05-13-2019, 12:40 PM
"the seller pays the 6% commission, not the buyer"
In every property I've ever sold, I've passed the commission onto the buyer by raising the sales price to cover the commission. I'm pretty sure that's what everybody does. The fallacy that the "seller pays the commission" is just realtor-speak for "buyer actually pays in the end".
All things are negotiable. Some realtors won't budge on their commission, you are free to choose somebody else. A friend of mine, as a home seller, negotiated the realtor down to 1.5%, and actually down to 0.5% if he found the buyer himself. (He did his own open houses). Of course what he couldn't negotiate down was the % for the buyer's realtor if it was a different realtor than his.
The following statement isn't going to make me any friends from the realtor business, but really a realtor is just somebody who unlocks a door and lets you look at a house... does that seem all that complicated like they deserve 5 or 6% of a purchase price? You can train a dog to open a door for you. Ouch, I said that. I remember when we hired a realtor to sell a house in Alaska after watching some episodes of "Selling New York" where realtors actually spend money and work to sell properties we were better educated and after a snow storm and before a showing, asked her if she was going to shovel the driveway herself or hire somebody. She was flabbergasted! But somebody plowed the driveway and shoveled the walks before the showing. The house sold itself in a couple of days, she probably made about $5000.00/hour. The least she could have done was get somebody to make the driveway safe to navigate so at least we made her take care of that. This was before we were educated enough to negotiate commission. On our next sale we paid a flat rate that probably amounted to about 1.3%.
Of course there is no snow here, but properties need mowing and landscaping. All properties are different. You might have difficulty finding a realtor willing to put in any effort to sell a Puna shack even at a 10% commission. Know your property and the market before negotiating.
ETA: I've fired 7 Hawaii realtors... one I kept was John Erickson from Remax. Not sure if he negotiates rates but he lives in Puna and knows the area. Also gave us a bunch of banana plants as a housewarming gift.
In every property I've ever sold, I've passed the commission onto the buyer by raising the sales price to cover the commission. I'm pretty sure that's what everybody does. The fallacy that the "seller pays the commission" is just realtor-speak for "buyer actually pays in the end".
All things are negotiable. Some realtors won't budge on their commission, you are free to choose somebody else. A friend of mine, as a home seller, negotiated the realtor down to 1.5%, and actually down to 0.5% if he found the buyer himself. (He did his own open houses). Of course what he couldn't negotiate down was the % for the buyer's realtor if it was a different realtor than his.
The following statement isn't going to make me any friends from the realtor business, but really a realtor is just somebody who unlocks a door and lets you look at a house... does that seem all that complicated like they deserve 5 or 6% of a purchase price? You can train a dog to open a door for you. Ouch, I said that. I remember when we hired a realtor to sell a house in Alaska after watching some episodes of "Selling New York" where realtors actually spend money and work to sell properties we were better educated and after a snow storm and before a showing, asked her if she was going to shovel the driveway herself or hire somebody. She was flabbergasted! But somebody plowed the driveway and shoveled the walks before the showing. The house sold itself in a couple of days, she probably made about $5000.00/hour. The least she could have done was get somebody to make the driveway safe to navigate so at least we made her take care of that. This was before we were educated enough to negotiate commission. On our next sale we paid a flat rate that probably amounted to about 1.3%.
Of course there is no snow here, but properties need mowing and landscaping. All properties are different. You might have difficulty finding a realtor willing to put in any effort to sell a Puna shack even at a 10% commission. Know your property and the market before negotiating.
ETA: I've fired 7 Hawaii realtors... one I kept was John Erickson from Remax. Not sure if he negotiates rates but he lives in Puna and knows the area. Also gave us a bunch of banana plants as a housewarming gift.