I just sold a house in the US and the thought of listing it ourselves did cross my mind, but in the end we used an agent and they did _everything_ for us while I was out of the country, and got us a great price. In the end the amount of commission we paid to our agent (3%) didn't feel excessive at all since I barely had to lift a finger (besides moving). Now, 3% for the buyer's agent? _that_ felt excessive.
The buyer's agent fee is basically subsidizing the hard work of buyer's agents (which is taking their clients to multiple properties, discussions about what they want, using time browsing MLS to find houses that meet criteria and arranging tours of them)
When I was looking to buy a house, my agent received no financial compensation from me at any point. Their work was entirely subsidized by the buyer's agent fee - and we looked at a lot of houses trying to find the right one.
The negative effect of that is that they're incentivized to offload us asap.
> The buyer's agent fee is basically subsidizing the hard work of buyer's agents (which is taking their clients to multiple properties, discussions about what they want, using time browsing MLS to find houses that meet criteria and arranging tours of them)
Since Zillow and Redfin have existed for quite some time how, that service seems a lot less valuable. I'm sure it can be worth it in the right circumstances, though.
Yes but from the perspective of the seller, the buyer's agent fee feels like you're subsidizing the realtor market to make it viable. Now, don't get me wrong, when I _bought_, I was very happy my agent made money, because she deserved it. I can just understand the attitude to sellers over agent commission (not saying I agree with it)
The thing about proportional pricing is that it doesn't scale up or down. Assuming your sale was near the median US home price, the seller's agent would net around $12k for their work. You believe that was worthwhile, let's assume that was money well spent.
Suppose the market was hotter when you sold and your property was worth 2x the median. Is the same work worth $24k? What if you sold in a hot market in a hot neighborhood, which should make it somewhat easier to move the property? Does it make sense that this would increase the amount the agent gets paid?
For similar reasons, proportional pricing doesn't work well at the lower end of the market, where listings are often under $100k.
Yeah I bought some extremely cheap property through a realtor and felt I made out like a bandit vs through a lawyer or dealing with that shit myself. Realtors want to charge a percentage? Cool story bros, I'll burn out the green labor doing my work for pennies on the cheap shit then use a flat lawyer for anything real money.
It's a fair point. Want to note one thing I found strange: the city I sold in (very hot market) had 3%/3% as standard, and the one I bought in (less hot) had 2.4%/2.4% as standard (at least in the area I bought). I don't know the dynamics of the industry here enough to know why that would be.
Wouldn't you expect to pay a premium over someone who is home and heavily involved in the sale? If your service was worth 3%, maybe a regular one is worth 1%
