Realtor.com, Trulia and Zillow all have sold info.

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I'll be what I am
A solitary man

I'm not a genius but I freaking know how to use a title company, know where to find the state/ city/ county disclosure documents and can ascertain the value of a property reasonably well.

You guys make it sound like it's open heart surgery... which is darn well cheaper than the idiotically high priced commission scam realtors run on even a mid-priced home.

I've used them in the past but generally can manage quite well without them.

Oh... and when they bring me an offer that is at the bottom of my range I get a commission concession.

Great.

I think what I'd like the process and tradition to change to is that each party pays their own negotiated fees to their respective realtors. Today it is intertwined.

Those who are advanced sellers or buyers or choose to be tightwads and do the work themselves can pay lower fees. Those who want or need a full service with all the bells and whistles can pay for it. As a seller, I don't want to have to give 3% fees to your buyer's realtor. If you want to pay it, fine go for it, just keep me the seller out of it.

But, again unless its changed, as a seller you pretty much have to list in MLS what fees you are offering the buyer's realtor. You list zero or a low fee, then the buyers realtor won't show your house or make their buyers even aware of your property.

I wish the system completely decoupled the seller and buyer fees from each other. Let each party work out what's right for them and what services they want.

I know you'll say it's all negotiable now or you can just bake in the higher fees into your sales price, etc... And it is if you really get down to it, but the system and practices do not make that very transparent or easy to do.

.

I feel like I am becoming the spokesperson for NAR at this point. You dalegain are also an advanced candidate and should handle your own transactions.

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I'll be what I am
A solitary man

Those who are advanced sellers or buyers or choose to be tightwads and do the work themselves can pay lower fees. Those who want or need a full service with all the bells and whistles can pay for it.


FTW!

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I'll be what I am
A solitary man

Yup. It used to be that Realtors were the only ones with access to the MLS, so they held the power. That has since changed. HOWEVER, a good realtor is worth every penny. They know the market, they know what to look for, they move things along and can give REAL INFORMATION that a buyer might not know. Problem is, the all mighty dollar has a grip on the majority of realtors and its about "moving houses". For them, the $5k I fought over is NOTHING in their commission so it isn't worth fighting over $5k to them. There is a study out there about selling prices for homes owned by realtors, and basically it showed they got more money because the $5k now WAS/affected their money. But for someone else: its about commission.

That being said, if you don't want to do much leg work: Realtors are the way to go. They hold your hand, and work with the Title company and put sticky notes next to where you need to sign (Title company will sometimes do this too). Also the 6% commission is negotiable. It is a contract you sign, and you can change that contract before you sign it. Also, as a seller just because they put the offer in front of you to "pay the buyer's agent", you don't have to accept that. It is done as most sellers have a fat check infront of them and they just happily pay. However, I have a good number of friends that buy and sell property and they often refuse to pay the buyer's agent. The selling agent "worked for them", the buyer's agent "worked for the buyer", so they feel no need to pay someone who wasn't working for them.

I work in commercial leasing and have lots of friends and acquaintances who are residential RE agents. Long story short, most of them are lazy idiots. Your experience is not unusual.

Most agents are idiots and look at each sale in a vacuum. As such their motive is to obtain the highest sales price they can to maximize their commission. They are especially likely to act like this if there is a shortage of either buyers or sellers.

I agree. Reading through that last, there's only one or two things that, right now, I would need to do some research on before saying I'd be comfortable doing it.

Hell, most Realtors don't even do a lot of the things on that list.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Agreed.

Some realtors are good; many are terrible. Good ones may have access to valuable non-public information, e.g., pocket listings. They may also have relationships that can be exploited to sweeten the deal or just get it done more quickly.

There are, of course, many bottom feeders who are lazy, disinterested, and pretty much breach their fiduciary obligations by putting their own economic self-interests ahead of their clients.

Reading the OP, it seems he's disgruntled because he couldn't obtain helpful information from realtors for free.

Sometimes I get cold calls from people looking for free legal advice. It's obvious when this happens and at best they get some general information from me, but not much. I'm sure many walk away shaking their heads and cursing lawyers because they couldn't get what they wanted, for free.

I've been a commercial appraiser (MAI) for 30+ years. I'm also a broker. One of the reasons I got into Brokerage was because of all the lazy idiots making big bucks in commercial brokerage. Being a lazy idiot is not exclusive to realtors.

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I'll be what I am
A solitary man

I am currently a realtor. I think I am a pretty good realtor. I also agree that some of them are brutal and a total waste of money.

I will never tell anyone that they HAVE to use a realtor. I compare it to someone defending themselves in court. Some people are totally capable of doing it themselves, others are capable but see the value of hiring someone who does it for a living, and others are not capable but try anyway, usually to the amusement of everyone else involved. I may be wrong, but I don't remember ever hearing of a lawyer representing themselves in court, even though they would be fully qualified to do so. I know, not exactly the same situation, but there are definite similarities.

There are things that I believe I can offer clients that they can not get doing it on their own.

One example: I deal with buyers all the time, so I know what features people tend to be looking for, and how to market a property to take advantage of that. This includes photography. Every buyer is looking at houses online before looking in person, so I question them about what in the pictures made them want to look at the houses on their list. The features that stand out to them tend to be the same for most buyers, so I know that my marketing photos need to highlight those features. If you aren't dealing with buyers all day every day, you won't know those things. It isn't stuff that you can study online, it is coming from personal experience.

Another example: If you are looking to buy a home, I may have shown it already, discussed it with the listing realtor, or possibly already have written an offer on it that has fallen apart. I may know features of an area that aren't common knowledge, or would not be known to someone from outside the community. For example, I recently wrote an offer for someone on a somewhat rural property. The water supply for this property is on a private water license from a spring quite a distance away. While investigating that for my clients, I noticed that there are no easements in place for the water lines that run across five other pieces of private property. That means that if the water line broke, the owners of these homes would have no legal right to access the other properties they needed to access to fix it. There is also nothing preventing a neighbour from building a massive shop directly over top of those water lines, which would make any required repairs pretty much impossible. Its not a problem if the neighbours all cooperate, but if one decided to be difficult, it could take months to get it all dealt with in court, without having a water supply the entire time. The seller, seller's realtor, and other realtors in my office who have dealt with properties in that area, were not aware of that.

As for the commission structure / method, everything is negotiable. In my area, commission is typically something like 7% on the first $100,000 of the final sale price, 3.5% of the remainder, with half of that going to the buyer's brokerage. Some realtors get more, some get less. Some work for a flat fee on every property. I could argue that the seller pays it all, or I could argue that the buyer pays it since it comes out of the money they give the seller. Or I could argue that it is just a cost of the transaction, no different than conveyancing costs. If the home doesn't sell, the seller doesn't pay a commission, and neither does a buyer. It is transaction-driven.

And yes, some realtors lack integrity and don't understand fiduciary duty. I showed a bunch of properties to a young couple earlier this week. They looked at homes in the $400,000 range, and bare lots for around $100,000 that they would move a modular home onto. I feel that the $100k lot is more in line with what they want and is more appropriate for their situation, and I have let them know that. If I sold them the house, I would stand to make a lot more money, but it isn't about me. My job is to help them find and purchase the property that is right for them. I know many other realtors that would be pushing hard for them to buy the house.

I approach this job knowing that people aren't required to use me. My challenge every day is to determine what assistance I can provide (more than just MLS) to people that makes them happy to pay me when the transaction is completed. I think I am doing ok, as I charge a higher commission than anyone else in my area, I am getting steady referrals from past clients, and have never got a bad review.

Real estate is like every other occupation. There are some people who are really good at what they do, and others that suck. Some have integrity, others don't. Some strive to help their clients, others only want to help themselves. No one is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to use a specific realtor. It is up to the consumer to do their research and make sure they are hiring the right person for the job they want done.

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Starting from scratch...

Seems we have this thread about every six months.

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I'll be what I am
A solitary man