Realtors

[BMCD]

Why is anyone who works on commission supposedly a dirt bag? EX: Realtors, Car Sales, Insurance, the list continues. IMO commission work is the purest work out there for showing your true value.

Thankfully we have the choice to sell by owner OR negotiate with another human. After living a lifetime of watching .gov try and make things fair and/or cost less for consumers I am lost on how some think politicians sticking their nose in is going to positively change anything for the consumer?

i don't think anyone is saying what your thinking. I like commissioned workers, but I know those rates can be negotiated, and In my case I have found its not hard to market and sell a home. I don't perceive alot of value in a real estate agent, especially @18k in RE fees for a 300k home. Course you can also add the other 5k in percentage fees u have to pay to close on said home.

[Duece22]

Question for realtors - since house prices have basically doubled in the last 5 years or so, if you keep the percentage the same your compensation per house doubles. Are you doing any more work to justify doubling your compensation from 5 years ago for the same single sale? I even offer that your jobs are actually easier with customers being more educated and doing more of the front end work by viewing Zillow, etc and really narrowing down your searches even before you talk to them. They aren't walking in blind like the old days.

The same thing could be said about restaurant servers, but that is a topic for another thread.

The amount of agents have doubled in the last 5 years so its watered down right now with agents.

Sell side is easier and has always been significantly easier. Buy side has been tough due to multiple offers since around 2018ish. Now, inventory is at all time low so checks could he few and far between.

[LTZ25]

Some forward thinking realtors have been offering 3% commissions for years as a way to get more business. I personally don't think it will affect the market much.

[TritonJT]

You can distribute commision any way you want. The buyer brings the check to the closing, therefore he pays the commission ultimately. Without his check nobody gets paid.

[JStew]

You can distribute commision any way you want. The buyer brings the check to the closing, therefore he pays the commission ultimately. Without his check nobody gets paid.

Winner winner Chicken Dinner! Don't you think that appraisals will drop in value by the commission shift? That's currently baked into the sale price. If a buyer is having to pay their own commission - it drives down what they can purchase. It'll cause downward pressure all across the marketplace because fewer will be financially able to purchase, pulling buyers out of the housing market. BTW - all of the web portals as well as the MLS have been publishing the buyer side commission for years. This will cause huge changes in the overall market temporarily and it'll be a year to 18 months before all of this shakes out to a whimper.

[pavi69]

Question for realtors - since house prices have basically doubled in the last 5 years or so, if you keep the percentage the same your compensation per house doubles. Are you doing any more work to justify doubling your compensation from 5 years ago for the same single sale? I even offer that your jobs are actually easier with customers being more educated and doing more of the front end work by viewing Zillow, etc and really narrowing down your searches even before you talk to them. They aren't walking in blind like the old days.

The same thing could be said about restaurant servers, but that is a topic for another thread.

Because everything they buy costs twice as much, same as the rest of us.

[Mark Perry]

Question for realtors - since house prices have basically doubled in the last 5 years or so, if you keep the percentage the same your compensation per house doubles. Are you doing any more work to justify doubling your compensation from 5 years ago for the same single sale? I even offer that your jobs are actually easier with customers being more educated and doing more of the front end work by viewing Zillow, etc and really narrowing down your searches even before you talk to them. They aren't walking in blind like the old days.

The same thing could be said about restaurant servers, but that is a topic for another thread.

Workers in any industry get raises all the time even when their workload or job description has not increased in the percentage of the raise.

[pavi69]

No doubt in certain instances 6% is way too much, but how much has to go to the broker for most realtors? I’d think the broker is taking 1%-2% of each transaction.

My broker got 50% of every deal. If the property was listed with his firm and sold by one of his agents, he got 50%,the selling agent got 25% and the listing agent 25%. Best case was to be listing agent and selling agent.
If the property was listed at another broker and I made the sale, my broker got half of the total commission and I got half of the commission the other broker paid to my broker. 6% commission charged, 3% paid to my broker, my broker paid me half of the 3%.

[JStew]

Question for realtors - since house prices have basically doubled in the last 5 years or so, if you keep the percentage the same your compensation per house doubles. Are you doing any more work to justify doubling your compensation from 5 years ago for the same single sale? I even offer that your jobs are actually easier with customers being more educated and doing more of the front end work by viewing Zillow, etc and really narrowing down your searches even before you talk to them. They aren't walking in blind like the old days.

I'll be your huckleberry. In 2020 / 2021 during Covid, housing prices jumped approx. 24%. Most folks didn't want to list their homes during the pandemic - strangers coming in their homes to view just wouldn't be safe. The homes that were listed were predominantly rental inventory, which dropped over 30% that year. Very few "occupied" homes were sold. Pricing has been relatively flat since then. With interest rate increases - the overall buyer's market has dropped pretty significantly, just now starting to return. What did happen during Covid is that everyone took the opportunity to update their homes. New flooring, paint, improvements is the norm now. The improved value they currently have is up, but mostly due to the improvements they made, justifiably. What has been the biggest issue over the past 4 years is rental prices are up 50% due to lost inventory during Covid. In fact - I think raised rental prices will prohibit people from saving enough to purchase in the future. All markets will be somewhat different.

As for Zillow, Realtor, Redfin, Homes, ect - they've done nothing to educate the public on the process - only available homes and their availability status reporting & pricing modeling has been abysmal. The buying market is mostly made up of first-time homebuyers now as well as those relocating for business. The typical person buys 5-7 homes in their lifetime. My wife & I transact 7-10 homes per month in the peak season. We're finishing Q1 this year with 20 closed transactions. We have the knowledge & experience to make the process easy for the buyers and talk them off the ledge when necessary. We're often told we'd be great counselors. 25% of our total buyers give us 5 Star reviews on Zillow. We're very proud of the work we do.

Commissions are up somewhat - but number volume is down. We're having to work much harder to find buyers suitable homes to purchase. We're still running 75+ hours a week each and I've only been able to take off 1 day to fish so far this year. The "more work to justify" now is the time to acquire a home to contract. We spend a lot of time working for free. We get paid nothing until someone gets a set of keys. The one constant is that everyone in the industry has a hand in your pocket, regardless of if you've sold a house. It's an expensive game to play.

[NitroZ7]

Realtors are just like any other thing. If you can do it yourself then do it yourself. If I need to change a lighting fixture I can call someone or if I can do it myself then I can do that as well. There is no magic answer and in a seller's market you may be just fine going it alone. Lots of variables as to the decision. I have used realtors in the last 4 homes we sold. Could I have done it myself..maybe..but I didn't want to deal with it while working full time.

[BillsFan]

My broker got 50% of every deal. If the property was listed with his firm and sold by one of his agents, he got 50%,the selling agent got 25% and the listing agent 25%. Best case was to be listing agent and selling agent.
If the property was listed at another broker and I made the sale, my broker got half of the total commission and I got half of the commission the other broker paid to my broker. 6% commission charged, 3% paid to my broker, my broker paid me half of the 3%.

Some realtors need to sell dumps every now and then

[Duece22]

My broker got 50% of every deal. If the property was listed with his firm and sold by one of his agents, he got 50%,the selling agent got 25% and the listing agent 25%. Best case was to be listing agent and selling agent.
If the property was listed at another broker and I made the sale, my broker got half of the total commission and I got half of the commission the other broker paid to my broker. 6% commission charged, 3% paid to my broker, my broker paid me half of the 3%.

Ouch! Not sure how long it's been since you have been licensed but it's changed alot. I'm at 90/10. Couldn't imagine giving away 50%.

[JStew]

We negotiated 95/5 - but it's awful expensive for a base monthly fee. Best split we could arrange in the market. Step/tiered comp plans at others ultimately cost a chunk more downstream. We're almost $10k in the hole when we wake up on the first of the month with brokerage fees, Zillow Premier Agent, Google Business, supra fees, paragon fees, realtor fees, yada, yada, yada.

[TritonJT]

We negotiated 95/5 - but it's awful expensive for a base monthly fee. Best split we could arrange in the market. Step/tiered comp plans at others ultimately cost a chunk more downstream. We're almost $10k in the hole when we wake up on the first of the month with brokerage fees, Zillow Premier Agent, Google Business, supra fees, paragon fees, realtor fees, yada, yada, yada.

Not to mention those real estae franchises take a cut of the commission right off the top.

[Duece22]

We negotiated 95/5 - but it's awful expensive for a base monthly fee. Best split we could arrange in the market. Step/tiered comp plans at others ultimately cost a chunk more downstream. We're almost $10k in the hole when we wake up on the first of the month with brokerage fees, Zillow Premier Agent, Google Business, supra fees, paragon fees, realtor fees, yada, yada, yada.

Damn! Didn't realize broker's were still charging a monthly fee. I'm at 90/10 with no monthly fee.

[BMCD]

anyone have a clue where the money from the lawsuit's is going?

[Duece22]

anyone have a clue where the money from the lawsuit's is going?

25-30% will go to the lawyers.

[Okie Poke]

As far as realtors being useless, I disagree. If you get the right realtor, it can be money well invested. We sold our home in DFW in Feb 2022 when the gettin’ was real good for the seller. No inventory, low interest rates, etc, etc. Our realtor, personal friend, started with us in November 2021 and gave us a checklist to complete in order to maximize our selling price. We did a little bit of updating ($15K). Listed it in Feb and had 19 offers in 2 days, of which the one we accepted was $100K over asking. Realtor told us what to do, we followed his lead, he priced it with expectations to get over asking. Although, everyone was surprised on what it actually sold for. Bought the house in 2000 for $243K and sold it in 2022 for $650K. Buyer waived inspections and we skated by any capital gains tax, too. In our case, a realtor was worth its weight in gold. Not to mention we couldn’t have done a FSBO because we did not have the experience nor did we want to have complications from the legal ramifications regarding closing process.

[ProVle]

Realtor, Doctor, Car salesman, HVAC repair etc. etc. there are good and bad in everything. There is a lot of misinformation in this thread.

[av]

As far as realtors being useless, I disagree. If you get the right realtor, it can be money well invested. We sold our home in DFW in Feb 2022 when the gettin’ was real good for the seller. No inventory, low interest rates, etc, etc. Our realtor, personal friend, started with us in November 2021 and gave us a checklist to complete in order to maximize our selling price. We did a little bit of updating ($15K). Listed it in Feb and had 19 offers in 2 days, of which the one we accepted was $100K over asking. Realtor told us what to do, we followed his lead, he priced it with expectations to get over asking. Although, everyone was surprised on what it actually sold for. Bought the house in 2000 for $243K and sold it in 2022 for $650K. Buyer waived inspections and we skated by any capital gains tax, too. In our case, a realtor was worth its weight in gold. Not to mention we couldn’t have done a FSBO because we did not have the experience nor did we want to have complications from the legal ramifications regarding closing process.

It was the market that got you that money not the realtor , you got what the house was worth and probably paid the realtor a big commission for his 9 showings.