Re:If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pens...
by abeppu on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @08:52PM
(#27455443)
> Even the buyer’s agent gets paid a percentage of the sale price, so if they try to lower it they’d be essentially working against themselves.
Yeah, I really wish we normalized fee-for-service for buyer's agents. Agree on a fair hourly rate for their time, plus some constant fee for actually closing. The agent can have more consistent income over time, and the buyer can know that the agent's incentives are not misaligned. Buyers at the lower end of the market also don't get lesser attention.
But I think because we have normalized the commission structure, there's now also a bias effect, where the agents who are most willing to agree to a fee-for-service arrangement are the agents who are least successful/satisfied under the commission model.
Yeah, I really wish we normalized fee-for-service for buyer's agents. Agree on a fair hourly rate for their time, plus some constant fee for actually closing. The agent can have more consistent income over time, and the buyer can know that the agent's incentives are not misaligned. Buyers at the lower end of the market also don't get lesser attention.
But I think because we have normalized the commission structure, there's now also a bias effect, where the agents who are most willing to agree to a fee-for-service arrangement are the agents who are least successful/satisfied under the commission model.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/business/real-estate-fee-...