How common is it for buyers to get part of the commission?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We got half of the commission, so 3%, but it was a friend. It was significant.

So you got a 100% of the buyers' agent commission then? How? As a seller credit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every house we purchased since 2007 we have gotten a 2.25% buyer rebate but we do all the work and the realtor just makes the offer contract

So the agents wrote the contract for 0.25%? Who would do that? After the brokerage takes their cut and the agent pays taxes on that? I call BS.

Did they go with you for the home inspection? Communicate with the title company? Take you to the walk though?

I would love to know that agents that would do this for such an insignificant amount of money.

What were the price points of the houses that you bought this way?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not OP, but 2023 re-bumper here.

Let’s run some numbers?

I’m looking to buy a $2.5 million house. Standard 2.5% commission would be $62,500 going to the buyers agent/firm.

I’m an experienced homeowner and know exactly where I want to be and what I want. I don’t need to walk through open houses with an agent. I don’t need real estate listings emailed to me. I don’t need to know about coming soon properties. I don’t need your comp information, I’ve lived in this area 10+ years and follow my local real estate inside out like many homeowners because it is a major investment.

I do need an experienced and trustworthy real estate agent once I find the house I want, to walk through it with them once, to interface with the sellers agent and negotiate if needed, to navigate the standard paperwork, and to help with any unusual issues.

How many hours of work can this possibly be? 20? 50? 100?

Let’s grossly overestimate and say 100. That’s a juicy $625/hr for buyers commission.

My guess is 25 is more realistic. That’s $2500/hr.

Yes I know some inexperienced first time buyers are buying at 400k and dragging agents to 20-30 properties. Not as good a yield there but that’s not me.

I am only asking to pay a reasonable amount for the services of a good real estate agent. The traditional real estate commission system does not work for me. I’ve found those working with the big brokers unable to work out better terms and thus I’ll be looking elsewhere.

If someone else would like to post good leads on experienced and reliable agents who rebate some of the buyers commission please contribute to this thread. Thanks.

Okay, Tiger.

Do you have access to the homes you want to see?

Do you have access to GCAAR forms and know how each term and contingency works?

Do you know a good home inspector? (Again, how will you access the house)?

I am SURE you know how to negotiate home inspection items!

Do you have access to a good title company who will assure you receive clear and marketable title?

All that being said, GOOD AGENTS are NOT DISCOUNT AGENTS!

Oh my, this is utter BS.

1. Yes, providing access to the houses is part of what a buyer agent does. If a buyer locates a house they want to buy reasonably quickly, as in PP's scenario, providing this access is a few hours of low-skill work.
2. The forms are standardized and easy to understand. No one in their right mind would rely on an agent to interpret the forms. Yes, buyers agents commonly fill out the forms for buyers' approval, but this is simple and perhaps another hour of work.
3. https://www.google.com/search?q=home+inspector+near+me. Across different purchases, I have both used my own inspector and one recommended by an agent.
4. Huh? You read the inspector's report and then tell the sellers which items you'd like fixed. If they object to any items, it would be in writing, and in easy-to-understand terms.
5. https://www.google.com/search?q=title+company. Title services are a commodity that any of dozens of companies can provide.
6. Sorry, not paying you 3% of a ~$3M house for a few hours of your time. Not anywhere close to worth it.

So why use an agent at all? Just write the contract and negotiate yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every house we purchased since 2007 we have gotten a 2.25% buyer rebate but we do all the work and the realtor just makes the offer contract

So the agents wrote the contract for 0.25%? Who would do that? After the brokerage takes their cut and the agent pays taxes on that? I call BS.

0.25% on $1M or more is a lot of money for minimal work requiring minimal skill/education.

Anonymous wrote:Did they go with you for the home inspection? Communicate with the title company? Take you to the walk though??

Anyone can find a good inspector and title company on Google, Angie’s list, or even this forum.

0.25% or $25,000 should cover dozens of hours of walkthroughs at $50/hour, which is an exorbitantly high hourly rate for work that doesn’t entail any specialized skill or even a high school education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every house we purchased since 2007 we have gotten a 2.25% buyer rebate but we do all the work and the realtor just makes the offer contract

So the agents wrote the contract for 0.25%? Who would do that? After the brokerage takes their cut and the agent pays taxes on that? I call BS.

0.25% on $1M or more is a lot of money for minimal work requiring minimal skill/education.

Anonymous wrote:Did they go with you for the home inspection? Communicate with the title company? Take you to the walk though??

Anyone can find a good inspector and title company on Google, Angie’s list, or even this forum.

0.25% or $25,000 should cover dozens of hours of walkthroughs at $50/hour, which is an exorbitantly high hourly rate for work that doesn’t entail any specialized skill or even a high school education.

I think you meant to say $2,500, but your point still stands.

[Anonymous]

There is no way any good agent is going to work for pennies.

Try your luck with EXP, Redfin, whatever other no name brokerage and best of luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no way any good agent is going to work for pennies.

Try your luck with EXP, Redfin, whatever other no name brokerage and best of luck.

Well some agents do it, but their strategy is to be high-volume. For example:

https://www.cottagestreetrealty.com/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every house we purchased since 2007 we have gotten a 2.25% buyer rebate but we do all the work and the realtor just makes the offer contract

So the agents wrote the contract for 0.25%? Who would do that? After the brokerage takes their cut and the agent pays taxes on that? I call BS.

0.25% on $1M or more is a lot of money for minimal work requiring minimal skill/education.

Anonymous wrote:Did they go with you for the home inspection? Communicate with the title company? Take you to the walk though??

Anyone can find a good inspector and title company on Google, Angie’s list, or even this forum.

0.25% or $25,000 should cover dozens of hours of walkthroughs at $50/hour, which is an exorbitantly high hourly rate for work that doesn’t entail any specialized skill or even a high school education.

I think you meant to say $2,500, but your point still stands.

After the broker cut and taxes, the agent is working for nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every house we purchased since 2007 we have gotten a 2.25% buyer rebate but we do all the work and the realtor just makes the offer contract

So the agents wrote the contract for 0.25%? Who would do that? After the brokerage takes their cut and the agent pays taxes on that? I call BS.

0.25% on $1M or more is a lot of money for minimal work requiring minimal skill/education.

Anonymous wrote:Did they go with you for the home inspection? Communicate with the title company? Take you to the walk though??

Anyone can find a good inspector and title company on Google, Angie’s list, or even this forum.

0.25% or $25,000 should cover dozens of hours of walkthroughs at $50/hour, which is an exorbitantly high hourly rate for work that doesn’t entail any specialized skill or even a high school education.

I think you meant to say $2,500, but your point still stands.

After the broker cut and taxes, the agent is working for nothing.

Realtors (especially in markets like the DMV) have been overcompensated for so long that they’ve developed unrealistic expectations for compensation. The value-added work that the average realtor performs (in the present Internet age with online listings) generally does not justify a fee of more than $50 per hour. Real estate lawyers in the DMV who normally charge $150-200 per hour will prepare and review all of the paperwork for a home sale for $750-$1000 total ($300-500 in smaller markets. Everyone pays taxes, and the average real eatate agent is in the 22% tax bracket, and pays much less in taxes than the average real estate attorney.

I will grant you that the payments real estate agents must make to parent brokerage firms is a scam in of itself. Brokerage firms have no business collecting the fees that they do.

[Anonymous]

The real crooks are the brokerage firms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no way any good agent is going to work for pennies.

Try your luck with EXP, Redfin, whatever other no name brokerage and best of luck.

Why do you need a good buyers agent? If you aren't buying off market (and I really think that these stories of agents finding buyers the perfect house and closing pre-market are a made up marketing tool), you can find houses just as easily as they can. For those of us who consider zillow and redfin fun to browse, there is a good chance that you know the market just as well as they do. We've used services that refund the majority of an agents commission every time we've bought and have ended up with earnest but very inexperienced agents. It worked find because we always going to do the work ourselves even with an experienced agent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no way any good agent is going to work for pennies.

Try your luck with EXP, Redfin, whatever other no name brokerage and best of luck.

Why do you need a good buyers agent? If you aren't buying off market (and I really think that these stories of agents finding buyers the perfect house and closing pre-market are a made up marketing tool), you can find houses just as easily as they can. For those of us who consider zillow and redfin fun to browse, there is a good chance that you know the market just as well as they do. We've used services that refund the majority of an agents commission every time we've bought and have ended up with earnest but very inexperienced agents. It worked find because we always going to do the work ourselves even with an experienced agent

It's not about finding the house necessarily. Of course you can look on the internet yourself. It's about getting the best price, terms and conditions and having someone advocate for you, someone who understands how to protect your interests. I would say 50 percent or more of my clients are attorneys and most of the time they need as much guidance as any other client. This year I had clients who wanted to purchase a house and were willing to write an offer about $40k over where I thought they should go, no escalation clause.,They got the house with the price I recommended saving them $40k. I had clients who didn't understand the property condition paragraph because their prior agent didn't do the right thing so they thought they were responsible for getting the stuff left at the house at the walkthrough out themselves. With an excellent home inspector, I helped prevent two clients from purchasing homes, both likely with structural issues. I could say more but the thing that bothers me so much about this site is that people routinely trash realtors for not adding value to a transaction but also want to use inexperienced agents who will give them a piece of their commission, people who have horrible realtors who won't write a bad review, people are so nasty about the lack of education needed to be a realtor. Yes that is true and I wish that would change but I don't know of one agent who doesnt have at least a bachelor's degree. You do need to be careful about who you pick to represent you as is true in any field. A doctor at Hopkins killed my brother, my sister's divorce lawyer is milking her for every cent he can get. Etc. My two cents today. And last thought, if you think realtors don't add value, don't yourself and negotiate a credit to give you some or all of the commission that your buyer's agent would've received.

[Anonymous]

^^ The problem is that it is really hard to know the good agents from the bad. And many "good" agents don't save their client money, but just encourage them to overbid.

Just yesterday, I got an alert about a house that sold for well above asking, which it shouldn't have (I study the areas I am looking at very closely). When I see an agent get a good or bad deal for a buyer, I always make sure to look up the agent. I looked up this agent's past ten transactions representing the buyer, all of which happened this year, and in each one, the buyer paid at least 5% over asking. Maybe that was justified in every instance, but I doubt it.

It really would be nice to know which agents give their clients good advice, know the inspectors who find structural issues, etc. But it's not. And even going off word of mouth is tricky -- the agent I'm referring to above gets great reviews.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every house we purchased since 2007 we have gotten a 2.25% buyer rebate but we do all the work and the realtor just makes the offer contract

So the agents wrote the contract for 0.25%? Who would do that? After the brokerage takes their cut and the agent pays taxes on that? I call BS.

0.25% on $1M or more is a lot of money for minimal work requiring minimal skill/education.

Anonymous wrote:Did they go with you for the home inspection? Communicate with the title company? Take you to the walk though??

Anyone can find a good inspector and title company on Google, Angie’s list, or even this forum.

0.25% or $25,000 should cover dozens of hours of walkthroughs at $50/hour, which is an exorbitantly high hourly rate for work that doesn’t entail any specialized skill or even a high school education.

0.025 on $1 million, which is the scenario described, is $2,500. Not $25,000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every house we purchased since 2007 we have gotten a 2.25% buyer rebate but we do all the work and the realtor just makes the offer contract

So the agents wrote the contract for 0.25%? Who would do that? After the brokerage takes their cut and the agent pays taxes on that? I call BS.

0.25% on $1M or more is a lot of money for minimal work requiring minimal skill/education.

Anonymous wrote:Did they go with you for the home inspection? Communicate with the title company? Take you to the walk though??

Anyone can find a good inspector and title company on Google, Angie’s list, or even this forum.

0.25% or $25,000 should cover dozens of hours of walkthroughs at $50/hour, which is an exorbitantly high hourly rate for work that doesn’t entail any specialized skill or even a high school education.

I think you meant to say $2,500, but your point still stands.

No, pp is a dumbass who can’t do math and actually thinks the agent still gets $25,000 in this scenario.

In reality, $2,500 is the gross. After split, etc they might be left with around $1,100 or so. Which if really all they do is submit the offer isn’t a bad rate. But they will have to do a high volume to cover the costs of being an agent.