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Board Laywers- I have to testify in a minor incident

The part that pisses me off about realtors is the % structure. Selling a $1mm house takes the same effort as selling a $250k house, yet the realtor gets paid 4x more. Also, the realtor's interests and mine are not in any way aligned in that fee structure. If I'm selling a $1mm house, it makes no difference to the realtor if I sell it for $950 or $1,050 - they get paid either way. Their economic interest is to move the house, and they are ready to drop the price to make it happen. That $100k spread is real money to the seller, but it's the difference between a $29k or $31k commission to the sellers realtor - an extra $2k that takes them a lot of extra time to earn.

If you want me to call you a Realtor, agree to this fee structure when we sell my $1mm house:
- 3% to the buyers agent. You can't save the world.
- hourly rates for all the time you invest, up to 1% of the purchase price. On my house, that's $10; if you are getting $200/hour for your 50 hours of time that you spend on the process, that's a good living.
- 25% of any proceeds in excess of 90% of asking price (in this case, 900k is the threshold).

Under your traditional structure, you'd earn $29-31. Under my proposal, you'd earn $10 if we sell for $900; $22.5 if we sell for $950; $35 if we sell for $1mm even, and $47.5 if we sell for $1,050. Now I believe your interests and mine are aligned.

Here's a neat answer to your scenario: I'm your sellers agent, and I'm not going to tell you this, but I will dissuade/refuse to show your home to potential buyers who already have a buyer's agent. I will instead farm potential buyers from my other clients and leads I get from (other) open houses. Thus, I will now collect the buyer's agent fee when my potential buyers makes an under-market offer that I advise you to accept because your house has been on the market for six months.

I didn't come up with the idea. I've seen realtor's do it, and it's frustrating, at best.
 
exactly, the incentive structure for brokers on both sides is not favorable to their client
 
exactly, the incentive structure for brokers on both sides is not favorable to their client

What's bananas is that the internet hasn't swallowed their job. Realtors are a phone book for real estate. I would think that Zillow would just absolutely fucking destroy the realtor market for properties in the 180-500k range. These properties represent huge savings margins for buyers/sellers who don't use a realtor, and, presumably, are owned by individuals who are educated enough to click buttons on Zillow.

I realize that access to MLS is kinda a thing, but it really isn't. I have access to it, and it's really rare that I use it over Google. Only when I'm looking to confirm an "under offer" status or something like that.
 
But buying a house without an agent doesn't save anyone money, right? The sellers agent just gets the 6%?
 
But buying a house without an agent doesn't save anyone money, right? The sellers agent just gets the 6%?

Typically, yes. However, I have seen transactions where the realtor "sacrifices" 1% to make the deal happen. Like, "Oh, price is an issue here, I'll just take 5% instead of the whole 6% to make it seem like I'm a super good guy here and lubricate the deal."
 
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You can set the commission percentages in the sales docs. I think it’s just customary for it to go 3% to buying/selling agent.
 
you can, but no one is open to any kind of creative arrangement. They don't have to do it because no one does it.
 
I am with redwing on this, at least as a recent first-time homebuyer. I learned a lot just in a local class that a Redfin office offered about different kinds of loan programs, DC's housing market, financing options, etc. It was helpful too that I paid $0 to our buying agent who also facilitated an inspection and funneled us to their lending vertical which was cheaper and more available than either big bank or local lender (though I know they're just mortgage originators and I'm sure our mortgage has been chopped and sold by Wells Fargo several times since).

There's really no starter home in DC proper that comes in less than $500k, and with that as the floor, we also wanted someone to give some basic guiding principles about value for money in the city. We basically sent her the listings we wanted to see, she scheduled the viewings and was a neutral second set of eyes. Whether we'll need that again when we sell and buy again, I can't say for sure, but I defer to expertise in this area.

I'm more willing to do travel planning or cooking or lots of other small stuff because of how easy it is to self-teach than something as big as your first home purchase, but YMMV.
 
The part that pisses me off about realtors is the % structure. Selling a $1mm house takes the same effort as selling a $250k house, yet the realtor gets paid 4x more. Also, the realtor's interests and mine are not in any way aligned in that fee structure. If I'm selling a $1mm house, it makes no difference to the realtor if I sell it for $950 or $1,050 - they get paid either way. Their economic interest is to move the house, and they are ready to drop the price to make it happen. That $100k spread is real money to the seller, but it's the difference between a $29k or $31k commission to the sellers realtor - an extra $2k that takes them a lot of extra time to earn.

If you want me to call you a Realtor, agree to this fee structure when we sell my $1mm house:
- 3% to the buyers agent. You can't save the world.
- hourly rates for all the time you invest, up to 1% of the purchase price. On my house, that's $10; if you are getting $200/hour for your 50 hours of time that you spend on the process, that's a good living.
- 25% of any proceeds in excess of 90% of asking price (in this case, 900k is the threshold).

Under your traditional structure, you'd earn $29-31. Under my proposal, you'd earn $10 if we sell for $900; $22.5 if we sell for $950; $35 if we sell for $1mm even, and $47.5 if we sell for $1,050. Now I believe your interests and mine are aligned.


I like the structure but the temptation will always be to get the sale done today even though it may bring more in 60 days.
 
I posted about my recent experience that chafed me about the seller side (paid a buyers agent who did nothing for us because buyers were colleagues of my wife and knew we would be moving and reached out to us directly - then because they had a rep agreement in place she got paid $26k). At the beginning of the process she even asked if we wanted her to rep us as well (was even willing to do it for a total of 5% — gee thanks but kindly fuck off). Probably not a typical situation but both parties could have done this without her involvement and saved us a ton of cash. But because the incentive for the buyers was to have her included that is where we ended up. We saved the 3% on our side, but felt like she played no real part that couldn’t have been handled by attorneys and inspectors.
 
Back to the original question. You should call the prosecuting attorney and ask whether your appearance is necessary. It might be a preliminary hearing that is scheduled, and those are rarely held. It's quite possible that the clerk sent you a subpoena just because you happen to be on the witness list. And, no, you don't need a lawyer. Trust me, I am one!
 
Our Realtor as first time home buyers was a huge asset. He pointed out issues we had never considered and helped us through the offer process in a really competitive market. He was also helpful giving us an idea of estimates for what it would cost to upgrade different areas of different homes.
 
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