Realtors lose commission lawsuit. How are agents paid outside of US

[Neilk]

So the National Association of Realtors lost their lawsuit for "conspiring to artificially inflate commissions for home sales." LINK.

I read other articles saying that the US is the outlier in how real estate agents are paid. What's the commission structure like in other countries? Do buyers agents get a fee too, or just the seller's agent? It would be great if we didn't have to also pay the buyer's commission, but I don't see that happening. I have read that realtors will shun houses were the buyer's commission is not guaranteed.


I have only purchased two houses in my life and I can say that the buyer's agents were way overpaid for what they did. On the first house we bought, we found an agent at an open house and signed with him to visit some other homes. There was nothing we liked, but we found a house on our own. He provided one of his approved inspectors that overlooked any deal breaking issues, handled the paperwork, and got his 3% commission doing 4 hours of work.

When we sold the house, our agent was fantastic and deserved her 3%, but they buyer's agent messed up and presented a foundation estimate as a completed repair. I caught that a week before closing, I am not sure what he did to make things right, but we sale went through.

[Dixie]

99% of selling a house is just getting it on the MLS. The other 1% is how owners treat and maintain their houses.

[Tobra]

I do not think much of realtors and real estate agents

[Evans, Marv]

^^^^^ Me neither.

[GH85Carrera]

When I sold my parents home after my dad died, I put a sign in the front yard, for sale by owner. I was not in a hurry to sell it. Several people called and wanted to know how much per month they would pay. I told them I am not a bank, you will have just one payment for the full amount.

Finally when the house was empty, I had one 25 year old want to look through and he said he would buy it. I called a realtor I know, and explained I have a buyer lined up, but there is lots of paperwork I don't know how to do. He offered a flat fee, $1,000 to use him to bring over some contracts, and the buyer and I signed, and we went to the realtors closing office. I signed a few dozen pages, and walked out with a check from the bank. The house was sold "as is" and I never heard from them again.

It sure beat paying 10s of thousands for an agent to find a buyer.

[Rot 911]

With the advent of Zillow, I don’t know why anyone would use a real estate agent to sell their house.

[RANDY P]

So much for the rule of agency- then again it's always been a farce. Collusion between buyer and seller agents to determine which deal closes fastest (paid fastest)

rjp

[Bill Douglas]

I like good real estate agents. Here in NZ we don't really have buyers agents. A good agent holds his nerve and wrings more out of the buyer, without losing the buyer. Bad ones are worse than useless.

Although I've bought and sold more than a dozen properties I can't remember what percentage the commission to them is. Guessing, for a million dollar house it would be 40 or 50 grand. Maybe a bit less.

Once the deal is made, the buyer pays a 10% deposit that is held in trust by the real estate companies lawyer. Then at the time of final settlement the real estate person gets their commission. Again guessing, but I think the real estate company get half the commission and the agent gets the other half. Maybe the agent gets a bit more.

the last house I sold I thought wow, grabbing for the document to say SOLD. But the agent said hold yer horses mate, and come back in a couple of hours. He told the excited prospective buyers "You are almost there, would you like to increase your offer?" I think he got me an extra 50k that more than paid for his commission.

[Bugsinrugs]

On a 6% commission the agents get one and a half percent each. The offices they represent also get one and a half percent each.

[2.7RS]

Another case of middlemen over inflation.

We can start a list
Doordash
Uber
Amazon
Any brokerage
Car dealers(manufactures should sell online direct)

It's our service base economy.
We don't manufacture much
But people need jobs I guess

[GH85Carrera]

A good real estate agent has knowledge of the ins and out of the laws in your area. There are lots of gotchas and it made difficult by the very people involved. They don't want you to do it yourself as they make money making it look mysterious and difficult. There are still lots of legal things that have to be taken care of, and the deed had to have tax stamps, and the change in ownership as to be noted on legal documents.

When my parents bought their house it was from a retired Air Force officer. My dad had just retired from the Air Force as an officer. The two men looked each other in the eyes, shook hands, and made the deal. Done. Never an issue. Dad filed the deed paperwork.

When I bought my first house, the former owner was going to carry the note. In that era he gave me a super fantastic mortgage rate of only 12.5% as the banks were charging 15 to 18 percent. I mailed him a check each month, but I had to pay the property taxes and the insurance on my own. Again, no closing office. We shook hands on November 1st, and I woke up in my bed in my house on November 10th.

[Paul T]

I’ve had a few RE agents alert me to properties “available” but not on MLS, so for that they’ve been very helpful….not everyone want their listing/pics out there for everyone to see. For regular MLS transactions though, a good lawyer will suffice.

[1990C4S]

The industry is ripe for disruption, Zillow is just the start. Fees are way out of whack with the service provided.

I think most people just follow the crowd, 'this is how you sell a house', instead of thinking 'why am I paying $60,000 for a week of work?'.

Discount brokerages are going to happen.

But if you want to see a messed up real estate system, look up gazumping in the UK...

[Tobra]

When my best friend bought his house. They paid a few hundred to have a real estate attorney write up the paperwork, saved about $10,000. When I bought my house, did not use a buyer's agent and saved $9000. My next good experience with a realtor would be my first good experience.

I will never use a realtor again.

[unclebilly]

This is timely.

We met with some realtors on Friday about listing one of our rental properties. They are a husband - wife team in their late 40s - early 50s.

I asked them who the target audience was for this 1957 1000 sqft bungalow.

They said, you know maybe a first time home buyer or a flipper. Then went on to try to convince us to list it low.

I asked them how they market to millennials and first time home buyers, specifically what they do for virtual tours… they told me that this doesn’t help.

Thinking about it more, these guys don’t understand how to market to the target audience, 1st time home buyers aka millennials, so they list a property like this low so a gen x client will buy it to flip to a 1st time buyer…

They won’t be getting the listing.

[Arizona_928]

I’ve been in the market and the houses are all remodeled with cheap particle board everything and plastic floors… I refuse to look at those properties and they don’t sell…

I can see why people build.

[john70t]

I've heard corporations/investors are now ~20% of home buyers. (NPR i think)

It will be a new rental world.

[Dixie]

This article lists commissions and VAT paid in various countries. (Thank goodness we don't pay VAT in the USA.)

[look 171]

Holy siht, they have VAT on top of that.

Ok to pay 20+ % on tip for someone who walk by once or twice and drop off a plate or two?


I fail to understand, the commission is factored into the sales price. If you go over the asking, seller and their agents benefit. What's not to understand?

[Brian 162]

When we sold our house the commission was split between our agent and the buyers agent. I think it was 6% total commission
Our agent gave us a list to do, including clearing out some of the furniture
She staged the house and we moved out for a week. The house sold in a week, and we got $300,000 over asking.
We bought in a different town and used an agent local to our new town. It helped us get the house. We put a bid in before a 5pm deadline. Another couple were going to put a bid in but they used an agent that wasn’t local and couldn’t get the bid in time.