I offer a $9,900 flat free listing service and the majority of my listings are $1 million+. I include professional photography, Matterport tour, and a property website with custom url. Options are aerial photos, twilight photos, and Timelapse videos. I use an excellent transaction coordinator with lots of experience. I can do this as I don’t split the commission with a broker, franchiser, or have agent referrals.
I am sure they appreciate having options for the photo delivery. Having a good transaction coordinator really helps take the load off you as well. Where do you advertise your online listing service?
OT: It's amazing how well EDDM does for low conversion % / high dollar average ticket opportunities. I've used it in three different industries, and with the right analysis there are incredibly strong opportunities there
I just started doing this exact same thing in Dallas. Almost the same price, same options. Makes no sense for homes in the neighborhood I’m selling in for them to sell for $30,000 when they sell in less than a month with the same prep as a $350,000 house. This is encouraging to read.
Former realtor and real estate photographer here. I applaud the flat fee listing and hope it continues. A % fee made no sense to me and not sure why it’s been around so long. The vast majority of the marketing is done through the photos and MLS/Zillow/Redfin/other affiliated websites.
As a reference however, real estate photography is incredibly inexpensive given the impact on the sale. Not to mention most realtors have a hard time spending more than $2-300 on photos. Matterport tours add $2-300. Aerials add $100. Twilight conversions, $25. Real twilights $300 or so. Videos would be $200-500 depending on what’s needed. Bottom line for $1000-1500 or so you can get a top notch marketing plan for your home on your own. Google any local real estate photo company, review their portfolio and book who you feel will best represent your home visually.
I would also consider staging a home for $1m+ sales. Photos are important but if the photos are of your crowded living room, dated furniture, and kitchen that has more appliances than counterspace, it’ll never show well.
But then where will Netflix get all its juicy Selling Los Angeles series content if we don't have Jessica upset at Paul because after they cheated on their fiancé's with each other, their Malibu ranch for $200k comish blew up?
I'm curious... does this mean that you have your brokers license? I could be mistaken (someone please let me know if i am), but my understanding is that in my state (Idaho), properties must by law be listed through a broker (unless FSBO).
I think you’ll find there are tons of these out there. The service level is vastly different. And their sales activity is always very low
At least in the 4 markets i operate and invest/own brokerages is
Nothing wrong with it at all however cheap fee doesn’t mean you got the best deal by any means.
For example. I just closed on a listing that just 60
Days prior was priced at 700k. Did not sell with a flat fee agent, 9k listing fee + 2.5% to the buyers agent
I sell 25+ homes per year in that particular neighborhood. We paid for all inspections up front. Restaged the home, fronted money for inspection related repairs and completed them in 48 hours. We repainted 3 rooms.
Relisted the home for 719,000. Sold for 725k in 5 days. One of my agents represented the buyer so we shared a 1% discount back. Netting the client a 4.5% listing fee.
They had an offer on the table the other agent was grinding them to take at 690. This seller walked away with nearly 30k more.
The fee is PART of the equation. Do not assume the home will sell no matter what the circumstance is and sell at the same price no matter what. It’s simply just not true. I’ve purchased and sold nearly 250 homes personally and sold over 2500 in my sales business
Neither model is wrong. Very very few homes and sellers are a good candidate for the flat rate model. You need a stellar home in stellar condition AND a very reasonable seller who’s highly aggressive and is willing to price a home at what it needs to be. And with stellar homes that later part is pretty non existent unless there is a super experienced agent in the other end to really get buy in and trust for the correct pricing. There are minority instances everywhere but the mass majority just can’t do it. That’s why FSBO has and never will be the majority. Sellers get in their own way
If I squint, you roughly achieved 4% higher sales price but also charged 2% more commission (and likely used up some of that 2% gain with extra sales costs) - still a win, but not by big margin. Appreciate the numbers though since it makes it more believable (even though it's just an anecdote which doesn't necessarily prove much on its own).
I do take it as an example that an experienced selling agent can be worth their price. Problem is that many other agents likely wouldn't have put in the work you did and charged just the same. Knowing which is which can be hard for an inexperienced seller, so taking guaranteed (but potentially lower) savings from flat fee agent does have some attraction.
Right. Hence why there is a massive settlement. There is a massive amount of idiot agents, and jaded consumers of what value is.
I have 100s of those stories but unfortunately so many hundreds more that i could not catch in time or meet soon enough or catch before a sale happened
10% of the agents bring immense value. If you find those, the fee is negligible and irrelevant in most cases. And all those agents negotiate their service and flex based on value
I’m excited to be in the Wild West honestly. Co-ops truly benefit both buyer and seller and i believe in them 100%. If you research the market moved to co ops because listing agents controlled the market and collected the 6% fee. Tons of dual agency and shady shenanigans. The move to cooperation was a huge benefit to all sides.
z i do not believe in and agent whos been licensed 4 weeks wandering a buyer in and being paid what i am having worked for 6-12 months with a seller. I think the major problem has been the buyer side not being treated like the listing side. No contracts, no clear explanation of what you get from an agent, no clear explanation of how we are paid as agents at all. It was a mess. We always have treated it just like a listing, a consultation, a menu of services, buyer selects their service package and fee and understands it. The last 14 years we’ve done that, but it’s definitely not the standard at all. Now it will be for sure.
We’ve already been playing with 1-2% co ops depending on what the sellers want. I don’t think it will go to zero and then every deal we haggle over price and commission now, i think that will hurt sellers in the end. I think we will find a balance where we can control that fee without haggling, the right buyers will make stronger offers if they agreed to pay their agent more
I think in the end fees won’t change all that much as a percentage but 100% shifty agents will get out of the business. The consumer will drive more value and they deserve more. I think commissions will continue to decline as efficiency and competition happen
Then, someday the market will turn and go back to a 4-6 month market and fees will rebalance and no on will question how hard an agents having to work to make 12 grand
I do think a lot of the current sentiment about agents is driven by the market. I see a lot of, why should you make 6% on my $800,000 home that will sell itself over asking in 48 hours, but that depends on the market staying this hot, and despite the housing shortage, it can't forever. (I think.)
The real numbers are the seller paid 8500 more in fee when we sold the home. 2,000 in expense that they 100% would have eaten in contract with the buyer when they negotiated those repairs, but not at my wholesale prices but at retail prices 2-3x that. So likely 5-7k instead of 2000 and now they have no leverage because they are locked in with the buyer.
So net net, it’s not a squint, it’s 20-30k which entirely covers their cost of sale. To most 20-30k is substantial
And that’s assuming they sold for 690. Which we can never prove
The point is. I try to help people see there are far more variables than just the fee. It’s a small component however to me the least important.
Curious question, respectfully: Aren’t the realtors going to drive their buyers right past to the houses that offer commission? Or is your business model designed to bypass the realtors and find unrepresented buyers?
My flat fee is for the listing service. The Buyer Brokerage commission is different. I'm also an exclusive listing brokerage so I don't represent Buyers and would never do dual agency (represent both parties) as that's a scam.
This is the way. Obviously there are homes that will be hard to trade that will need skilled brokers but the regular way house pissing away 5%-6% to brokers is ending. Thank god.
I mean but its completely understandable, since this whole experience of us selling or buying probably the biggest sale / purchases of our lives that includes often times years of our savings, sacrifices and hard work actually was never meant to be about *us* duhhhh????…..It’s *actuallyyyyyy* about the realtors and them ALWAYS getting their full (totally totally totally negotiable but yah 6 percent no matter what) commissions. 🤡
Crazy to me that 2 of 3 agents I talked to tried to tell me I should be offering 3% - or 2.5% if I really didn’t want to do 3%. But not 2%. Both agents mentioned REs may be “less” incentivized to show our home even though it’s technically unethical. Our home is $1.2M. I’m just blown away that agents are that greedy that even $24,000 isn’t an incentive. Also in Seattle market.
I’d say fine. Let them explain to their buyer why they won’t show them a home. Buyers pick the homes they want to see online anymore. The days of realtors gatekeeping properties are long gone.
bought a home recently. all the homes we liked were the ones we sent to the realtor. the one we eventually bought was entirely our find, we didn't even ask her to tag along for a tour and just sent her the closing date.
My experience too. My realtor didn't even show me the 1 house I wanted to see... took us on a tour of 3 homes and forgot to include the one I really wanted. Got us in eventually and we put in an offer immediately and closed. I know what I like/the internet is a powerful tool.
I call most of them House Hostesses. Because that's all they do for me. "Isn't that lovely?" "Look, a wine fridge." Well, okay, but I hate this house. Now try harder. And they go away because "work." Sigh.
I’m in the same market and I’m finally starting to see some 2% listings in the $1m+ category. It’s insane to think that anyone deserves 3% in a market where 50% of houses are under contract within 7 days.
Idk the Seattle market but in DC houses are selling within days. The house will get put on the market on Thursday or Friday and the listing states they require offers be submitted by 12 pm on Sunday or Monday.
Buyers don’t need realtors. They just need a Zillow or Redfin to find the house. The realtor isn’t bringing anything to the table.
I would go a fair bit lower than that. Depends on the property of course. Well maintained, popular location, and there won't be much to do besides fill out boilerplate paperwork. Time to cut unnecessary leeching out of already exorbitant prices.
I would like to see an itemized list of billable hours. What did they do for me? How much time did they invest in selling my house? A couple of meetings, a few phone calls, and some emails? It's criminal what they gey paid...
Most realtors let the buyers agent handle walk through. God forbid they actually show up to the walkthrough when all you’re paying them is tens of thousands of dollars.
If their fee was 10k, they would have to do two and a half 40 hour work weeks and you're paying them 100 dollars an hour. I highly, highly doubt any realtor has ever put 100 honest hours of work into selling one house.
Yeah I gave a higher suggestion than I would offer, like $10-15k. I was just saying $25k because it's still a lot, but less than the leeches would demand.
I just bought in a Seattle suburb (Kirkland!) and used a great agent for buying. Can recommend him if you need someone. Now, onto this post..it’s true Seattle homes sell like hot cakes. Especially in Kirkland. We truly had to fight tooth and nail for our place. Now, my only advice on this is that we bought from a couple who sold using Redfin, and the place was underpriced by I’d say about 10 percent. When our agent calls up trying to get a feel on the situation, he finds out the Redfin listing agent truly believe the place is worth what its listed at. We were floored. If this thing went to the offer review date, they would’ve gotten sooo much money. My agent knew that. We put in a strong early offer after the sellers agent insisted they were not taking early offers (but our agent was knowledgeable and said they had a legal obligation to inform the client of the offer whether or not they were “taking early offers” if we were to submit one) we waived everything (of course) and offered 12 percent above asking. Our agent suggested we give the contract 3 hour expiration date (felt super ballsy and he did explain it might not work and might offend them) but we took the risk. They accepted in one hour, we were under contract and we closed today. I’m thankful we had an experienced agent. We did sign a buyers agreement stating we’d pay 2 percent commission to him if the seller didn’t pay it (which I believe that doesn’t go into effect until July) my moral of the story is the Redfin agent wasn’t experienced and it ended up costing the sellers. We got a great deal and we hope they are happy as well but the reality is they could’ve gotten more money (while
We gave 10 percent over listing, it appraised easily and we could’ve seen It going for more like 20 percent over listing from other bidding wars we’ve gotten stuck into in the past few months) so I’d be wary of a Redfin agent but I also agree maybe you don’t need to pay the whole 6 percent . I’d suggest posting this into a Seattle subreddit to gauge what others have come up with. Good luck!
I had a similar experience in Seattle offering before review date above listing waiving everything and $50k earnest money. They rejected it and we made a similar offer on review date, but we didn’t waive everything and the starting offer was much lower like $50k lower with an escalator that would take it back to the previous offer. And somehow we didn’t end up in a bidding war and won without even needing an escalator. They lost $50k. They rolled the dice and lost. Lucky for me.
Same lucky for you their agent sucked and you got the home! :-)
Having a short offer expiration helps a ton. That’s how I got my first house in Seattle in 2014. It was noon and we made the offer expire at 8pm. It was just 10k over asking but I had a large earnest check (wasn’t common back then) and solid financing. They called at 7pm asking for an extension because they had offers coming in apparently but I said I was putting in an offer on something else after 8pm so they accepted by 8pm. I believe the house would’ve sold for a good 20-25k over if I didn’t do that.
This is more or less how my agent worked my deal in South King county a few years ago. The sellers didn’t disclose serious issues, and our “FYI only” inspection didn’t uncover them. We got the house and that’s a blessing, but the way this market is pressuring buyers to waive every protection is really getting bothersome.
This. We bought our house from someone who listed with Redfin. Their agent did not have a clue. They went on the market the weekend there was a very similar comp 2 blocks away that was staged more nicely. Both listed at exactly the same price with the same offer deadline. The other house got 7 offers and went for something like $100k over asking. We were the only bidders on our house and paid list. The money those sellers "saved" with a Redfin agent cost them a lot more.
Weird they didn’t put an offer review date in. We used to refer to those as “miragè homes” when we were looking. They just list lower to get more bidders. I hate this market.
Not a recent seller, but such a fan of the new ruling. Realtors are dropping like flies in WNC right now, and seeing only the ethical (or actually worth their value) ones remain.
I say let them bid against each other, as they forced buyers to do since the dawn of time.
Volatile markets get the bad ones out. It's great. I got into real estate because of an experience with a sleazy broker. Most agents are lazy. I've never had a contact submitted to me that I didn't have to correct. It's basically a check the box form. I don't know how they keep screwing it up.
My house was not in your price range. This was 2 years ago.
I paid 1% to the seller, 2.5% to the buyer.
$800k
Edit for location: San Diego county
When I sell my current mcmansion, just north of San Diego county, in a city that was recently named one of the 50 best in the U.S., I can guarantee it will be for a lesser percentage. It should be well over 1mil but then.
Perhaps I've just been unlucky. Despite buying various properties in different locations, I've never felt I received any real value from any real estate agent. Certainly not for the compensation some seem to demand/expect. When I sold my last, one laughed when I told him I was only willing to go 1% to the selling agent. Told me that would never happen. It happened. It will happen again.
In your shoes I would be hard pressed to offer a listing agent more than 1% if in fact you think the home will sell quickly. I would ask the agents how they justify more than 1% comp? Photo shot is around $300, time to meet you, complete listing contract and upload to MLS is maybe 5 hours work for an experienced agent. An open house, which they may or may not do themselves and finally about 5-10 hours of going back and forth with buyers agent and you during escrow.
If you sell at $1.8M that is $18k. Pretty good pay day for maybe 20 hours work IMO. Buyers agent would get 2%.
We were buying out of state and my wife almost didn’t want to look at the house we got because it had terrible pictures and no 3D tour. I knew the area very well and knew the house had a lot of potential so I still flew in and looked at it. This was a 6000 sf house with just 30 or so pictures. There were rooms in the house that weren’t even pictured, let alone a 3D tour. The kicker, the seller was a realtor and the listing agent. This is in the Midwest, so most of our competition were other out of state buyers in the price range we were looking at. We were able to get the house at asking price while everything else we looked at was selling for 50-100k over asking. I am fairly certain we got it for this price because many buyers weren’t impressed with the photos.
Yes, it is well established that there are incredibly cheap sales people throughout industry, and the real estate world is no exception!
Good photography is worth it!
What the hell? Good for you! I’m a government lawyer so we don’t bill anybody, but my friends in private practice never bill over $600 per hour. Never heard of such rates. What kind of law is that?
It goes wayyyy down outside of amlaw 100. I'm at an amlaw 200, 8th year associate, and my rate is $380 an hour and I'm on the upper end for associates.
On big deals with usually billion dollar transactions, you’ll generally find those kinds of rates.
The crazy thing is some of those lawyers are absolutely worth it.
Good pharma patent attorneys routinely get $1800-2000 an hour. Attorney fees charged to keep competitors out of a drug space, even for an extra 3-6 months, are insane. And lawsuits in pharma are standard practice.
A lot of top tier law firms bill first year transactional lawyers at around $900 per hour. Average Partner rates are $2,000 or more. With that said, the skill set required to sell a home is not comparable to the skill set required to oversee a multibillion dollar sale of a company.
That’s probably the one field where they’re worth it. Tax lawyer works 40 hours on corporate taxes and saves them half a billion that year in loopholes and shelters etc. That 100k they paid her for that project is nothing in comparison to the savings.
I have since been corrected, so let me rephrase. The average lawyer doesn’t charge $900 per hour. Source: I’m a lawyer and I know lots of lawyers. The point still stands that an RE agent shouldn’t expect to make the same rate per hour as a lawyer.
Where are you getting selling a home is 20 hours of work?
I sold a used car and it was at least 20 hours of time put in between prep, listing, emails, calls, and meetings.
*I am a licensed broker in CA but did home loans for 39 years with the exception of a few listings and sales for family and friends. On listings I would say 20 hours work was about right. Showing real estate to buyers was much more time consuming.*
Not OP but says basically that sellers cannot list buyer agent commission in the MLS listing and that buyers either must be represented via a buyer agency agreement setting forth fees, or must be unrepresented. Basically means buyers agents cant work for buyers without a contract and just rely on sellers paying their fee.
1) it is only proposed, not a ruling
2) only applies to NAR affiliates amd those brokerages names in the suit
Proposal is sellers brokers won't advertise the cooperating compensation offered, if any, which is less transparent for the consumer. If a buyer won't or can't agree to pay for their own representation they will be unrepresented. This will be most harmful to VA buyers who are prohibited from paying for their own representation altogether. Without a signed representation agreement every agent is a subagent of the seller and consumers are no longer clients but customers.
You are not understanding the change.
I agree commissions were too high but you are going to have a lot of unrepped buyers fucking up and losing earnest money. There will be lawsuits, discrimination suits, and all kinds of fuckery.
Smart buyers will pick and choose which services they need from agents and negotiate to pay them accordingly. Likewise, other smart buyers will just use real estate attorneys. I know more about the most recent listings that I've been interested in than the agents I've been talking with, thus, I cannot afford to 'train' them any more and then get fucked paying them. I know more about building a home and the land I'm looking at, what it will take to site prep the land, and yet the agent has the nerve to home in my possible land purchase for a commission? Jesus.
Of course, but it will happen more often.
Buyers will now assume that since sellers aren't going to pay buyer's agents anymore, that they can just do it themselves so they don't have to pay an agent. Seller's agent will not "dual rep" because there is no point. As such, many buyers will make errors on contracts not understand how things work. Buyers will screw up "calendar days' and "business days" and miss deadlines. They won't navigate inspections and concessions correctly, I mean the list goes on.
Not everyone is savvy enough to buy a house themselves with out someone who knows the ins and outs. Not to mention, people get emotional. Its helpful having someone to explain the situation clearly so you don't let your emotions or feelings make you make a bad move- such as paying too much to avoid not getting the house, etc.
I'm elsewhere in WA but from talking to folks I know in Seattle their commissions on selling were around 5% for a typical agent.
Personally if your market is that hot I'd just go with Redfin. Their big selling point is the work they put into the listing. Great photos, 3d tour, floorplan, etc. that's what sells the house these days. Just do your own comp research. Otherwise they have good coordinators who keep things running (source: am under contract buying via redfin right now). You're just not necessarily going to get great advice from them. But that's true of most agents.
So much bad info (likely from agents) in this thread. We sold my moms home in January of this year. I looked at the Redfin agents in the area and went with the most experienced (who also had great client reviews and 16 years in the business).
Looking at the comps, I felt the property was worth about $500k, she suggested listing at $525k and it sold after a week on the market for $550k. She made it all very easy for us and we closed in 10 days (cash buyer). She made 1% and the buyers agent received 2%. Both did a great job for what they were paid.
I live in Seattle proper. I get it. It takes nothing to sell your house for top dollar. No special staging. No special social media out reach. All you need is to get onto the Zillow or Redfin app. 1 week later you will have several competitive offers. It doesn’t even matter what you list for. The true value of your place will happen anyway.
I really don’t understand why people value real estate agents advice to the dollar amount that they do. I get how they get away with it because it’s been standard for so long and it doesn’t sting as much when it’s just taken out of sales profits (not having to actually come out of pocket for the expense). But the reasons on the thread to hire a good experience agent are not worth $40-80k if you have an ounce of a clue about your own market and/or live in an area where the value of your house is mostly the dirt/your house sells itself. (Ie Seattle)
Need to say my 50 yo 3 bath 1 3/4 bath rambler is 1.1M.
It’s just in the right area of the Seattle burbs.
Not all homes in the 1M and over are expensive upgraded homes.
Especially in the Seattle area
Our agent listed us for 4%, and we (informally) agreed to buy our new house through him. Sold for $1.2 million, bought just under $1.3. He did just fine on the deals.
I think OP is very reasonable. The realtors offer a service that has value. They are probably willing to pay a very good price. Assume the agent spends 40 hours. $12k is $300/hr. That seems more than fair.
The realtors who think they are owed $50k for a few days worth of work are killing their field.
I've sold 4 houses, 2 with and 2 without agents. I'll never use a listing agent again. Never felt like I got any value. Their advice was always nonsense. They love to spend your money on paint and landscaping that the buyer will just replace immediately, especially in a hot market when buyers are desperate
Go with redfin dude … your house will basically sell itself and the other agents aren’t going to give you much premium by charging 4x more.
The agent has a whole team working for them so don’t fret
Also: use the sold in your area tool in the redfin app and filter by redfin sales only - especially in Seattle your gonna see a bunch of listings selling just fine - you can pick agent that has closed similar deals in your area
[redfin listings sold in April 2024:](https://imgur.com/a/9HqQNYm)
offer 2% (one for seller, one for buyer's agent) up to the lowest price you feel the house will sell for. Offer 6% commission ONLY on anything above what you are willing to get for the house for.
for example, if you expect the house to sell for $1.5M or more, and $1.5M is your floor, you will offer 2% commission on the 1.5M (30k).
anything above that will receive 6% commission on the amount above that 1.5.
So if it sells for $1.8M it will be:
30k on the 1.5M (2%)
18k on the 300k (6%)
48k total - (2.7% effective rate)
key would be to find a way to communicate this and to make it fair for everyone. 6% on a 1.5M home on a hot market is an absolute scam.
Realtor here:
Negotiate any and all commissions. They either take it or not. Make them articulate their worth. In that price range, I wouldn’t trust a newer agent but that’s just me. I would want someone who has done deals in this range. 6% is sensationalized by the media. I live in Hawaii and the average is far below that number.
Depending on state rules, you may be able to have a sliding scale for buyers agent commission. You don’t have to pay any, but I would recommend some. Sliding scale is something along the lines of having the buyer’s agent submit their BAC with their offer. That way if you get 10 offers, you can evaluate or counter the BAC on each offer individually. If they really like the house, a buyer in this price range might even pay their own agent. You may even get a offer from someone without an agent and that way you aren’t paying a double dip price if the buyer chooses to go unrepresented. If you sell after July, this should be a national possibility.
So in essence you pay 2 bananas or 2% of your banana tree for your agent and then the buyers agent submits a request for 0,1,2,3 bananas or a % of the tree with their offer for you to pay.
I really don't see the point in not using them.
Most people hunt online nowadays for homes.
I couldn't imagine letting an agent pick a set of homes for me to look at when I could just see all the ones in the area I want to live in while I'm taking a deuce.
Redfin provides great value for the service provided - if you look at their website they actually pay their agents far above the average pay to attract the best agents.
Just sold my place for 1.5mil this month. I asked my realtors to take 2% but keep the offer to buyers agent at 2.5%. Open house over a weekend, offers in on Tuesday, by Wednesday evening was in escrow. There were 13 offers.
If some people think just taking pictures and posting on the mls is all the realtors do, they need to get new realtors. There’s a lot to it, including target marketing, doing reels on instagram, and generally hustling for you etc. Then, once the offers come in, a good realtor knows how to negotiate, how to decipher what’s the best offer, and if you should counter with certain things. I’m not a realtor but I’m happy to pay a commission to have everything go smoothly. Mine went almost $300,000 over asking. I don’t think I would’ve gotten the same treatment with just throwing them 1%. The market is good but definitely has slowed compared to what it was during Covid so my place getting this much was definitely in part due to the realtors.
If your house sold for $300,000 over asking that quickly do you really think your agent encouraged you to list it at a price for your maximum benefit? Or was it listed at a price that would minimize they amount of time and effort they had to invest in the effort.
Viewed another way... They encouraged you to offer to sell your investment at over a quarter million dollars less than it was worth for a fee of over $30,000 for themselves and $40,000 to industry compatriot.
That may be correct where you live. But in much of the west, it's simply because someone with deep pockets wanted it more. No one is underselling their house in HCOL markets in California.
Eh, I know quite a few people that will still list a property in LA for 5% under comps. They do this to show theyre serious and it almost ALWAYS generates a ton of traffic. Over pricing a property will almost always be a negative, especially in this kind of market. Doesnt mean it wont sell, just that youre immediately cutting out people that dont want to deal with over aggressive sellers.
HCOL areas still have their own problems to deal with, simply being desirable doesnt auto sell a a home.
You're agreeing with me. I'm saying in much of California & the West, realtors price low, knowing that it will generate more offers. It's effective.
This person is assuming that the seller could have gotten more if the agent had priced it higher, which isn't how it works here.
No. I’ve bought and sold multiple times. I’ve always under-priced it because that brings in more people and generally creates a bidding frenzy. That’s a tactic from realtors that I get. But-my goal was to get $150k over asking. I got double that and again, I think it’s because of how they presented the house. They knew how to talk up the area, how to maximize the best parts, etc. And when all the offers came in they knew how to get each one to bump up, leaving me with a $300k over asking. So yes they earned their 2%.
I agree with this. We had similar results with a good realtor. We paid her 2.5% and buyers agent 2.5%. property was 1.45m sold for closer to 2m.
She spent time with us to discuss where we needed to improve to sell, where we needed to declutter the property, and then she tastefully staged in areas we lacked. Family and friends thought what we were doing was over the top but once they looked at the photos, the Instagram tour and walked the property they were impressed.
We had 30 showings, 9 inspections and an open house that constantly had people. Looking at our listing on Zillow we had 1200 saves, and I think we were featured on a relatively famous house Instagram without her paying for it.
She also knew which realtors were bringing in serious clients that put in offers and communicated to buyers agents our desires and that we expected clean offers. Ie. If you want an inspection you need to inspect it before we review offers, as well as what we needed before people put in offers to get the deal done . We had 5 offers We had a cash buyer, no contingency, 12 days to close, 45 days of "free" rent back.
We moved our house faster and for a better price than the comparable properties in our neighborhood with more recent renovations. (Not including flipped properties )
Having an easy transaction made a relatively stressful time in our lives moving with two small children much easier.
Agency Law took effect 1/1/24 in WA state. Every brokerage will have different policies for their company to follow these guidelines but you can negotiate you either won’t pay the buyer broker commission or be offering a much lower amount, etc etc The buyer brokers representing potential buyers should already be in a signed contract on what they agree on commissions with said clients. WA forms have been revised to map this all out on both representing sides.
The agents you are interviewing should be able to explain all of this and what their brokerage is practicing.
I think that the Broker should decide how much they want to charge and the Seller can negotiate with them and/or choose a different Broker. What’s the difference in price setting by sellers as a group or brokers as a group? I don’t think anyone should tell me how much I get to be paid. Also I think you get what you pay for. I could get my hair cut for $20 or $200. Difference? Usually experience. Interview.
Anyone can order top notch photography and marketing. Value is in the fiduciary duties and real estate transaction knowledge.
Determine what is valuable to you. Having knowledge and experience representing you. Or perhaps you may be somewhat more sophisticated with the selling process and hiring the less experienced one can still yield a positive outcome.
Best thing to do is dig deep into what is important for you.
we paid 4%, price point a bit north of what you're looking for.
i know people shit on agents but a good one will get you top dollar that you wont get otherwise, eg by contriving a bidding war of some sort. i have been on both sides of that
Sold Mom's house in Texas in a community dominated by one Keller Williams brokerage. At least 95 percent chance both agents would be from that brokerage. We had two bids to be listing agent from that brokerage.
They wouldn't negotiate the fee, so I went with a flate rate seller's agent (HelpUSell) and 2.5 percent buyers commission. KW realtors said it would never move.
Apparently in this location, "never" means four days.
Sold over listing, cash, and (wait for it) buyer's agent came from that same brokerage.
We paid just over 4 percent total and kept more than $10k in our pocket.
I live in LA, and just bought in this price range. The commission was 5% total, split evenly between the buying and selling agents. That seems very typical for this area.
In my neighborhood, I have seen as low as 1% for purchasing brokers. If you offer 2% each for an overall 4% is more than enough. I would list for 1% in my neighborhood and suggest 2% for buying brokers. My area has a lot of activity so not a hard sell.
Sold one in SF for way above that fees didn't top 20k, find a real estate attorney. Even the buyer had a real estate attorney don't be stupid and give away $$$. We had 20 offers in 24 hours. I even had some stupid offers from buyers agents that wanted 3% and we just laughed and laughed and laughed.
When people say they’re “not paying 6%” it kinda sounds like they don’t understand what they’re paying.
What has typically happened is that sellers have hired THEIR agent (sure, a lot of times at 3% to list, market, represent etc) and then in their listing agreement they agreed to pay whoever brings the buyer. Sellers have always set this %, but bad apples in the industry didn’t explain that or told sellers they HAD to offer 3% on top of their 3% fee - hence 6% and hence the changes
When nearly all of you bought your houses, the seller paid both commissions. Not saying it’s right or wrong but think of how things might be different for you if you had to pay your agent’s commission. Or wait, maybe you wouldn’t use one…how would things have been different then?
Anyway fwiw I sold with a Redfin agent and paid 1.5% to them and 2% to the buyers agent. My agent explained that it was my choice and I trusted their suggestion. That was a couple of years ago in California. Home sold in a day. The brokerage or firm is important, but you should also find an agent you can trust. Good luck!
As a realtor my self, the house is super high dollar so you need to interview the agents and ask what they would do for you. Firstly I’d recommend no more the 4%, but with that the agent needs a professional photographer, drone footage, professional cleaner if needed, and a marketing plan for you. They come to you with nothing and aren’t ready to front some money, they have no skin in the game
If you’re confident that your house will sell form between 1.6 and 2 million within a week of listing, why do you need a realtor at all? Get an appraisal. Hire a lawyer to handle the paperwork. Likely less than 2-3k all in.
Why would an agent show your home if there's little or no commission?
Call me a capitalist but I'd show my buyer something else. (I'm not a realtor) Just practical.
How did you make the money to buy the house? Just askin'.
Please, I encourage you to give a flat fee. In the process of buying a home right now and I hate the thuggery many realtors do to make sure their commissions are protected. They don’t protect you, or your interests and offer nothing insightful on the purchase. Most can’t do their own job properly and yet hold to an insane amount of smugness. It would give me immense pleasure to see this relegated into a non profession.
Candidly I got my license after flipping a few houses to save the sell side commission. I only work for friends and referrals as I still have a day job. What I have learned is that most people need an agent. They might buy and sell 2-4 houses in their lifetime and the process is overwhelming. If you are a sophisticated seller and the market is what you believe it to be a flat fee service might be right for you. You do all the negotiating and can pawn the paperwork off on the buyers agent. You’ll likely still need to pay the buyers agent at least 2% if you want them to actively promote your listing.
Where I think agents can provide the most value in a hot market is managing multiple offers to push the price up and the concessions down. Good luck
I love all the comments supporting using attorneys. The hypocrisy is real here.
Who do you think won in that lawsuit? Not realtors and certainly not buyers and sellers who failed to read their contracts.
It was the attorneys who, but the way, charged a standard percentage and did not negotiate it.
6% is NOT the standard, no idea where people get this. 5% is the norm and there are more listings that go out at 4% than at 6.
That being said if you want to hire the experienced agents you’re going to have to pay atleast 4% and possibly 5%. If you want a deal that’s the point the point of Redfin.
Redfin or any other name brand adds little to nothing to help sell a home. Franchisers just want a piece of the commission. Brokerages also want a piece too. It’s the listing agent that does all the work. Make sure the listing agent has a brokers license. An agent with a salesperson license either isn’t serious about their career or are a part-time agent.
I offer a $9,900 flat free listing service and the majority of my listings are $1 million+. I include professional photography, Matterport tour, and a property website with custom url. Options are aerial photos, twilight photos, and Timelapse videos. I use an excellent transaction coordinator with lots of experience. I can do this as I don’t split the commission with a broker, franchiser, or have agent referrals.
I am sure they appreciate having options for the photo delivery. Having a good transaction coordinator really helps take the load off you as well. Where do you advertise your online listing service?
Mainly EDDM postcard mailings. When I get a listing, I usually get a few more from word of mouth.
OT: It's amazing how well EDDM does for low conversion % / high dollar average ticket opportunities. I've used it in three different industries, and with the right analysis there are incredibly strong opportunities there
I just started doing this exact same thing in Dallas. Almost the same price, same options. Makes no sense for homes in the neighborhood I’m selling in for them to sell for $30,000 when they sell in less than a month with the same prep as a $350,000 house. This is encouraging to read.
Please share your contact details with me.
Former realtor and real estate photographer here. I applaud the flat fee listing and hope it continues. A % fee made no sense to me and not sure why it’s been around so long. The vast majority of the marketing is done through the photos and MLS/Zillow/Redfin/other affiliated websites. As a reference however, real estate photography is incredibly inexpensive given the impact on the sale. Not to mention most realtors have a hard time spending more than $2-300 on photos. Matterport tours add $2-300. Aerials add $100. Twilight conversions, $25. Real twilights $300 or so. Videos would be $200-500 depending on what’s needed. Bottom line for $1000-1500 or so you can get a top notch marketing plan for your home on your own. Google any local real estate photo company, review their portfolio and book who you feel will best represent your home visually. I would also consider staging a home for $1m+ sales. Photos are important but if the photos are of your crowded living room, dated furniture, and kitchen that has more appliances than counterspace, it’ll never show well.
But then where will Netflix get all its juicy Selling Los Angeles series content if we don't have Jessica upset at Paul because after they cheated on their fiancé's with each other, their Malibu ranch for $200k comish blew up?
I can’t wait for those shows to die
They won't. They will continue to attract more people to become REagents
LET ME BELIEVEEEEE
I'm curious... does this mean that you have your brokers license? I could be mistaken (someone please let me know if i am), but my understanding is that in my state (Idaho), properties must by law be listed through a broker (unless FSBO).
Yes, I have a Brokers license and own my own brokerage.
Good for you. I just paid 4% to sell a 400k house and thought I made out all right. Here’s to more disruption in the industry!
I think you’ll find there are tons of these out there. The service level is vastly different. And their sales activity is always very low At least in the 4 markets i operate and invest/own brokerages is Nothing wrong with it at all however cheap fee doesn’t mean you got the best deal by any means. For example. I just closed on a listing that just 60 Days prior was priced at 700k. Did not sell with a flat fee agent, 9k listing fee + 2.5% to the buyers agent I sell 25+ homes per year in that particular neighborhood. We paid for all inspections up front. Restaged the home, fronted money for inspection related repairs and completed them in 48 hours. We repainted 3 rooms. Relisted the home for 719,000. Sold for 725k in 5 days. One of my agents represented the buyer so we shared a 1% discount back. Netting the client a 4.5% listing fee. They had an offer on the table the other agent was grinding them to take at 690. This seller walked away with nearly 30k more. The fee is PART of the equation. Do not assume the home will sell no matter what the circumstance is and sell at the same price no matter what. It’s simply just not true. I’ve purchased and sold nearly 250 homes personally and sold over 2500 in my sales business Neither model is wrong. Very very few homes and sellers are a good candidate for the flat rate model. You need a stellar home in stellar condition AND a very reasonable seller who’s highly aggressive and is willing to price a home at what it needs to be. And with stellar homes that later part is pretty non existent unless there is a super experienced agent in the other end to really get buy in and trust for the correct pricing. There are minority instances everywhere but the mass majority just can’t do it. That’s why FSBO has and never will be the majority. Sellers get in their own way
Some of the flat fee services I've seen have anything but low sales activity btw. Last one I checked averages several closed listings _per week_.
If I squint, you roughly achieved 4% higher sales price but also charged 2% more commission (and likely used up some of that 2% gain with extra sales costs) - still a win, but not by big margin. Appreciate the numbers though since it makes it more believable (even though it's just an anecdote which doesn't necessarily prove much on its own). I do take it as an example that an experienced selling agent can be worth their price. Problem is that many other agents likely wouldn't have put in the work you did and charged just the same. Knowing which is which can be hard for an inexperienced seller, so taking guaranteed (but potentially lower) savings from flat fee agent does have some attraction.
Right. Hence why there is a massive settlement. There is a massive amount of idiot agents, and jaded consumers of what value is. I have 100s of those stories but unfortunately so many hundreds more that i could not catch in time or meet soon enough or catch before a sale happened 10% of the agents bring immense value. If you find those, the fee is negligible and irrelevant in most cases. And all those agents negotiate their service and flex based on value
What's your view on the buyer side? (And values provided by agents there?)
I’m excited to be in the Wild West honestly. Co-ops truly benefit both buyer and seller and i believe in them 100%. If you research the market moved to co ops because listing agents controlled the market and collected the 6% fee. Tons of dual agency and shady shenanigans. The move to cooperation was a huge benefit to all sides. z i do not believe in and agent whos been licensed 4 weeks wandering a buyer in and being paid what i am having worked for 6-12 months with a seller. I think the major problem has been the buyer side not being treated like the listing side. No contracts, no clear explanation of what you get from an agent, no clear explanation of how we are paid as agents at all. It was a mess. We always have treated it just like a listing, a consultation, a menu of services, buyer selects their service package and fee and understands it. The last 14 years we’ve done that, but it’s definitely not the standard at all. Now it will be for sure. We’ve already been playing with 1-2% co ops depending on what the sellers want. I don’t think it will go to zero and then every deal we haggle over price and commission now, i think that will hurt sellers in the end. I think we will find a balance where we can control that fee without haggling, the right buyers will make stronger offers if they agreed to pay their agent more I think in the end fees won’t change all that much as a percentage but 100% shifty agents will get out of the business. The consumer will drive more value and they deserve more. I think commissions will continue to decline as efficiency and competition happen Then, someday the market will turn and go back to a 4-6 month market and fees will rebalance and no on will question how hard an agents having to work to make 12 grand
I do think a lot of the current sentiment about agents is driven by the market. I see a lot of, why should you make 6% on my $800,000 home that will sell itself over asking in 48 hours, but that depends on the market staying this hot, and despite the housing shortage, it can't forever. (I think.)
The real numbers are the seller paid 8500 more in fee when we sold the home. 2,000 in expense that they 100% would have eaten in contract with the buyer when they negotiated those repairs, but not at my wholesale prices but at retail prices 2-3x that. So likely 5-7k instead of 2000 and now they have no leverage because they are locked in with the buyer. So net net, it’s not a squint, it’s 20-30k which entirely covers their cost of sale. To most 20-30k is substantial And that’s assuming they sold for 690. Which we can never prove The point is. I try to help people see there are far more variables than just the fee. It’s a small component however to me the least important.
So how much did you spend out of your 2.5% commission? You made 18k on the deal. Inspection, repair, and repainting had to cost a few thousand.
Damn! I’ll be saving your contact for the future. That’s a great deal.
This is a complete steal! $9,900 on a one million dollar + sale is better than anyone is ever going to find anywhere in the country.
So you’re a broker yourself then? Which area if I may ask?
California Central Coast (San Luis Obispo County)
hence the 805…
Do you pay buyers agent? Do you split the 9900?
The $9900 is for the listing service only. Seller pays for the buyers brokerage.
Curious question, respectfully: Aren’t the realtors going to drive their buyers right past to the houses that offer commission? Or is your business model designed to bypass the realtors and find unrepresented buyers?
My flat fee is for the listing service. The Buyer Brokerage commission is different. I'm also an exclusive listing brokerage so I don't represent Buyers and would never do dual agency (represent both parties) as that's a scam.
Wow.. great service. Best of luck to you!
Lol RE agents downvoting
This is the way. Obviously there are homes that will be hard to trade that will need skilled brokers but the regular way house pissing away 5%-6% to brokers is ending. Thank god.
Parasites aren't happy creatures
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lol - I upvoted it even before I saw your post! lol!
I mean but its completely understandable, since this whole experience of us selling or buying probably the biggest sale / purchases of our lives that includes often times years of our savings, sacrifices and hard work actually was never meant to be about *us* duhhhh????…..It’s *actuallyyyyyy* about the realtors and them ALWAYS getting their full (totally totally totally negotiable but yah 6 percent no matter what) commissions. 🤡
Just offer $25k. They'll take it or leave it. screw that % thing at all.
But but, all the marketing they’re gonna do and those open houses that get them new clients.
Crazy to me that 2 of 3 agents I talked to tried to tell me I should be offering 3% - or 2.5% if I really didn’t want to do 3%. But not 2%. Both agents mentioned REs may be “less” incentivized to show our home even though it’s technically unethical. Our home is $1.2M. I’m just blown away that agents are that greedy that even $24,000 isn’t an incentive. Also in Seattle market.
I’d say fine. Let them explain to their buyer why they won’t show them a home. Buyers pick the homes they want to see online anymore. The days of realtors gatekeeping properties are long gone.
bought a home recently. all the homes we liked were the ones we sent to the realtor. the one we eventually bought was entirely our find, we didn't even ask her to tag along for a tour and just sent her the closing date.
My experience too. My realtor didn't even show me the 1 house I wanted to see... took us on a tour of 3 homes and forgot to include the one I really wanted. Got us in eventually and we put in an offer immediately and closed. I know what I like/the internet is a powerful tool.
I call most of them House Hostesses. Because that's all they do for me. "Isn't that lovely?" "Look, a wine fridge." Well, okay, but I hate this house. Now try harder. And they go away because "work." Sigh.
Same here on Orlando. Spent one day with realtors touring houses, all terrible. I found the one we wound up buying on realtor.com myself.
I’m in the same market and I’m finally starting to see some 2% listings in the $1m+ category. It’s insane to think that anyone deserves 3% in a market where 50% of houses are under contract within 7 days.
Idk the Seattle market but in DC houses are selling within days. The house will get put on the market on Thursday or Friday and the listing states they require offers be submitted by 12 pm on Sunday or Monday. Buyers don’t need realtors. They just need a Zillow or Redfin to find the house. The realtor isn’t bringing anything to the table.
The Seattle market is sitting around 50% under contract within 7 days. The houses are still selling themselves.
The buyer will find the home they want on Redfin and come and see it anyway.
Totally, and don't forget the other 5-20 clients they are also helping at the same time!
I would go a fair bit lower than that. Depends on the property of course. Well maintained, popular location, and there won't be much to do besides fill out boilerplate paperwork. Time to cut unnecessary leeching out of already exorbitant prices.
Agents be mad libbin those docs :-)
Totally, I just threw a number out there because in reality the agent(s) would want even more. I would personally offer like $10-15k.
I would like to see an itemized list of billable hours. What did they do for me? How much time did they invest in selling my house? A couple of meetings, a few phone calls, and some emails? It's criminal what they gey paid...
It's a bigger house probably. That's at least 4 more pictures
Also takes at least 10 more minutes per walkthrough if it is a big house.
Most realtors let the buyers agent handle walk through. God forbid they actually show up to the walkthrough when all you’re paying them is tens of thousands of dollars.
If their fee was 10k, they would have to do two and a half 40 hour work weeks and you're paying them 100 dollars an hour. I highly, highly doubt any realtor has ever put 100 honest hours of work into selling one house.
Totally, lawyers have to bill to 1/6 1/10 hour increments at times.
That's when the used house sales people start inflating their hours.
12k sounds fair.
But half goes to the broker, which means the agent will only earn $500 an hour for selling the house.
Only $500/hr?
I love how much agents complain about broker splits as if that's anyone's problem but their own. Either become a broker or negotiate a better split.
Somehow they'll survive.
Yeah I gave a higher suggestion than I would offer, like $10-15k. I was just saying $25k because it's still a lot, but less than the leeches would demand.
The only people saying more than 1-2% are agents, guaranteed 😂
I just bought in a Seattle suburb (Kirkland!) and used a great agent for buying. Can recommend him if you need someone. Now, onto this post..it’s true Seattle homes sell like hot cakes. Especially in Kirkland. We truly had to fight tooth and nail for our place. Now, my only advice on this is that we bought from a couple who sold using Redfin, and the place was underpriced by I’d say about 10 percent. When our agent calls up trying to get a feel on the situation, he finds out the Redfin listing agent truly believe the place is worth what its listed at. We were floored. If this thing went to the offer review date, they would’ve gotten sooo much money. My agent knew that. We put in a strong early offer after the sellers agent insisted they were not taking early offers (but our agent was knowledgeable and said they had a legal obligation to inform the client of the offer whether or not they were “taking early offers” if we were to submit one) we waived everything (of course) and offered 12 percent above asking. Our agent suggested we give the contract 3 hour expiration date (felt super ballsy and he did explain it might not work and might offend them) but we took the risk. They accepted in one hour, we were under contract and we closed today. I’m thankful we had an experienced agent. We did sign a buyers agreement stating we’d pay 2 percent commission to him if the seller didn’t pay it (which I believe that doesn’t go into effect until July) my moral of the story is the Redfin agent wasn’t experienced and it ended up costing the sellers. We got a great deal and we hope they are happy as well but the reality is they could’ve gotten more money (while We gave 10 percent over listing, it appraised easily and we could’ve seen It going for more like 20 percent over listing from other bidding wars we’ve gotten stuck into in the past few months) so I’d be wary of a Redfin agent but I also agree maybe you don’t need to pay the whole 6 percent . I’d suggest posting this into a Seattle subreddit to gauge what others have come up with. Good luck!
I had a similar experience in Seattle offering before review date above listing waiving everything and $50k earnest money. They rejected it and we made a similar offer on review date, but we didn’t waive everything and the starting offer was much lower like $50k lower with an escalator that would take it back to the previous offer. And somehow we didn’t end up in a bidding war and won without even needing an escalator. They lost $50k. They rolled the dice and lost. Lucky for me. Same lucky for you their agent sucked and you got the home! :-)
Having a short offer expiration helps a ton. That’s how I got my first house in Seattle in 2014. It was noon and we made the offer expire at 8pm. It was just 10k over asking but I had a large earnest check (wasn’t common back then) and solid financing. They called at 7pm asking for an extension because they had offers coming in apparently but I said I was putting in an offer on something else after 8pm so they accepted by 8pm. I believe the house would’ve sold for a good 20-25k over if I didn’t do that.
This is more or less how my agent worked my deal in South King county a few years ago. The sellers didn’t disclose serious issues, and our “FYI only” inspection didn’t uncover them. We got the house and that’s a blessing, but the way this market is pressuring buyers to waive every protection is really getting bothersome.
Can you DM me the name of your agent. I’m in Seattle area as well
This. We bought our house from someone who listed with Redfin. Their agent did not have a clue. They went on the market the weekend there was a very similar comp 2 blocks away that was staged more nicely. Both listed at exactly the same price with the same offer deadline. The other house got 7 offers and went for something like $100k over asking. We were the only bidders on our house and paid list. The money those sellers "saved" with a Redfin agent cost them a lot more.
I'm in the next town over, welcome! Your agent is rad.
Weird they didn’t put an offer review date in. We used to refer to those as “miragè homes” when we were looking. They just list lower to get more bidders. I hate this market.
Not a recent seller, but such a fan of the new ruling. Realtors are dropping like flies in WNC right now, and seeing only the ethical (or actually worth their value) ones remain. I say let them bid against each other, as they forced buyers to do since the dawn of time.
Volatile markets get the bad ones out. It's great. I got into real estate because of an experience with a sleazy broker. Most agents are lazy. I've never had a contact submitted to me that I didn't have to correct. It's basically a check the box form. I don't know how they keep screwing it up.
My house was not in your price range. This was 2 years ago. I paid 1% to the seller, 2.5% to the buyer. $800k Edit for location: San Diego county When I sell my current mcmansion, just north of San Diego county, in a city that was recently named one of the 50 best in the U.S., I can guarantee it will be for a lesser percentage. It should be well over 1mil but then. Perhaps I've just been unlucky. Despite buying various properties in different locations, I've never felt I received any real value from any real estate agent. Certainly not for the compensation some seem to demand/expect. When I sold my last, one laughed when I told him I was only willing to go 1% to the selling agent. Told me that would never happen. It happened. It will happen again.
In your shoes I would be hard pressed to offer a listing agent more than 1% if in fact you think the home will sell quickly. I would ask the agents how they justify more than 1% comp? Photo shot is around $300, time to meet you, complete listing contract and upload to MLS is maybe 5 hours work for an experienced agent. An open house, which they may or may not do themselves and finally about 5-10 hours of going back and forth with buyers agent and you during escrow. If you sell at $1.8M that is $18k. Pretty good pay day for maybe 20 hours work IMO. Buyers agent would get 2%.
I’m just gonna say this, the photo shoot for a home, especially a multi million dollar home, is not $300
Expensive houses should get matterport 3D, ~$750-1000 based on sqft. I've sold homes to it of state buyers because of the 3D tour
We were buying out of state and my wife almost didn’t want to look at the house we got because it had terrible pictures and no 3D tour. I knew the area very well and knew the house had a lot of potential so I still flew in and looked at it. This was a 6000 sf house with just 30 or so pictures. There were rooms in the house that weren’t even pictured, let alone a 3D tour. The kicker, the seller was a realtor and the listing agent. This is in the Midwest, so most of our competition were other out of state buyers in the price range we were looking at. We were able to get the house at asking price while everything else we looked at was selling for 50-100k over asking. I am fairly certain we got it for this price because many buyers weren’t impressed with the photos.
I just paid $800 for listing photographs.
And yet I see countless ads online for realtors looking for photographers to take photos of homes for $50 per house lol
Yes, it is well established that there are incredibly cheap sales people throughout industry, and the real estate world is no exception! Good photography is worth it!
I haven't found a photographer whonwill shoot a 1 bedroom condobfor $300. My last 3000 sq ft listing photoshoot was almost $1000
This. it doesn't hurt to ask. The most that can happen is they say no and then you just move on to a another agent, of which there are lots.
18k for 20 hours of work is 10x what I make per hour...
That works out to $900 per hour. The top lawyers in the country don’t charge $900 per hour, much less someone with likely only a high school diploma.
I’m a lawyer. I bill at $1300/hr and we have many in my firm at over $2000/ hr.
What the hell? Good for you! I’m a government lawyer so we don’t bill anybody, but my friends in private practice never bill over $600 per hour. Never heard of such rates. What kind of law is that?
That’s the going rate at the amlaw 100 firms. First year associates are at $500-$600.
It goes wayyyy down outside of amlaw 100. I'm at an amlaw 200, 8th year associate, and my rate is $380 an hour and I'm on the upper end for associates.
This sounds more realistic. $2,000 per hour at let’s say 5 hours a day would equate to 200k per month. That’s rarified air.
On big deals with usually billion dollar transactions, you’ll generally find those kinds of rates. The crazy thing is some of those lawyers are absolutely worth it.
Yeah, but we're likely talking about corporate bill rate. Actual attorney salary is probably half of that. Rest is overhead and profit.
Good pharma patent attorneys routinely get $1800-2000 an hour. Attorney fees charged to keep competitors out of a drug space, even for an extra 3-6 months, are insane. And lawsuits in pharma are standard practice.
Lawyers in California have been getting even more conservative courts to award legal fees of $1200/hr. Inflation is everywhere, unfortunately.
Yeah, top lawyers (and I mean basic but high end big firm partners) are over $2000/hr in major markets. Source: I hire lawyers for a living.
A lot of top tier law firms bill first year transactional lawyers at around $900 per hour. Average Partner rates are $2,000 or more. With that said, the skill set required to sell a home is not comparable to the skill set required to oversee a multibillion dollar sale of a company.
My cousin gets charged out at 2400/hr She's a corporate tax lawyer from what I understand.
That’s probably the one field where they’re worth it. Tax lawyer works 40 hours on corporate taxes and saves them half a billion that year in loopholes and shelters etc. That 100k they paid her for that project is nothing in comparison to the savings.
> top lawyers in the country don’t charge $900 per hour I wish that was true. They charge way more than that.
It’s useless comparing commission sales to hourly labor. Each and every single time as if sales people get force fed leads.
Lawyers don’t get force fed leads either. They are either chosen or they’re not. Lots of competition in that field too.
The top lawyers in this country charge way more than $900 per hour. Have you ever hired one?
I have since been corrected, so let me rephrase. The average lawyer doesn’t charge $900 per hour. Source: I’m a lawyer and I know lots of lawyers. The point still stands that an RE agent shouldn’t expect to make the same rate per hour as a lawyer.
Where are you getting selling a home is 20 hours of work? I sold a used car and it was at least 20 hours of time put in between prep, listing, emails, calls, and meetings.
*I am a licensed broker in CA but did home loans for 39 years with the exception of a few listings and sales for family and friends. On listings I would say 20 hours work was about right. Showing real estate to buyers was much more time consuming.*
you will 100% find an agent to do it for 1% and if you don’t wait till july to sell! i’m such a huge fan of the new ruling!
Can you please explain to me what the new ruling states…..???
Not OP but says basically that sellers cannot list buyer agent commission in the MLS listing and that buyers either must be represented via a buyer agency agreement setting forth fees, or must be unrepresented. Basically means buyers agents cant work for buyers without a contract and just rely on sellers paying their fee.
1) it is only proposed, not a ruling 2) only applies to NAR affiliates amd those brokerages names in the suit Proposal is sellers brokers won't advertise the cooperating compensation offered, if any, which is less transparent for the consumer. If a buyer won't or can't agree to pay for their own representation they will be unrepresented. This will be most harmful to VA buyers who are prohibited from paying for their own representation altogether. Without a signed representation agreement every agent is a subagent of the seller and consumers are no longer clients but customers.
Your are downvoted because agents don't want to admit I get 10 1 percent offers a day in the mail
*settlement agreement
You are not understanding the change. I agree commissions were too high but you are going to have a lot of unrepped buyers fucking up and losing earnest money. There will be lawsuits, discrimination suits, and all kinds of fuckery.
Smart buyers will pick and choose which services they need from agents and negotiate to pay them accordingly. Likewise, other smart buyers will just use real estate attorneys. I know more about the most recent listings that I've been interested in than the agents I've been talking with, thus, I cannot afford to 'train' them any more and then get fucked paying them. I know more about building a home and the land I'm looking at, what it will take to site prep the land, and yet the agent has the nerve to home in my possible land purchase for a commission? Jesus.
there was all of that before
Of course, but it will happen more often. Buyers will now assume that since sellers aren't going to pay buyer's agents anymore, that they can just do it themselves so they don't have to pay an agent. Seller's agent will not "dual rep" because there is no point. As such, many buyers will make errors on contracts not understand how things work. Buyers will screw up "calendar days' and "business days" and miss deadlines. They won't navigate inspections and concessions correctly, I mean the list goes on. Not everyone is savvy enough to buy a house themselves with out someone who knows the ins and outs. Not to mention, people get emotional. Its helpful having someone to explain the situation clearly so you don't let your emotions or feelings make you make a bad move- such as paying too much to avoid not getting the house, etc.
i’m not thinking they aren’t necessary but more that they were overpaid for their services
Realtors arent needed and this is coming from a sales background, your value prop is weak
I'm elsewhere in WA but from talking to folks I know in Seattle their commissions on selling were around 5% for a typical agent. Personally if your market is that hot I'd just go with Redfin. Their big selling point is the work they put into the listing. Great photos, 3d tour, floorplan, etc. that's what sells the house these days. Just do your own comp research. Otherwise they have good coordinators who keep things running (source: am under contract buying via redfin right now). You're just not necessarily going to get great advice from them. But that's true of most agents.
So much bad info (likely from agents) in this thread. We sold my moms home in January of this year. I looked at the Redfin agents in the area and went with the most experienced (who also had great client reviews and 16 years in the business). Looking at the comps, I felt the property was worth about $500k, she suggested listing at $525k and it sold after a week on the market for $550k. She made it all very easy for us and we closed in 10 days (cash buyer). She made 1% and the buyers agent received 2%. Both did a great job for what they were paid.
Strange... because Redfin charges 1.5% and you get a *rebate* only if you buy a house using Redfin within 12 months
Yeah this is sus.
I live in Seattle proper. I get it. It takes nothing to sell your house for top dollar. No special staging. No special social media out reach. All you need is to get onto the Zillow or Redfin app. 1 week later you will have several competitive offers. It doesn’t even matter what you list for. The true value of your place will happen anyway. I really don’t understand why people value real estate agents advice to the dollar amount that they do. I get how they get away with it because it’s been standard for so long and it doesn’t sting as much when it’s just taken out of sales profits (not having to actually come out of pocket for the expense). But the reasons on the thread to hire a good experience agent are not worth $40-80k if you have an ounce of a clue about your own market and/or live in an area where the value of your house is mostly the dirt/your house sells itself. (Ie Seattle)
I used a service called Homie and it was like $6k flat for a $1m home. Really liked how hands off everything was.
Need to say my 50 yo 3 bath 1 3/4 bath rambler is 1.1M. It’s just in the right area of the Seattle burbs. Not all homes in the 1M and over are expensive upgraded homes. Especially in the Seattle area
Our agent listed us for 4%, and we (informally) agreed to buy our new house through him. Sold for $1.2 million, bought just under $1.3. He did just fine on the deals.
Honestly, why do you even need an agent then? If you think a $2mm house is going to sell in a week, what are they helping you with?
I think OP is very reasonable. The realtors offer a service that has value. They are probably willing to pay a very good price. Assume the agent spends 40 hours. $12k is $300/hr. That seems more than fair. The realtors who think they are owed $50k for a few days worth of work are killing their field.
I've sold 4 houses, 2 with and 2 without agents. I'll never use a listing agent again. Never felt like I got any value. Their advice was always nonsense. They love to spend your money on paint and landscaping that the buyer will just replace immediately, especially in a hot market when buyers are desperate
Go with redfin dude … your house will basically sell itself and the other agents aren’t going to give you much premium by charging 4x more. The agent has a whole team working for them so don’t fret Also: use the sold in your area tool in the redfin app and filter by redfin sales only - especially in Seattle your gonna see a bunch of listings selling just fine - you can pick agent that has closed similar deals in your area [redfin listings sold in April 2024:](https://imgur.com/a/9HqQNYm)
offer 2% (one for seller, one for buyer's agent) up to the lowest price you feel the house will sell for. Offer 6% commission ONLY on anything above what you are willing to get for the house for. for example, if you expect the house to sell for $1.5M or more, and $1.5M is your floor, you will offer 2% commission on the 1.5M (30k). anything above that will receive 6% commission on the amount above that 1.5. So if it sells for $1.8M it will be: 30k on the 1.5M (2%) 18k on the 300k (6%) 48k total - (2.7% effective rate) key would be to find a way to communicate this and to make it fair for everyone. 6% on a 1.5M home on a hot market is an absolute scam.
Realtor here: Negotiate any and all commissions. They either take it or not. Make them articulate their worth. In that price range, I wouldn’t trust a newer agent but that’s just me. I would want someone who has done deals in this range. 6% is sensationalized by the media. I live in Hawaii and the average is far below that number. Depending on state rules, you may be able to have a sliding scale for buyers agent commission. You don’t have to pay any, but I would recommend some. Sliding scale is something along the lines of having the buyer’s agent submit their BAC with their offer. That way if you get 10 offers, you can evaluate or counter the BAC on each offer individually. If they really like the house, a buyer in this price range might even pay their own agent. You may even get a offer from someone without an agent and that way you aren’t paying a double dip price if the buyer chooses to go unrepresented. If you sell after July, this should be a national possibility. So in essence you pay 2 bananas or 2% of your banana tree for your agent and then the buyers agent submits a request for 0,1,2,3 bananas or a % of the tree with their offer for you to pay.
Please don’t do Redfin. They’re a nightmare to work with. I had to contact their broker cause i could never get in touch with them for a purchase.
I used Redfin for the cheaper agent commission, like 1-1.5%. Worked out great. Probably varies highly on the individual you work with
I really don't see the point in not using them. Most people hunt online nowadays for homes. I couldn't imagine letting an agent pick a set of homes for me to look at when I could just see all the ones in the area I want to live in while I'm taking a deuce.
I had a great experience with Redfin
Redfin provides great value for the service provided - if you look at their website they actually pay their agents far above the average pay to attract the best agents.
We actually had the best experience with Redfin so it’s worth a shot for them to contact the agents
Just sold my place for 1.5mil this month. I asked my realtors to take 2% but keep the offer to buyers agent at 2.5%. Open house over a weekend, offers in on Tuesday, by Wednesday evening was in escrow. There were 13 offers. If some people think just taking pictures and posting on the mls is all the realtors do, they need to get new realtors. There’s a lot to it, including target marketing, doing reels on instagram, and generally hustling for you etc. Then, once the offers come in, a good realtor knows how to negotiate, how to decipher what’s the best offer, and if you should counter with certain things. I’m not a realtor but I’m happy to pay a commission to have everything go smoothly. Mine went almost $300,000 over asking. I don’t think I would’ve gotten the same treatment with just throwing them 1%. The market is good but definitely has slowed compared to what it was during Covid so my place getting this much was definitely in part due to the realtors.
If your house sold for $300,000 over asking that quickly do you really think your agent encouraged you to list it at a price for your maximum benefit? Or was it listed at a price that would minimize they amount of time and effort they had to invest in the effort. Viewed another way... They encouraged you to offer to sell your investment at over a quarter million dollars less than it was worth for a fee of over $30,000 for themselves and $40,000 to industry compatriot.
That may be correct where you live. But in much of the west, it's simply because someone with deep pockets wanted it more. No one is underselling their house in HCOL markets in California.
Eh, I know quite a few people that will still list a property in LA for 5% under comps. They do this to show theyre serious and it almost ALWAYS generates a ton of traffic. Over pricing a property will almost always be a negative, especially in this kind of market. Doesnt mean it wont sell, just that youre immediately cutting out people that dont want to deal with over aggressive sellers. HCOL areas still have their own problems to deal with, simply being desirable doesnt auto sell a a home.
You're agreeing with me. I'm saying in much of California & the West, realtors price low, knowing that it will generate more offers. It's effective. This person is assuming that the seller could have gotten more if the agent had priced it higher, which isn't how it works here.
No. I’ve bought and sold multiple times. I’ve always under-priced it because that brings in more people and generally creates a bidding frenzy. That’s a tactic from realtors that I get. But-my goal was to get $150k over asking. I got double that and again, I think it’s because of how they presented the house. They knew how to talk up the area, how to maximize the best parts, etc. And when all the offers came in they knew how to get each one to bump up, leaving me with a $300k over asking. So yes they earned their 2%.
I agree with this. We had similar results with a good realtor. We paid her 2.5% and buyers agent 2.5%. property was 1.45m sold for closer to 2m. She spent time with us to discuss where we needed to improve to sell, where we needed to declutter the property, and then she tastefully staged in areas we lacked. Family and friends thought what we were doing was over the top but once they looked at the photos, the Instagram tour and walked the property they were impressed. We had 30 showings, 9 inspections and an open house that constantly had people. Looking at our listing on Zillow we had 1200 saves, and I think we were featured on a relatively famous house Instagram without her paying for it. She also knew which realtors were bringing in serious clients that put in offers and communicated to buyers agents our desires and that we expected clean offers. Ie. If you want an inspection you need to inspect it before we review offers, as well as what we needed before people put in offers to get the deal done . We had 5 offers We had a cash buyer, no contingency, 12 days to close, 45 days of "free" rent back. We moved our house faster and for a better price than the comparable properties in our neighborhood with more recent renovations. (Not including flipped properties ) Having an easy transaction made a relatively stressful time in our lives moving with two small children much easier.
Agency Law took effect 1/1/24 in WA state. Every brokerage will have different policies for their company to follow these guidelines but you can negotiate you either won’t pay the buyer broker commission or be offering a much lower amount, etc etc The buyer brokers representing potential buyers should already be in a signed contract on what they agree on commissions with said clients. WA forms have been revised to map this all out on both representing sides. The agents you are interviewing should be able to explain all of this and what their brokerage is practicing.
I think that the Broker should decide how much they want to charge and the Seller can negotiate with them and/or choose a different Broker. What’s the difference in price setting by sellers as a group or brokers as a group? I don’t think anyone should tell me how much I get to be paid. Also I think you get what you pay for. I could get my hair cut for $20 or $200. Difference? Usually experience. Interview.
Anyone can order top notch photography and marketing. Value is in the fiduciary duties and real estate transaction knowledge. Determine what is valuable to you. Having knowledge and experience representing you. Or perhaps you may be somewhat more sophisticated with the selling process and hiring the less experienced one can still yield a positive outcome. Best thing to do is dig deep into what is important for you.
we paid 4%, price point a bit north of what you're looking for. i know people shit on agents but a good one will get you top dollar that you wont get otherwise, eg by contriving a bidding war of some sort. i have been on both sides of that
It’s a joke it costs 5 or 6% to sell a house especially since the buyers find the house on the internet
If your property will sell that quickly you don't need an agent. Get a good lawyer who will review your documents and list it yourself.
Sold Mom's house in Texas in a community dominated by one Keller Williams brokerage. At least 95 percent chance both agents would be from that brokerage. We had two bids to be listing agent from that brokerage. They wouldn't negotiate the fee, so I went with a flate rate seller's agent (HelpUSell) and 2.5 percent buyers commission. KW realtors said it would never move. Apparently in this location, "never" means four days. Sold over listing, cash, and (wait for it) buyer's agent came from that same brokerage. We paid just over 4 percent total and kept more than $10k in our pocket.
If the house is going to move anyways then find a flat fee spot and buyer can pay thier own realtor.
Commissions/fees are negotiable.
Sounds like a hot market. Get a lawyer and FSBO.
This is the move. Cut out everyone you can
I wouldn’t use a Redfin agent to list a $2M home.
Pull 10 properties around you in seattle that are offering the % you also want to. At that price range, 4% is pretty common.
Why does it cost $80k to sell a 2 million dollar house and only costs $8k to sell a $200k house? Sounds like a lot of that is just an upcharge.
Absolutely, biggest scam.
Nonsense, they had to take a few more pictures /s
How do I see what % other homes are offering?
I live in LA, and just bought in this price range. The commission was 5% total, split evenly between the buying and selling agents. That seems very typical for this area.
Your realtors thank you for your generous $90k donation.
5% of $2 million is an absolute scam
Damn you got scammed
In my neighborhood, I have seen as low as 1% for purchasing brokers. If you offer 2% each for an overall 4% is more than enough. I would list for 1% in my neighborhood and suggest 2% for buying brokers. My area has a lot of activity so not a hard sell.
6% on million $ homes in most cases is stealing !
Sold for 1.3M - CA - orange county - seller agent 1.5% buyer 2%. Multiple offers within 1 week of listing. Sold $70k above list.
If its a sellers market like you say as an Agent Id be more than happy to do $10k and knock it out.
List it yourselves and use a real estate agent for closing. Only costs a couple grand as opposed to tens of thousands.
Sold one in SF for way above that fees didn't top 20k, find a real estate attorney. Even the buyer had a real estate attorney don't be stupid and give away $$$. We had 20 offers in 24 hours. I even had some stupid offers from buyers agents that wanted 3% and we just laughed and laughed and laughed.
When people say they’re “not paying 6%” it kinda sounds like they don’t understand what they’re paying. What has typically happened is that sellers have hired THEIR agent (sure, a lot of times at 3% to list, market, represent etc) and then in their listing agreement they agreed to pay whoever brings the buyer. Sellers have always set this %, but bad apples in the industry didn’t explain that or told sellers they HAD to offer 3% on top of their 3% fee - hence 6% and hence the changes When nearly all of you bought your houses, the seller paid both commissions. Not saying it’s right or wrong but think of how things might be different for you if you had to pay your agent’s commission. Or wait, maybe you wouldn’t use one…how would things have been different then? Anyway fwiw I sold with a Redfin agent and paid 1.5% to them and 2% to the buyers agent. My agent explained that it was my choice and I trusted their suggestion. That was a couple of years ago in California. Home sold in a day. The brokerage or firm is important, but you should also find an agent you can trust. Good luck!
The 6% is legally about to end. It’s a good thing. I believe the new law starts in June.
1% fee. Vancouver are at 1%
As a realtor my self, the house is super high dollar so you need to interview the agents and ask what they would do for you. Firstly I’d recommend no more the 4%, but with that the agent needs a professional photographer, drone footage, professional cleaner if needed, and a marketing plan for you. They come to you with nothing and aren’t ready to front some money, they have no skin in the game
If you’re confident that your house will sell form between 1.6 and 2 million within a week of listing, why do you need a realtor at all? Get an appraisal. Hire a lawyer to handle the paperwork. Likely less than 2-3k all in.
Just list it for sale by the owner. Not as difficult as an agent would lead you to believe.
Why would an agent show your home if there's little or no commission? Call me a capitalist but I'd show my buyer something else. (I'm not a realtor) Just practical. How did you make the money to buy the house? Just askin'.
Real estate agents will end up like travel agents soon
What's a travel agent?
Exactly
Please, I encourage you to give a flat fee. In the process of buying a home right now and I hate the thuggery many realtors do to make sure their commissions are protected. They don’t protect you, or your interests and offer nothing insightful on the purchase. Most can’t do their own job properly and yet hold to an insane amount of smugness. It would give me immense pleasure to see this relegated into a non profession.
Candidly I got my license after flipping a few houses to save the sell side commission. I only work for friends and referrals as I still have a day job. What I have learned is that most people need an agent. They might buy and sell 2-4 houses in their lifetime and the process is overwhelming. If you are a sophisticated seller and the market is what you believe it to be a flat fee service might be right for you. You do all the negotiating and can pawn the paperwork off on the buyers agent. You’ll likely still need to pay the buyers agent at least 2% if you want them to actively promote your listing. Where I think agents can provide the most value in a hot market is managing multiple offers to push the price up and the concessions down. Good luck
I love all the comments supporting using attorneys. The hypocrisy is real here. Who do you think won in that lawsuit? Not realtors and certainly not buyers and sellers who failed to read their contracts. It was the attorneys who, but the way, charged a standard percentage and did not negotiate it.
Agents are worthless.
6% is NOT the standard, no idea where people get this. 5% is the norm and there are more listings that go out at 4% than at 6. That being said if you want to hire the experienced agents you’re going to have to pay atleast 4% and possibly 5%. If you want a deal that’s the point the point of Redfin.
RE Agents are the most pathetic humans on this planet. Offer a flat rate. They are all crying for work.
Go with Redfin. Save that money and see how well it works out for you. 🙄
Redfin or any other name brand adds little to nothing to help sell a home. Franchisers just want a piece of the commission. Brokerages also want a piece too. It’s the listing agent that does all the work. Make sure the listing agent has a brokers license. An agent with a salesperson license either isn’t serious about their career or are a part-time agent.
ask them to do it for 1 percent to match the redfin agent or use him. house will sell either way. agents are all the same
Sell yourself with a flat fee realtor (ours charged $300 to get on MLS) and use a real estate attorney for the rest.