FSBO with buyer's agent - who prepares contract?

[Dressy]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Unless, of course, the deal goes south, in which case the attorney doesn't work on contingency, usually, as the agent does - the attorney gets paid, up front, even if the deal doesn't go through, whereas the agent can do all the work and not get paid at all if something goes wrong.

Well, that " free" contract that he cooked for us had so many things to be corrected by the lawyer, that I seriously doubt that there is any great value in HIS filling the blank for us in this standard contract form. We could have same well done it ourselves if any real estate attorney had given us his standard form.
And we wound up the lawyer working on the contract and negotiating everything anyway. And even if the deal will not work out we will have to pay the attorney anyway. And if the deal WILL work out we will have to pay BOTH.

Gosh, the agent 3% commission is 5-8K! and we only pay $500 to the lawyer.

Note! I am NOT saying that all agents are useless. Some of them can help a lot in negotiating a good price and finding a good home. But in case you have everything done - found the home and agreed on the price, which suits you. what is the agent for??

[josie_allen]

We sold a house in Louisiana and just bought a house in NJ. In both cases, the buyer prepared the contract and the seller returned it with a counter offer or acceptance. In NJ our attorney then took over once the buyer/seller had agreed to the basic terms and our attorneys negotiated the remaining details of the contract. In La there were no attorneys involved (also a FSBO), but also no real estate agents and no listing fees (sold by word of mouth). Still, the buyers in both cases presented the offer in the form of a contract.