suggestions for negotiating the percentages for realtors these days

[Anonymous]

Has anyone here (I am guessing so) negotiated the listing and selling agent percentages lately? Any suggestions on how to do this? Are realtors willing to negotiate? Have not sold a house in decades! Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone here (I am guessing so) negotiated the listing and selling agent percentages lately? Any suggestions on how to do this? Are realtors willing to negotiate? Have not sold a house in decades! Thank you.

OP again. That would be commissions!

[Anonymous]

We simply told seller's agent that the total commission can not go above 4%. We told seller's agent to divide however he wanted.

He came up with 2% and 2% with clause that if there is no buyer's agent then he can get 3% and help buyer with docs. We eventually sold to some one not having buyers agent so total commision for us was 3%.

That was last year and selling price was 700-800K.

If I have to do again then I will simply go with 2% for seller's agent, take all offers and see my net without commiting to any fixed percentage for buyers agent. Commiting to a fixed percentage means it gets communicated to buyers agent and all offers will come with that commision.

You do have to be very clear about it when intevewing agents. Some are not willing to take and pretend that we are still in old era where 5% total commision is must. Friction cost has dropped to 2-4% range.

[Anonymous]

Yes, interview 5-6 agents and be clear about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We simply told seller's agent that the total commission can not go above 4%. We told seller's agent to divide however he wanted.

He came up with 2% and 2% with clause that if there is no buyer's agent then he can get 3% and help buyer with docs. We eventually sold to some one not having buyers agent so total commision for us was 3%.

That was last year and selling price was 700-800K.

If I have to do again then I will simply go with 2% for seller's agent, take all offers and see my net without commiting to any fixed percentage for buyers agent. Commiting to a fixed percentage means it gets communicated to buyers agent and all offers will come with that commision.

You do have to be very clear about it when intevewing agents. Some are not willing to take and pretend that we are still in old era where 5% total commision is must. Friction cost has dropped to 2-4% range.

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, interview 5-6 agents and be clear about it.

Okay. This may seem obvious, but would you invite them to the home you want to sell when doing this to see how you feel energetically with them? Or do you suggest on the phone? I would love to have the home on the market in 20854 in the next month! TIA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, interview 5-6 agents and be clear about it.

Okay. This may seem obvious, but would you invite them to the home you want to sell when doing this to see how you feel energetically with them? Or do you suggest on the phone? I would love to have the home on the market in 20854 in the next month! TIA.

I would surely call them home. No point in talkign over phone. Ask all of them what will be the selling price? That way you get multiple inputs after they saw the house. You can eliminate any outlier ( too high or too low). You can also get input about what you need to do to get the houser on market to maximize your net. It's important to focus on net because agents often ask to do lots of stuff in house and no one really pays extra for that. I meant you can spend 30K to prep and it may sell for 15K less without prep , I don't see any point of prep. Just cleaning and painting if needed should be enough.

Then you will find out what they will do to earn their commission? Some agents will do staging without charging you extra and some ask for additional money to do staging. You can get most agents cover the staging. I will suggest looking at their previous listing with staging to see what kind of staging they do. Some do better jobs than others.

You do need to call 5-6 of them though and then you start seeing some trend. You can be clear that you are not willing to have more than 4% of friction cost and be upfront about it. Any talk about paying 5% total will have a better outcome is just a sales talk. 4% itself is very high friction cost tons of money for work involved. If you get less than 3 willing agents for 4% or below total then just call some more agents. Plenty of good agents are willing to work with 3.5-4% total. Just make sure to avoid some one who has sold very few houses( like less than 8-10). We did interview Redfin as well and they were second choice for us. So give them a call as well. A house in next street used them and their experience was good.

Good luck with the process!

[Anonymous]

Don't pay more than 1.5 for sellers! There are a lot of Realtors who will either offer 1.5 or you can negotiate with them.
You can negotiate the buyers side once you get an offer. You are not obligated to pay the buyers side per the new regulations. You could pitch in towards it, the amount depending on how high or low the offer is.