has done. We even asked her yesterday if she had done something different to induce all these showings and she said no.
Ok, but how helpful will your Realtor be when weeding out a bad prospective buyer? Do you know the difference between a good buyer and a bad buyer? Do you know how to set up closing and do everything to make that go smoothly? Do you know what contingencies are standard for your market right now? Realtors don't just market homes, that's only one small part of the job. The markets are just awful right now. A Realtor earns their money in the negotiations and preparing for closing in my opinion. It does hurt to fork out that 5-6%, totally understandable but hopefully the equity (that isn't money earned from hard labor) will more than cover that. HOPEFULLY!!
Good luck selling!
Well, that was an old post and we've sold now and moved into our new house! But, when you take out the money that we paid to the realtor, we ended up getting less money back on the house than what we paid for it 6 years ago, so it wasn't a great deal for us. That 6% was a lot for us.
There are several reasons folks choose to use Real Estate Agents vs doing it themselves. It really disgusts me to hear folks say that all Realtors do is stick a sign in the yard and put a lockbox on the door. How dumb does that sound, because remember, if we don't sell it, we don't get paid. Why would we not try to get your home sold. Trust me, despite what you think or have heard, every agent is trying to get your property sold and in most cases, we spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars just for you to decide to take it off the market. Instead of us making money, we lose money. Secondly, we don't just accept any contract, we make sure the prospective buyer is approved. When you are selling it yourself, you are missing potential buyers because they can only come when your're home, you get a lot of nosy folks who just want to see your home and you don't know if they are approved or not and in most cases, you don't know the legalities behind a legal sale of your home. Also keep in mind, for example, if you brought your home for $300,000 three years ago and its on the market now for $490,000, how do you feel you are losing out by having a licensed agent to assist you in the sell of your home.
There are several reasons folks choose to use Real Estate Agents vs doing it themselves. It really disgusts me to hear folks say that all Realtors do is stick a sign in the yard and put a lockbox on the door. How dumb does that sound, because remember, if we don't sell it, we don't get paid. Why would we not try to get your home sold. Trust me, despite what you think or have heard, every agent is trying to get your property sold and in most cases, we spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars just for you to decide to take it off the market. Instead of us making money, we lose money. Secondly, we don't just accept any contract, we make sure the prospective buyer is approved. When you are selling it yourself, you are missing potential buyers because they can only come when your're home, you get a lot of nosy folks who just want to see your home and you don't know if they are approved or not and in most cases, you don't know the legalities behind a legal sale of your home. Also keep in mind, for example, if you brought your home for $300,000 three years ago and its on the market now for $490,000, how do you feel you are losing out by having a licensed agent to assist you in the sell of your home.
Listen, I can give you plenty of examples where I've (or someone close to me) had a terrible experience w/a realtor. All that person did was list my house and showed no fire in their belly to follow up for feedback on showings or try to come up w/creative ways to market my house! I was the one calling the buyer's agent! So, I won't paint the whole industry w/a broad brush, but please don't make it sound like all of the industry is great because they are far from it. Why do you think its so hard and hear so many horror stories about bad realtors? Do you think people make this stuff up?
Please keep in mind that the listing agency stipulates the 5% and as noted by others, shares that with the buying agency. Here in northern NJ, our agency charges 5 % to list a property. The selling agency gets 2.5% of that. The agents on both sides (listing and selling) then get a share from the percentage that their agency received.
It's amazing to me but I often comes across customers that believe the agent walks away with 5 or 6%. That amount is actually shared by 4; both agencies and both agents.
Tom, no offense, but sellers don't care how the 6% breaks down. They just (and should) just care that they are paying 6%. A seller will shell out $24,000 in realtor fees on a 400K house. That's ALOT of money. Also, there are closing costs, transfer taxes, etc....
Also, I don't feel sorry for alot of realtors because business overall was outstanding for them in the early to mid-00's.
No offense to you but not all realtors started in 2000. Also the bigger the house the more money a realtor should be putting into marketing. If they are not you should be looking for a new realtor. As far as breaking down the expenses for everyone, most people would think that 24000 is going to their realtor and that is not the case. If you are not interested in hearing about the breakdown then dont read the post.
Not necessarily. The selling agent doesn't have to split it in half. Every agent I've interviewed does and says that it's the best way to get other agents out to look at the house. Some were getting 5%, others were getting 6%
Sellers most certainly care about how it is being split. In this crummy market with high inventory, they need to make sure it is being split down the middle (especially if it is the norm in the area). Money talks, I don't care what people say. If there are identical houses for sale, the agent will take the client to the house with the better split.
Well said, and yes the comission is always negotiable, but the standard is 3 and 3. Sometimes an agent will take 2 and offer the other agent 4 just to attract more traffic. So your right money does talk and an agent would rather sell a house to their buyer for 4% instead of 3.
Well all the papers are signed and the house is going on the market in a few days. Our realtor is wonderful, knowledgeable, and really knows her stuff....and everyone knows her so we're confident if anyone can sell our home she can. But....5%! If we sell our home for say, 400,000, thats 20,000! And please...no offense to any of our realtors on the forum...I'm quite sure most of us couldn't manage without you. This is our first home so we have no experience with this process...none whatsoever. I'm just curious did anyone sell their home without a realtor? Do potential buyers shy away when a home is for sale by the owner? We truly believe we need this person in order to get this house sold, but I was curious if anyone did it without, or feels that they could have.... I would like to hear from the realtors on this board also. Thanks for any and all input. Jeannie
i like seller helper and using a real estate attorney. saves money.
stephen s
san diego
Well said, and yes the comission is always negotiable, but the standard is 3 and 3. Sometimes an agent will take 2 and offer the other agent 4 just to attract more traffic. So your right money does talk and an agent would rather sell a house to their buyer for 4% instead of 3.
Tom, you know there is no standard!!! All commissions are negotiable.
Tom, you know there is no standard!!! All commissions are negotiable.
Isn't that what I said? In the very first 5 words? All commissions are negotiable. I can rephrase the rest, the normal for my area is 6% but it can be anywhere from 0% to 100%.
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5% split
If we sell our home for say, 400,000, thats 20,000!
And please...no offense to any of our realtors on the forum...I'm quite sure most of us couldn't manage without you. 
This is our first home so we have no experience with this process...none whatsoever.
