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There are a few 0% commission realtors working in the DFW area.
Has anybody worked with one of them when you sold your house?
My concern is that other realtors might boycott them, and direct their buyers to other houses.
I ask because years ago, we worked with a flat-fee agent. There were lots of them before the bubble burst back in the mid-2000s. They charged something like $5000, rather than a standard percentage fee, to help you list your house.
Well, we found out mid-contract that traditional agents were boycotting them to drive them out of business.
They wouldn't show the houses they listed unless the clients insisted.
Has anybody heard of this happening here?
It's not like a traditional buyer's agent wouldn't get their normal commission. But I would imagine that they don't like the format very much.
Agent commission structure is changing, and they don't like it one bit.
For starters, the days of making 3% on selling a client's home are over. There's too many realtors working in the DFW area for that to be even remotely realistic.
On our last home, our agent listed and sold our home for 1%, knowing that she'd get 3% on our purchase of another home. That's the max any agent should be getting these days, people need to be negotiating those commissions down. If your agent doesn't agree to the 1%, get another one, they are a dime a dozen.
I've seen some sellers write up a contract that they'll only pay 2% on a sale to an agent. Now, those homes are most likely to be skipped over by agents, because they're taking a pay cut if their client buys that home vs another.
I think the flat fee concept is gaining traction. With the huge gains in property values around here, people are fed up about paying exorbitant commissions when the agent takes some pictures, lists the property, and it's under contract in less than a week. Combine that with the internet as a homebuyer's search tool for homes, the only reason you need an agent is to get you inside a home. Our last two homes purchased, we told our agent not to bother sending us homes that were listed, as we knew far better than they what we were looking for. We told them to only send homes our way that were not yet on the market or pocket listings. We found every home we wanted to see and ended up buying a home we had found and researched.
When we sell our home next time, I imagine flat fee will be the way we go.
Agent commission structure is changing, and they don't like it one bit.
For starters, the days of making 3% on selling a client's home are over. There's too many realtors working in the DFW area for that to be even remotely realistic.
On our last home, our agent listed and sold our home for 1%, knowing that she'd get 3% on our purchase of another home. That's the max any agent should be getting these days, people need to be negotiating those commissions down. If your agent doesn't agree to the 1%, get another one, they are a dime a dozen.
I've seen some sellers write up a contract that they'll only pay 2% on a sale to an agent. Now, those homes are most likely to be skipped over by agents, because they're taking a pay cut if their client buys that home vs another.
I think the flat fee concept is gaining traction. With the huge gains in property values around here, people are fed up about paying exorbitant commissions when the agent takes some pictures, lists the property, and it's under contract in less than a week. Combine that with the internet as a homebuyer's search tool for homes, the only reason you need an agent is to get you inside a home. Our last two homes purchased, we told our agent not to bother sending us homes that were listed, as we knew far better than they what we were looking for. We told them to only send homes our way that were not yet on the market or pocket listings. We found every home we wanted to see and ended up buying a home we had found and researched.
When we sell our home next time, I imagine flat fee will be the way we go.
Agent commission structure is changing, and they don't like it one bit.
For starters, the days of making 3% on selling a client's home are over. There's too many realtors working in the DFW area for that to be even remotely realistic.
On our last home, our agent listed and sold our home for 1%, knowing that she'd get 3% on our purchase of another home. That's the max any agent should be getting these days, people need to be negotiating those commissions down. If your agent doesn't agree to the 1%, get another one, they are a dime a dozen.
I've seen some sellers write up a contract that they'll only pay 2% on a sale to an agent. Now, those homes are most likely to be skipped over by agents, because they're taking a pay cut if their client buys that home vs another.
I think the flat fee concept is gaining traction. With the huge gains in property values around here, people are fed up about paying exorbitant commissions when the agent takes some pictures, lists the property, and it's under contract in less than a week. Combine that with the internet as a homebuyer's search tool for homes, the only reason you need an agent is to get you inside a home. Our last two homes purchased, we told our agent not to bother sending us homes that were listed, as we knew far better than they what we were looking for. We told them to only send homes our way that were not yet on the market or pocket listings. We found every home we wanted to see and ended up buying a home we had found and researched.
When we sell our home next time, I imagine flat fee will be the way we go.
The "internet" you're using to search for homes is connected to a local mls, funded by realtors, which brings you all the listings to look at - so as much as you think you're "doing things yourself", you aren't. You're using a realtor-funded database to find your next house. Getting rid of agents means you get rid of that database. Getting rid of a significant number of them means the cost per-agent to fund that database goes up (and see what that does to agent's fees).
I 100% agree that the commission structure is out of wack.
In fact, I know at least 5 individuals personally who have their license and I'm starting the process of buying and selling. In the end, I told a few of them that I would go with whomever did it for 1% on the the buy and sell. More specifically, we are selling for 500K and listing it at 3.5% with our guy getting 1% and the buying agent getting 2.5%. On the buy (about 800K) he is getting 1% and we get a credit back for what the seller was paying. In the end he is going to walk away with 13K which I think is good given the amount of effort will be low since my wife and I are heavily involved.
One of the 5 realtors I mentioned got offended and frustrated when I held firm at the 1%, saying that the seller is paying the money so why do I have a right to it.
As mentioned, there are plenty of people who are willing to do it for a flat fee or 1%. You can always leverage Redfin as a starting point. Good luck.
The "internet" you're using to search for homes is connected to a local mls, funded by realtors, which brings you all the listings to look at - so as much as you think you're "doing things yourself", you aren't. You're using a realtor-funded database to find your next house. Getting rid of agents means you get rid of that database. Getting rid of a significant number of them means the cost per-agent to fund that database goes up (and see what that does to agent's fees).
If you don't think a similar service to what we have now could pop up (and probably even better than what we have now... think "Google Homes" or something) then you are nuts.
Realtors and their commissions are antiquated. If a realtor sells a million dollar home, the notion they should pocket 30-60k for anywhere from 20 to even a few hundred hours of works is pretty absurd... especially when you consider anyone with average intelligence and a willingness to learn a specific real estate market can do the job. Forget a PhD or Master's degree... a high school diploma will do just fine. If you think the people who own homes are going to keep paying upwards of $200-$500 an hour for these services when there are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of realtors working in a fairly cutthroat business... you're crazy.
Agent commission structure is changing, and they don't like it one bit.
For starters, the days of making 3% on selling a client's home are over. There's too many realtors working in the DFW area for that to be even remotely realistic.
On our last home, our agent listed and sold our home for 1%, knowing that she'd get 3% on our purchase of another home. That's the max any agent should be getting these days, people need to be negotiating those commissions down. If your agent doesn't agree to the 1%, get another one, they are a dime a dozen.
I've seen some sellers write up a contract that they'll only pay 2% on a sale to an agent. Now, those homes are most likely to be skipped over by agents, because they're taking a pay cut if their client buys that home vs another.
I think the flat fee concept is gaining traction. With the huge gains in property values around here, people are fed up about paying exorbitant commissions when the agent takes some pictures, lists the property, and it's under contract in less than a week. Combine that with the internet as a homebuyer's search tool for homes, the only reason you need an agent is to get you inside a home. Our last two homes purchased, we told our agent not to bother sending us homes that were listed, as we knew far better than they what we were looking for. We told them to only send homes our way that were not yet on the market or pocket listings. We found every home we wanted to see and ended up buying a home we had found and researched.
When we sell our home next time, I imagine flat fee will be the way we go.
Any house that is under contract in under a week is underpriced, particularly when the listing agent is also the selling agent.
Selling side flat fee works great. You sign up, take the pictures yourself and they put it on MLS for $300 or so. So long as you have a relatively new smart phone and aren't retarded you can take some decent pictures yourself and good enough.
You handle the showings, you're agent wasn't going to be there for the showings anyway if you hired one. You use the standard contract any 8th grader can read, you can even pay an attorney a few hundred to review it if you're really worried about it. No reason to pay the realtor and their broker 3% for that.
Title company processes the deal like any other.
You offer the selling agent 3%, total cost to you is 3% plus the flat fee. Agents will be beating down your door if it is a well priced property in a good area. When you pull the list you can sort by commission and I guarantee you most of them are showing higher commission properties first and many are under 3% in many areas.
Buying side, you can either have a buyers agent or not depending on what you want. We don't need one but aren't opposed to using one. However using one can take up some of the pot money that could be used to getting you a better deal.
If you know what you want you can schedule with the listing agents themselves, you might even catch a flat fee owner and have some leverage on pricing since they are saving $$. Regardless if they have a regular listing agent you can work with the agent to maybe pay your some closing items since you aren't bringing another agent with you. You just have to be prepared to negotiate and walk. You can't be emotional about the property.
The days of collecting 3% to list a property are quickly coming to a close. MLS itself screwed itself by opening up their data to third party sites like Estately, Realtor, Zillow, etc and the Internet was going to win eventually simply by realtors putting MLS searching on their own websites. Either way, the strangle hold on information was their only true benefit and now that the information is out for anyone with an internet connection they have made at least half the of transaction obsolete to people that want to avoid it.
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