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I have told this story before but it bears retelling. A friend listed his house ($650K) with an agent who lived in the same complex and sold a lot of homes in the complex. She said 6% commission but if she was both the selling agent and the buyers agent it would be 4%.
They had a open house planned and the agent said she could not make it. They could either reschedule or she would have somebody from her office cover it. He said fine let someone cover it.
Some of you can see were this is going. Well somebody came through the open house and ended up making an offer. Well the person holding the open house claimed she was the buyers agent so my friend paid 6%. He feels his listing agent tricked him. I do not know about tricked, but she did not explain the issue upfront.
Tricked? Like planned this? I understand the seller paid more, but the listing agent agent actually made less money doing it this way.
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I do not know about tricked, but she did not explain the issue upfront.
What happened is fair and not unusual or unethical.
As is true with many human issues, the problem is that communication could have been better. It should have been explained that the agent holding the open would try to sign any unrepresented clients who came and would be due that commission. That's why agents do open houses.
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Originally Posted by johngolf
I have told this story before but it bears retelling.
Curious, what was left unanswered last time?
Last edited by Diana Holbrook; 12-21-2023 at 03:08 PM..
I have told this story before but it bears retelling. A friend listed his house ($650K) with an agent who lived in the same complex and sold a lot of homes in the complex. She said 6% commission but if she was both the selling agent and the buyers agent it would be 4%.
They had a open house planned and the agent said she could not make it. They could either reschedule or she would have somebody from her office cover it. He said fine let someone cover it.
Some of you can see were this is going. Well somebody came through the open house and ended up making an offer. Well the person holding the open house claimed she was the buyers agent so my friend paid 6%. He feels his listing agent tricked him. I do not know about tricked, but she did not explain the issue upfront.
If anybody should be upset, it should be the listing agent for the scummy betrayal by the co-worker.
Or is this just business as usual among realtors?
There wasn't necessarily any betrayal. Don't blame the open house agent, they did nothing unusual or scummy. If I hold a house open for another agent, I do that because I hope to represent any unrepresented buyers who come to the open house. That's why agents do open houses on listings that are not their own.
The failure was the listing agent not explaining to the seller what it meant for someone else to hold the house open.
I have told this story before but it bears retelling. A friend listed his house ($650K) with an agent who lived in the same complex and sold a lot of homes in the complex. She said 6% commission but if she was both the selling agent and the buyers agent it would be 4%.
They had a open house planned and the agent said she could not make it. They could either reschedule or she would have somebody from her office cover it. He said fine let someone cover it.
Some of you can see were this is going. Well somebody came through the open house and ended up making an offer. Well the person holding the open house claimed she was the buyers agent so my friend paid 6%. He feels his listing agent tricked him. I do not know about tricked, but she did not explain the issue upfront.
That's simply sour grapes from the seller. If the seller didn't want to sell the house for the offered price and pay a 6% commission, then why did they sign the sales contract?
If the listing agent already knew that these folks were going to buy the house, then the listing agent would have had them sign the contract herself and received more commission money as Diana said.
As to the seller's claim that the listing agent "didn't explain the issue up front", what part of "If there is a different selling agent (other than the listing agent), the commission will be 6%" did the seller not understand?
This suggests that if we sellers ever want to allow dual agency, we should also put the lowered buyer's agent fee in general into the contract we sign.
Dual agency via listing agent: 4%
Otherwise, listing agent: x% and selling agent 4-x%
But this might not be attractive to random buyers' agents. Whatever.
That's simply sour grapes from the seller. If the seller didn't want to sell the house for the offered price and pay a 6% commission, then why did they sign the sales contract?
If the listing agent already knew that these folks were going to buy the house, then the listing agent would have had them sign the contract herself and received more commission money as Diana said.
As to the seller's claim that the listing agent "didn't explain the issue up front", what part of "If there is a different selling agent (other than the listing agent), the commission will be 6%" did the seller not understand?
Nope. It's total BS on the part of the seller.
It's not just semantics to be precise regarding "agent."
Both licenses were representing the "Listing Agent," i.e., the firm, the broker, broker-in-charge, whatever title is correct.
Language needs to be specific and focused on that reality.
This suggests that if we sellers ever want to allow dual agency, we should also put the lowered buyer's agent fee in general into the contract we sign.
Dual agency via listing agent: 4%
Otherwise, listing agent: x% and selling agent 4-x%
But this might not be attractive to random buyers' agents. Whatever.
You'll be smart to plan to be competitive with the selling agent cobroke.
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