Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the current expectation for using a buyers agent now? I'm looking this fall but the idea that I'm going to pay 2-3% out of pocket to a realtor for a $2M house is pretty rich.

Depends on the location. $2M gets you a semi-renovated older house or a 10 to 15 year old house in Arlington. Builders are now offering 1% to a buyer agent. Could you save another year so that you could get a $2.5 to $2.8 new house and get the builder to rebate the 1% to you? The builder's agent can write the contract for you.

I have been calling agents in MD and DC before I show houses and have not had one instance where the seller is not paying 2.5 percent commission(except one listing that was offering 3 percent). And I have three listings right now-all three offering 2.5 percent.

Call the new homes agents in Arlington and ask what the buyer agency comp is. One is even offering $5,000.

the comp is what the BUYER agrees to pay you now, buddy. eventually trying to negotiate your fee with the seller directly against your client’s interest is going to get you into hot water. I would never sign a contract where the buyer’s agent could decide which homes to show me based on what the seller offers for buyer agent comp, if that is what you are doing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep seeing here that people are paying buyers' agents hourly rates or flat fees. Can anyone recommend an agent that they used with these terms? Or what brokerages will do this? I haven't had any luck finding an agent who will work for an hourly rate. Thanks.

Just understand you will likely be expected to pay that hourly rate whether or not they close a house for you.

So if you spend 10 hours looking for houses and don’t find anything you like or if you lose a bid, you will owe $2,000 is the hourly rate is like $200 (which would be on the low side).

Why would I need someone to babysit me at home showings for $200/hr? The whole point of the flat fee is that they only do the necessary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a buyer is there a way to see the commission offered at all, or is it something that we’d have to write into our offer? Our agent, whom we like and trust, sent us a buyers agreement proposing 3% plus a $795 fee. That seems unusually high- we value her time and expertise but 30K for a straightforward transaction seems like a lot, especially when she will get close to that on the sale of our house too.

Can you explain? The buyer's agent - who is not your listing agent - requires 3% + $795?

Yes. the agent is part of one of the big brokerages listed above. In order to show us a home she sent a buyers agreement for us to sign. I plan to counter, but it's hard without a good sense of what's normal. Redfin is obviously much less, but like I said, I do value her expertise. But 1.5%? 2? Before the settlement it seemed like 2.5% was pretty common in our area, and it's what we paid to a buyer broker when we sold our last house, but the whole point of the settlement is to reduce costs to consumers.

What you actually want to do is get one of the agents who does a high volume of business. They can do whatever they want in their companies because they are the rainmakers. We bought a house in 2023 from a top agent and had to unexpectedly sell it in 2024 for an unexpected transfer. This was after the court ruling and she charged no commission we paid the buyer agent one percent. We got about $43,000 above the best comp that was about five weeks old.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:flat fee of $200 to write a contract is better.

Realtors are not allowed to write a contract because they can't practice law. What realtors do is fill in the blanks in the existing standard contract for you.

There's no reason to pay a realtor to do this when you can easily do this yourself. Just have the listing agent show you the house at no charge to you as the buyer. The seller is already paying the listing agent to do this. Then complete the very simple form yourself and submit it to the listing agent. Many times the listing agent will even offer to help you do this (at no charge to you).

Is there some special law about real estate brokers not drafting contracts? Because anyone can write a contract - that is not "practicing law"

Yes, it is called not practicing law without a license to do so.

Anonymous wrote:As a buyer is there a way to see the commission offered at all, or is it something that we’d have to write into our offer? Our agent, whom we like and trust, sent us a buyers agreement proposing 3% plus a $795 fee. That seems unusually high- we value her time and expertise but 30K for a straightforward transaction seems like a lot, especially when she will get close to that on the sale of our house too.

Wow, that's obscenely high. You're incredibly naïve to trust her or any realtor.

The whole point of the settlement is to end price fixing. This means the sellers don't offer a commission to the buyer's agent. You propose a seller's concession payment. The seller can reject, negotiate, or accept your offer. It would be extremely difficult to find a seller willing to pay 3% towards your agent. Most will pay 0 - 1.5% with a few willing to pay 2%. This means that you have to pay for the rest out of your own pocket if you use a buyer's agent.

Anonymous wrote:As a buyer is there a way to see the commission offered at all, or is it something that we’d have to write into our offer? Our agent, whom we like and trust, sent us a buyers agreement proposing 3% plus a $795 fee. That seems unusually high- we value her time and expertise but 30K for a straightforward transaction seems like a lot, especially when she will get close to that on the sale of our house too.

Can you explain? The buyer's agent - who is not your listing agent - requires 3% + $795?

Anonymous wrote:As a buyer is there a way to see the commission offered at all, or is it something that we’d have to write into our offer? Our agent, whom we like and trust, sent us a buyers agreement proposing 3% plus a $795 fee. That seems unusually high- we value her time and expertise but 30K for a straightforward transaction seems like a lot, especially when she will get close to that on the sale of our house too.

That’s unethical. Post her name to publicly shame her.

As a buyer is there a way to see the commission offered at all, or is it something that we’d have to write into our offer? Our agent, whom we like and trust, sent us a buyers agreement proposing 3% plus a $795 fee. That seems unusually high- we value her time and expertise but 30K for a straightforward transaction seems like a lot, especially when she will get close to that on the sale of our house too.

Our neighbors just sold in McLean. They did not offer any commission to the buyers agent and paid their agent 1.5%. The sale went smoothly and it seemed like everyone was happy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:flat fee of $200 to write a contract is better.

Realtors are not allowed to write a contract because they can't practice law. What realtors do is fill in the blanks in the existing standard contract for you.

There's no reason to pay a realtor to do this when you can easily do this yourself. Just have the listing agent show you the house at no charge to you as the buyer. The seller is already paying the listing agent to do this. Then complete the very simple form yourself and submit it to the listing agent. Many times the listing agent will even offer to help you do this (at no charge to you).

Is there some special law about real estate brokers not drafting contracts? Because anyone can write a contract - that is not "practicing law"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to avoid all the big brokerages like Compass, Long & Foster, WFP, etc. Agents there have to follow strict orders on their commissions.

Agent for one of these big brokerages. We have no "orders," much less strict ones. We are told to be straightforward and transparent, and to negotiate our own commissions and know our value. That's it. Conspiracy theories abound.

I rep buyers and sellers. Sellers have all chosen thus far to offer buyer commissions of at least 2.25%. Most are 2.5% from what I'm seeing from the buyers' end. One buyer wanted to see a property offering no commission. Of course we still saw it. Same as always. But, it was priced as if the seller was still paying the commission so buyer said no way. Not me. So far the buyers I'm working with are fine to pay commissions we've negotiated. They know I'm working my ass off and repping their interests, and I'm here to help them and not pressure them. Some would pay me more in an hourly structure than they are set to pay at closing, as we've literally viewed hundreds of properties and spent hours together over years.

I'm sure there are some agents who will do hourly. I don't know who, though. I still feel that the majority of buyers benefit from having their own agent, versus don't. Some people understand the nuances and rep themselves well, but that is rare. Believe as you wish, but I've been at this over 20 years and truly do work to rep my clients and their interests to the fullest.

It's rare in the United States:

"[In] the three comparator markets [Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom], only about 5–20% of home buyers used buyer-brokers as compared to 87% in the United States. Moreover, those buyers who did employ buyer-brokers in the yardstick markets paid only about 1–2% in commissions versus the 2–3% paid by buyers in the United States."

-Moehrl v NAR


And your clients literally view "hundreds of properties" before closing? Or do you mean you have a single client who has closed on several properties and viewed over 1 hundred collectively?

Buyers Agents is a DMV thing. They never really were a big thing.

When I moved to DMV was so confusing why a buyer agent was in the transaction. It made buying and selling so much more complicated and served no purpose.

Compare my housing buying in NY. Went to an open house. By myself. Buyer was getting divorced and very interested in selling quickly. I had a 7 month pregnant wife and very interested in buying. Towards middle of open house I threw out an offer to realtor, verbal. She said close enough let me text seller, he just went up the block to coffee shop during open house. He came back, as open house was ending we talked directly to him. Little back and forth with him and me. We decided on price. He said would throw in lawn furniture, BBQ, hoses, trash cans as moving to a condo. He wanted a 30 day rent back but he would pay our mortgage for that month.

We shook hands and we exchanged lawyers names and info. Done deal.

Anonymous wrote:You need to avoid all the big brokerages like Compass, Long & Foster, WFP, etc. Agents there have to follow strict orders on their commissions.

Agent for one of these big brokerages. We have no "orders," much less strict ones. We are told to be straightforward and transparent, and to negotiate our own commissions and know our value. That's it. Conspiracy theories abound.

I rep buyers and sellers. Sellers have all chosen thus far to offer buyer commissions of at least 2.25%. Most are 2.5% from what I'm seeing from the buyers' end. One buyer wanted to see a property offering no commission. Of course we still saw it. Same as always. But, it was priced as if the seller was still paying the commission so buyer said no way. Not me. So far the buyers I'm working with are fine to pay commissions we've negotiated. They know I'm working my ass off and repping their interests, and I'm here to help them and not pressure them. Some would pay me more in an hourly structure than they are set to pay at closing, as we've literally viewed hundreds of properties and spent hours together over years.

I'm sure there are some agents who will do hourly. I don't know who, though. I still feel that the majority of buyers benefit from having their own agent, versus don't. Some people understand the nuances and rep themselves well, but that is rare. Believe as you wish, but I've been at this over 20 years and truly do work to rep my clients and their interests to the fullest.

You need to avoid all the big brokerages like Compass, Long & Foster, WFP, etc. Agents there have to follow strict orders on their commissions.