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I questioned the realtor again, asking "What specific service does the brokerage fee cover?"
Reply was "Hey, nothing specific for that fee. Just something we collect."
Yeah...forget it. I'm going with someone else.
EDIT: Forgot to mention they also tried to get me to pay a $350 fee for a buyers agent referral program, above market deed and title, and way above market preinspection "program".
EDIT 2: They're also telling me to list the property for 20% more than everyone else is, and lock me into a 12 month contract with an $800 cancellation fee on a rental property that I would have to carry unoccupied.
Wow.
"Just something we collect." At least you didn't have to sit through a third-grade school play rehearsed script before you kicked this one to the curb...
Well thank God you are over in the EU and don't have to worry about being ripped off by our shady real estate industry.
hard luck mate, I am in the USA born in NY.
But I have a wide net when it comes to RE investment and unlike many of my poorly informed fellow Americans I object to paying a cartel tax on my property transactions and I mostly don't have to.
But the averagely informed American is completely unaware they are being ripped off by a margin of about 2-3%. That 3% is perhaps $15 or $30,000 dollars!
and just a another heads up.
Most Americans pay far more than others for Cell phone, RE, Cable, medicines and just about every other service that has a powerful and wealthy lobby group.
But you can comfort yourself by pretending what I am saying is somehow Left wing/ right wing crazy talk..... (pick whatever side you would rather pretend I am from)
Or you can pretend I Love Obama/Bush (again you get to pick, just pick the one that fits your ego)
There is enormous competition in the real estate business. OP could say 'no thanks' and take his business to another realtor who won't charge that fee.
Recently, buying new construction with a realtor we've used before and liked, we explained that we didn't feel there was as much value in representation on new construction (not that the builder would give us much of a break) and to keep our business, the realtor lowered her commission.
There are lobbying groups on the state level that restrict supply (by adding roadblocks to getting a real estate license, for instance) but even with 'restricted' supply I have never seen a shortage of realtors, or one brokerage dominating a market. There's no 'cartel' nonsense about it. I don't have anything against another country doing it differently, but it sounds like somebody has been drinking the kool-aid.
Each state has its own cartel of brokerages that own the local MLS. each one of these services work together to fund a national lobby that protects the collective MLS businesses.
The cartels are the brokerage companies that employ the RE agents /brokers etc who are signed with the very MLS which the brokerages own.
In fact the fee is not competitive at all, and the entire system is designed to avoid any competition with fees.
If you don't believe just read the actual contracts the agents sign with the MLS.
The combined MLS account for almost pretty much all Residential Retail transactions. they control the market, they control the fees the agents may set and they can and will remove agents who breach those contracts.
This is why you see things like "free staging" , "cash back" etc.
Retail RE in the USA is the exact opposite of competitive and would be crushed if we could simply get lobbying the state and federal governments under control.
I cant help if you don't understand the very market you work in. Perhaps you could take an econ 101 , to help you get a grasp of the concept.
otherwise feel free to post a real rebuttal. tell us exactly what part is wrong? Are you claiming we do not have cartels ? Maybe you believe the combined MLS are not one of the top ten lobby group by dollars in this entire nation?
I questioned the realtor again, asking "What specific service does the brokerage fee cover?"
Reply was "Hey, nothing specific for that fee. Just something we collect."
Yeah...forget it. I'm going with someone else.
EDIT: Forgot to mention they also tried to get me to pay a $350 fee for a buyers agent referral program, above market deed and title, and way above market preinspection "program".
EDIT 2: They're also telling me to list the property for 20% more than everyone else is, and lock me into a 12 month contract with an $800 cancellation fee on a rental property that I would have to carry unoccupied.
No no no no no....
They may dupe young buyers but anyone over 12 should know better.
I cant help if you don't understand the very market you work in. Perhaps you could take an econ 101 , to help you get a grasp of the concept.
otherwise feel free to post a real rebuttal. tell us exactly what part is wrong? Are you claiming we do not have cartels ? Maybe you believe the combined MLS are not one of the top ten lobby group by dollars in this entire nation?
I am claiming that manufacturing wild claims and conspiracy theories out of thin air doesn't compel others to play along. That is my claim.
Additionally, it may be I believe that there is no compelling reason to post a serious rebuttal to random goofiness.
But, in the spirit of responding with sense against the nonsensical:
I do work daily in my market, and anyone who thinks it is not very competitive is just not paying attention.
I questioned the realtor again, asking "What specific service does the brokerage fee cover?"
Reply was "Hey, nothing specific for that fee. Just something we collect."
Yeah...forget it. I'm going with someone else.
EDIT: Forgot to mention they also tried to get me to pay a $350 fee for a buyers agent referral program, above market deed and title, and way above market preinspection "program".
EDIT 2: They're also telling me to list the property for 20% more than everyone else is, and lock me into a 12 month contract with an $800 cancellation fee on a rental property that I would have to carry unoccupied.
Good for you for asking the questions and holding firm!
Most Americans pay far more than others for Cell phone, RE, Cable, medicines and just about every other service that has a powerful and wealthy lobby group.
Well, that may be...but we still have the best-looking politicians money can buy.
People in the USA pay vastly more to sell or buy than most other developed/ industrialized countries . . . tell me who is getting ripped off, Americans or Europeans...
Well, let's see:
Average price for a house in Great Britain: 272,000 British pounds. That's $420,036
Average price for a house in the US (March, 2015): $212,100
Almost exactly half.
Now, that's an "average", and I know that many agents on this board live in areas where $212,000 would be considered low priced in the inventory. I assume the same is true for the UK. Certanly Chelsea and Kensington have some of the most pricey real estate in the UK.
An agent may make 1.5% in the UK. Given the same avearage in both countries, the agent is still making twice what a US agent would be making, given the expenses that a typical US agent deals with. Well, guess what? In the US, many agents also adjust their commission down for the high-end market. Are they going to volunteer it? Probably not -- but commissions are subject to negotiation. There is no cartel. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act pretty much takes care of that sort of thing. :-)
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