Realtor Commission - how much? (1%, new agent, fee, realty)

[Megan1967]

What is standard in the Austin area? It's 6% here, is that the rule nation wide?

[Zzyzx]

The standard commission is 3% listing agent and 3% buyers agent, but the commission can be negotiated.

On my last house the total commission was 3.9%, 0.9% for the listing agent and 3% for buyers agent.

[txbreeze01]

We are currently selling our house, due to close next week, and we are paying our listing agent about 1.2% and the buyers agent 3%.

[PeacePlease]

But what do you give up when the seller's agent is getting less than 3%? is that person simply listing the house in MLS and other websites and that is it, or the seller's agent is doing more?

[Trainwreck20]

There are a variety of reasons that an agent may take less than 3%, but the ones that I have seen:

1. The agent is a friend of the seller; and
2. The agent is new and needs to build a customer base.

No. 1, above, does not mean a whole lot of anything, but No. 2 is a little worrisome, since you usually do not want to be breaking in a new agent.....

[llkltk]

If you get your agent to help you buy your next home, they usually will waive the 3% commission on selling your current home. Thus, the 6% becomes 3% because they get their commission from the purchase of your new home.

[txbreeze01]

We were listed on all the websites, in newspapers, had open houses, etc. We will be using him to buy our next house as well.

[PeacePlease]

I wonder how 1% reality compares? 1% for a sellers agent sounds too good, no?

[atxcio]

Originally Posted by PeacePlease

I wonder how 1% reality compares? 1% for a sellers agent sounds too good, no?

No, that seems about right. We looked into 1% Realty, but ended up going with Resident Realty ($995 seller commission.) I believe the sellers agent role takes less time -- so they afford can charge less. These discount companies will probably not do an open house, and Resident Realty doesn't do fliers -- it uses recorded messages about the house and a 1-800 number on the sign. The do provide MLS and full service closings.

They both charge more for the buyer's agent role, as that requires much more time (driving around, gas money, car wear, etc). 1% on the buyers end "rebates" you 1% (so their commission is 2%). Resident charges the normal 3% for buyer's agent.

[Zzyzx]

In my case I was working with an experienced (20years) listing agent. All he did was put a sign in front of my house took a few minutes to list my house on the MLS with a picture and did less then a hours work on the closing. He made $2500. Unfortunately the market was not smoking at the time, therefore I had to go with the 3% buyers agent fee in order to get realtor's to show my house. It was on the market for less then a month. This was a fair transaction for everyone in the current market conditions at the time.

When I interviewed Remax, Prudential etc. they would not budge more then .5% off the total commission. They told me how they were going to market my house in the paper, real estate magazines,etc, but all I was interested was a MLS listing. I could not justify paying a listing agent a $8300.00 straight up listing fee on a house that was less then 300K in an active market.