I don't understand why anyone would enter into what will be most likely the largest financial transactions in their life without professional representation. I will agree that many agents suck, but a good one is worth the cost.

have a lawyer read the contract, a building inspector check the property and do your own research on the market.

crazy to me the conflict of interest, where your 'professional representation' is 'free' (if it's anything like here may not have finished high school) - and negotiates their own commission on the 'largest financial transaction in your life'.

the inevitable result is as a buyer you will be pushed whatever property is going to result in the biggest commission for your agent.

having only the selling agent being paid commission better aligns those incentives. if you want an agent pay them an hourly rate to assist in the negotiations or provide advice on the value/desirability of the property imo.

NAR has vetted real estate contracts and that alone provides a lot of value both to the buyer and seller.

A lawyer will charge hourly to write up a contract, and assuming a few hours that is min $1,000. Then you need a lawyer on the other side and that is $500+. And escrow is not going to waste their time answering dumb questions from a buyer or seller who likely has no idea how escrow works. So a smart principal will hire a lawyer to manage the transaction. And that will almost certainly cost more than a realtor. By default lawyers are licensed RE brokers.

People ITT think there is zero risk and can expect other parties to hold their hand gratis.

You think a real estate lawyer has to write a new sales contract from scratch for every client?

Every title company I've worked with has had no issue answering my questions.

It isn't 1955 - most people either know how RE transactions work or have access to their closing agent or Google to answer any questions they have.

Guess where the lawyer gets his default contract?

You sound like you have experience with RE transactions. Count yourself in the minority. There are far more contingencies now than the 1950s.

Relying on Google for a million dollar contract, smart.

If the lawyer gets his default contract from the local realtor's group (which I assume is what you're implying) then why did you claim it would cost a client thousands for that lawyer to supply the contract to a new client?

Google gets you to the point of knowing what to ask the lawyer or title agent.

Indeed I've done quite a few RE transactions, including a few without an agent.

From Cindy with the big tits who took an online real estate course over the winter, and is now doing her best to inadvertantly **** your **** up while spending 85% of her time covering her, and her brokers ass?

Those contract templates are copyrighted.

Google is a sampled archive of previous
people's experiences. Laws change, situations are different, people do not reveal entire circumstances, etc.
That's great, more power to you. But you are indeed in the minority if you believe you can confidently manage the transaction yourself. People like you can use alternate methods such as Help U Sell.

Agreed, so now we're back to square one. Why wouldn't an established RE attorney not have his own boilerplate real property sales contract on hand rather than having to draw one up from scratch for each client, causing thousands of $ in billable time?

And escrow officers/title reps are under no obligation to offer principals legal advice. If they are smart they will likely say "ask your attorney".

It's a free country, bro. If a lawyer believed it was worth the time to create and keep up to date a set of comprehensive contract templates, then they would have already done it.

It is likely far easier for them to ask the client some questions regarding the property, conduct an investigation of the property location, bylaws, legal description, etc, and draw up the contract from that.

Perhaps not but they've always freely offered advice to me and in my experience they're the most seasoned and knowledge individuals in the business. That should make sense because they have the most experience - all deals go through them so they've seen and handled all types of outlier scenarios. By contrast, an individual RE agent sees only a fraction of that volume themselves.

If you are experienced with the process the questions you ask them are likely not such that it puts them in legal jeopardy. And they look for repeat business, which is why agents are treated much better than random principals. If you are in the RE business, e.g. developer, rehabber, etc. (sounding more like you might be) this could be a reason why they talk to you.

Contracts are very straightforward in CT at least - they're all on the same form for the most part with straightforward terms, but if you don't do this everyday it might be daunting. Attorneys aren't going to hold your hand - Agents will, but attorneys are terrible at negotiation, are short with their responses, and will blow up deals nonstop without Agents. Usually the ones who act experienced and say they don't need an Agent to help them are the ones that screw things up or ask silly questions - ego gets in the way.

Here the Buyer's Agent is paid by the Seller's Agent - the Seller's Agent is paid by the Seller. From what you wrote you prefer just to negotiate directly with the Seller's Agent? You realize the Seller's Agent represents the Seller and will do everything in their power to give a better deal to the Seller?

That's how it's supposed to work in theory. In practice the commission tilts the selling agent's interest in getting their client to accept an offer rather than holding out and stretching for a "better deal." To wit, 3% of $500k to the selling broker+agent for an accepted offer is better then 3% of $550k for an offer that never materializes.

Selling agents will swear up and down they're not influenced by that when they're counseling their client about an offer but I've witnessed it first-hand time and time again. It's unavoidable human nature - moral theory and fiduciary duty is no match for financially-incentivized behavior.

Isn't that 500k offer better than the 550k for all parties involved if the 550 never materializes? The only time I will 100% think the Listing Agent is influenced is if the Buyer comes along unrepresented and they have a chance to double end the deal. Everyone is greedy - sellers try to cut commissions/get me to throw in money for repairs, Buyers want homes for the cheapest amount possible, and Agents want the deal done as quick as possible for the most amount of money. A bird in the hand is always the way to go when accepting offers - most of the time the early offers are the best, and holding out results in a lower sales price. When your house is sitting on the market too long everyone knows and your chance for a premium offer is over.

Maybe for that exact reason. If it was a $100 purchase nobody would care about 6%. But it's the largest sale/purchase you'll ever make and paying someone $30k to "sell" your house in this market seems absurd. Like the realtor has anything to do with the fact that there's 5 offers within 1 day on a reasonable home in this market. No supply and large demand is what sells homes not realtors.

So what do you suggest? 0.6% commissions when the market is really hot, and 6% commissions when it is slow?


Also, if you think all realtors do is list the home and then collect their fee, then you either don't understand how the process works or had really shitty realtors in the past.


I'm all for the commission being as low as possible - I think I mentioned up-thread that the last house we sold had a 4% commission - but good realtors add value and are worth the cost.

On the commercial leasing side a typical contract is 100+ pages. And you are correct that without agents most deals would be nuked by attorneys that lack the finesse to get a deal across the finish line.

This thread has mostly focused on the residential homes side which is just one part of the real estate umbrella. I can tell you commercial real estate leasing and investment sales will never deviate from the 5-6% commission structure. There is too much value add from the brokers and **** shoveling that nobody else involved in the deal wants to deal with. Most importantly, you hire brokers for their network of contacts.

The average RE commission in the UK is 1.42% including VAT, and even less for properties selling above the median. That seems fair to me.

I was speaking to the thought process of the selling agent, as in "encourage my client to accept this offer because there may not be another one behind it and if so I'll earn $0"

What are the other costs involved in selling a house?


Also, in the UK there is VAT on real estate transactions?

The commission rate I quoted included the VAT on the commission. As for the other costs:

https://www.theadvisory.co.uk/house-...ouse/#anchor-1

Ok, I misread that at first. I thought the VAT was on the whole transaction and in addition to the commission you stated. This makes more sense.