Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,585 posts, read 81,186,228 times
Reputation: 57820
Advertisements
Quote:
Originally Posted by GearHeadDave
Sure would not want to be planning a career as a real estate agent here in 2021. People are getting smarter, and fewer every day are willing to hand over 6% or even 3% on a simple transaction. What DOES make sense is spending money on a good real estate lawyer, and as a buyer on your own trusted home inspector. Real estate agents have always been pretty much useless to me in every one of my sales/purchases of properties.
The main reason not to be a realtor today, at least in retail sales, is the fact that there is so little inventory. Here for example, there are currently only 32 listings, plus 5 new homes and 4 vacant lots in a city of 65,000. With several real estate offices, each with many agents, and others coming in from nearby cities, many are going to go without any sales for along time. One sale of a fixer-upper at $600k at 3% share is $18,000, not bad for a month's work, or even two, but you'd better put some of it away and be prepared to go 3-4 months without a sale. I'm in commercial/industrial real estate and with people working from home the market is the opposite, lots of vacancies, but fortunately I am paid a regular salary, not on commission.
I bought a house the same month in the same county as my buddy four years back.
Crazy enough his $150k home sold for $250k, last week.
I just got a comparative market analysis and it shows that I should be able to sell my home for 600k, a home I spent $500k on four years ago.
His realtors get $15k, the govt gets 7k, and he gets 78k
My realtors will get 36k, the government will get 18k, and I’ll get just 46k
Taxes are taxes, I get that.
But the agents aren’t doing any more work for $36k than they would have done for $15k.
Why is this percentage based commission still a thing.
This looks like a $100k gain to me. No cut to the government. But I would sell now before old JB increases that tax, too.
Sure would not want to be planning a career as a real estate agent here in 2021. People are getting smarter, and fewer every day are willing to hand over 6% or even 3% on a simple transaction. What DOES make sense is spending money on a good real estate lawyer, and as a buyer on your own trusted home inspector. Real estate agents have always been pretty much useless to me in every one of my sales/purchases of properties.
That is what we plan to do when we decide to sell. We are in a hot market with just a cursory look at listings showing the majority of offerings in pending status. Of course, by the time we sell, it may be a buyers’ market. One of our neighbors just had an offer if $1.2 million. I was agast but it isn't extraordinary. Crazy world currently.
Are you saying 18k for transfer taxes? You'd better check that, seems off to me.
Anyway, on the original question - there are a myriad of models out there. Interview multiple agents and models and go with what you think is the best value (which isn't always the cheapest). There are different % options as well as flat fees and entry only. Interestingly enough, I feel like my knowledge and experience is a real asset right now, even moreso than 2 years ago, with navigating this crazy market, from getting top values, staging, negotiating etc.
And the answer as to why there are so many 6% models is as a seller with no skin in the game, the financial risk is being taken on by the agent. Guaranteed pay will get the overall expense down.
Each agent usually only gets 1.5% of the 6%. The standard is 3% to listing agents side and 3% to buyers agent side. The brokers on each side always get a split and many times it's 50%. All agents can work out different percentages they pay to their broker, but is the most common standard. So if a seller pays out 10K in agent fees, their agent may get about $2500 PRE taxes.
You can do FSBO or find a fee based agent if you don't want to go the traditional route. Maybe in this market, it'll sell just fine, but if it's normal times, getting it listed on MLS and having open house, nice photos, definitely help
What I did says was that there is no more effort on a half million dollar listing than there is on a quarter million dollar listing.
Yet it costs twice as much.
Homes are selling in hours, no staging, no special effort, just a sign, a lock box, and a refusal of 20 offers that just didn’t cut it.
And 19 other agents that wrote offers got ZIP for their time and effort. And maybe that is just one of the ten offers they wrote just for than one client. And then after spending time and money showing those clients 50 houses the clients become frustrated and decide not to buy a house. Easy money? I don't think so.
Each agent usually only gets 1.5% of the 6%. The standard is 3% to listing agents side and 3% to buyers agent side. The brokers on each side always get a split and many times it's 50%. All agents can work out different percentages they pay to their broker, but is the most common standard. So if a seller pays out 10K in agent fees, their agent may get about $2500 PRE taxes.
Lol.
Welcome to 2002.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
