Here's the brief response I offered earlier today when asked what this actual does: I don’t really expect significant changes. We are in a more balanced market today than when these lawsuits were first filed. Many sellers will find it advantageous to offer buyer agent compensation. If/when we return to a seller-advantaged market, some buyers may need to pay their agents directly, which could involve rolling those cos…
A bit part of the lawsuit, was that the buyers agent compensation was ONLY visible on MLS to other registered agents.
So, when you were looking online, you had no idea if the houses you found where offering 3% or 1.5% buyers agent commission, but your agent was, and could steer you to the higher paying homes.
Commission based on home value is a joke. Realtors should earn a flat-rate.
I expect that when it comes time to sell my house, I'll hire a real estate attorney to make sure all the paperwork is in order, and I'll deal with the rest myself. I engaged an attorney when I bought my house, and she was super thorough.
Attorneys are so ridiculously cheap compared to the realtors. In my area there are discount real estate attorneys that will do sales/purchases for $200, and the normal price is like $500 which is nothing compared to the real estate agents getting like $10k on an average home in the area.
Just sell it / or buy it yourself. It isn't hard by any stretch. You can use a $200 listing broker on a MLS site. That is the big secret. Then it gets on zillow,redfin, etc automatically.
That doesn't help. The seller does not save money unless BOTH buyer and seller have no real estate agent. If the buyers have a real estate agent and the seller does not, the seller pays the buyer's real estate agent double their usual payment - at least in the 3 states where I've sold properties.
A buyer's agent should be paid by the buyer, since the agent is working for the buyer. You could agree to do it, or you could reject their offer if they ask you to pay the agent commission.
Here's the brief response I offered earlier today when asked what this actual does: I don’t really expect significant changes. We are in a more balanced market today than when these lawsuits were first filed. Many sellers will find it advantageous to offer buyer agent compensation. If/when we return to a seller-advantaged market, some buyers may need to pay their agents directly, which could involve rolling those cos…
I think this is unimaginative. More than likely, eventually the US will join most of the world in having no buyer's agents and low seller's agent commissions.
at 6% of the median 500k for a house, they have about 30k reasons to fight that tooth and nail..
Not really related to the article but something I've been wondering... In recent years the housing market has been so competitive that escalation clauses are often written into offers. They typically include a base offer of $X and then an agreement to escalate that value by increments (maybe $1-5k at a time) up to some cap. All the offers are collected by a certain date and then an auction is run behind the scenes by…
This is just my understanding, but here goes: 1) If your bid wins then you're on the hook to buy the house. Part of the offer your make includes "earnest money" which is that deposit you're talking about (which you forfeit if you don't actually buy the house). The seller sees all the offers so presumably you putting down $500 earnest money on a $300K house would look suspicious enough to get you ignored by the buyer.…
> putting down $500 earnest money on a $300K house would look suspicious enough to get you ignored by the buyer
Assuming you mean the seller here? If I were the seller I too would ignore that kind of offer but first I'd let it push all the other escalation clauses up ;)
> But what I do know is they did not present the offer to the buyer. I believe in most states a real estate agent (I despise 'Realtor(TM)') is obliged to present an offer (at least by the Realtor's Code of Conduct/Membership Agreement). Edited to add: I'm not sure if this refers to seller agents (who cannot hold back an offer from their client), or to buyer agents, presenting that to the seller side, or both. I think…
> I believe in most states a real estate agent (I despise 'Realtor(TM)') is obliged to present an offer Sure. But enforcement is the soul of the law. And it's pretty tough to catch stuff like that. Most people who put in offers and don't "win" aren't sitting around monitoring how much the winning bid ended up being.
Exactly. In my case, I thought of finding the seller after sale was final, and ask if their agent presented my offer. He'd then maybe sue their agent.
Here's the brief response I offered earlier today when asked what this actual does: I don’t really expect significant changes. We are in a more balanced market today than when these lawsuits were first filed. Many sellers will find it advantageous to offer buyer agent compensation. If/when we return to a seller-advantaged market, some buyers may need to pay their agents directly, which could involve rolling those cos…
This seems like a very disingenuous interpretation of the verdict by avoiding "what it said" and then telling us what will actually happen (as though you can predict) or what's wrong with it. If I were a realtor what is wrong with it is it could threaten my fat commissions. What the jury said was that the national association of realtors colludes to keep agent fees high in a way that violates anti-trust rules. (edite…
Dude - any realtor paying attention has been watching this (and other) cases now for years. You think we haven't been monitoring this along with state legislation, Congressional action, MLS rule changes, and all the other things that have potential legal impact to our business and our clients? NWMLS (for those of you in WA) made rule changes over a year ago that were good changes regardless of the outcome of this case, plus the legislature made clarifying agency changes that go into effect in January. We're not the trolls you all think we are.
I bought a few years back and we didn't really use an agent to find the house at all. Looking into it, I found that a certain percentage of the sale amount goes to pay the agent(s); 6% I think. If there are two agents, they each get half. If one person doesn't use an agent... the other person's agent gets it all. The person without an agent doesn't get to keep their half... it just all goes to the other agent. Wtf...…
> I bought a few years back and we didn't really use an agent to find the house at all. Looking into it, I found that a certain percentage of the sale amount goes to pay the agent(s); 6% I think. If there are two agents, they each get half. If one person doesn't use an agent... the other person's agent gets it all. The person without an agent doesn't get to keep their half... it just all goes to the other agent. Wtf.…
> Some selling agents refuse to do this because it's pretty shady, but definitely not all.
Not really related to the article but something I've been wondering... In recent years the housing market has been so competitive that escalation clauses are often written into offers. They typically include a base offer of $X and then an agreement to escalate that value by increments (maybe $1-5k at a time) up to some cap. All the offers are collected by a certain date and then an auction is run behind the scenes by…
You can ask to see the other offer if the escalation clause is triggered. It technically has to be "bona fide"
Do you see the deposit amount and all the details of the escalation from the triggering offer in that case?
Say I saw that the triggering offer had a measly deposit and I suspected it of being fake. Would I be on the hook to prove it? Technically if I rescind my offer at this point I lose my own deposit, right?