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realtor question - how much to pay
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Anonymous
| a friend of ours told us about a buyer that was really interested in our condo complex. we contacted the buyer and she came and saw our place with her real estate agent (our unit was not on the market). the buyer now wants to make an offer and we figured it would be easiest to have her realtor represent us as well. what is an appropriate commission for the realtor in this situation? TIA! |
Anonymous
| Do NOT have her agent represent you. Get your own agent and negotiate a rate with him/her. The buyer's agent will get 3% and I suggest you negotiate somewhere between 1-2% for your agent since he/she didn't even have to list the property. |
Anonymous
| I would offer the buyer's agent 2% and find your own agent for 1% (it's very little work for them). |
Anonymous
|
DO NOT use the buyer's agent!!!
Honestly, in this situation you don't need a real estate agent. Get a real estate lawyer on a flat fee (which will still be far, far less than 3% you'll pay a seller's agent) to review the contracts. You could probably get a real estate lawyer to do it for 1K or less. |
Anonymous
| OP here, thanks for all the responses - can anyone recommend a real estate lawyer in the Arlington area? |
Anonymous
YES- DEFINITELY THIS. |
Anonymous
Josh Bushman 2800 Shirlington Road Suite 503 Arlington,Virginia 22206 Tel: 703-524-0700 Fax: 703-845-9720 |
Anonymous
OP here, thanks for the advice - looks like i can save almost 10K going the lawyer route 
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Anonymous
| I personally think realtors are overpaid and unnecessary - their compensation model is way out of wack. |
Anonymous
| You really shouldn't offer their agent 3% since you contacted the buyer yourself. They should get 2% max. |
Anonymous
Agree. what's the reason/justification for YOU paying their agent? you didn't list the property and there's no obligation whatsoever for you to pay their agent. if the agent wants to get paid, it'd be from the buyer. if the buyer doesn't want to pay with their own cash, make them finance it through the purchase. |
Anonymous
Then OP would probably either lose the sale or the buyers would cut their offer by 3%. |
Anonymous
| When we sold our condo we had an agent but we found the buyer ourselves (neighbors wanted our larger unit). Our agent handled the transaction and I think we just paid her 2.5% total. I would negotiate a rate with the agent and let them represent both if you've already agreed on a price with the buyers. Agents have certain ethical obligations when they represent both sides of a transaction and a good agent will abide by those. |
Anonymous
| OP here, seriously thanks for all the great advice - am in negotiations now about the commission. the realtor originally asked for 4.5% for both sides!!! |
Anonymous
| Don't be surprised though if the buyer will try to negotiate a reduction in price exactly equaling your savings on the agent fee. We just sold, and the buyer was the one without an agent, but he wanted the 3% reduction in price. So we netted the same as we would have with some other buyer with an agent. But we had to sell, and so it wasn't very flexible. Since you don't seem to be in that position, there will probably be more room for negotiation there. |