This is the final week – it’s go time!
Beginning on Saturday, every realtor will need to have a written contract with their buyers to show them a house for sale. We have had months to prepare, so we’ll see how receptive the buyers are to our presentations, and how willing they are to paying for their realtor too…on top of sticky prices and rates.
There is only one thing that matters now.
Will listing agents respect the role of the buyer-agent, and encourage their sellers to pay them?
Because most buyer purchase contracts will include a request for the seller to pay ‘concessions’ to help cover the buyer-agent fee, it will be a negotiable item, just like price.
There will be overwhelming desire for the seller to chip away at the buyer-agent fee too.
Will listing agents stand up for their fellow agent? Or will they join in the dogpile and encourage their seller to negotiate a higher price and lower concessions to beat up on the buyer-agent too. Listing agents are going to be tempted to suggest a beatdown on the concessions so they look like a hero to their seller. After all, they can justify it as part of their fiduciary duty!!
But watch yourself. The life you save may be your own.
I’m going to make an unusual plea of my fellow agents.
If you make an offer to purchase one of my listings, I promise to uphold your fee as best I can. If your offer is so low that it’s killing the seller and he brings up reducing the concessions as the only possible solution to making a deal, then I might get stuck. But in all civil negotiations, I will back you up, and you will receive the fee requested.
I encourage all agents to do the same.
I have no hope that other agents will join me, however.
The coming slugfest is going to be brutal, and it will expedite the extinction of buyer-agents, probably within the next 6-12 months. I think we should protect buyer-agents because buyers deserve adequate representation, and it’s asking too much of them to have to pay the full buyer-agent fee too.
I’m hoping to preserve the buyer-agent’s role!
Join me, won’t you?
The NAR, CAR, and the MLS companies have all abandoned their constituents and now us agents are on our own. The MLS company serving north county isn’t waiting for the 17th – and they have added a requirement that all concessions be disclosed when marking a listing as sold – which wasn’t part of the NAR settlement so not sure why they think it is necessary. Their latest email:
To summarize, tomorrow you can expect:
Buyer Agent Compensation (BAC) fields will be removed from Matrix and Paragon systems
New CRMLS Rules & Policy changes will go into effect
The current required Concessions field at Close will include a category list
Warning messages will be added to listing input to help users understand that compensation is no longer permitted
Fines will be imposed on all listings that attempt to indicate forms of compensation
This is the final reminder that Buyer’s Agency Compensation (BAC) fields will be removed from Matrix and Paragon MLS systems. The BAC fields have already been removed from Flexmls.
As part of the new rules, any attempt to communicate compensation within the MLS is completely prohibited and will result in a fine.
Sadly I think you are a principled pedestrian in a crosswalk fully in the right.
I think it will take a pendulum swing to a buyers’ market before the industry realizes what is essentially single agency representation is not in anyone’s best interests.
Then comes the fun part. Buyers agent to sellers agent: “Remember when you chipped away at my piece of the transaction?”
YOU CAN BET I’LL REMEMBER EVERY ONE OF THE ABUSERS!
And I think all of the ingredients could push us into a wicked buyer’s market too – stat.
All it will take is one more hot inflation reading this year (Wednesday?) and the Fed will shelve any rate drops. They could go higher too.
We could enter 2025 with rates around 7%, hundreds of stale listings left over from summer that were over-priced then…..and really over-priced for 2025.
No buyer-agents to help out.
No decent comps to justify the aspirational prices.
Buyers forced to go direct to the listing agent to purchase, and feeling very uncomfortable about that prospect.
This is why I’m not hopeful that listing agents will honor the role of the buyer-agent. There is no promise of paying any concessions. From our boss:
As a listing agent, remember to make clear that the Seller is “willing to consider” compensation or concession, but has NOT made a contractual promise to pay.
Giving Cat sums it up. My only comment: It wasn’t broken, but they fixed it… real good.
Will a potential strategy be to make on offer on a listing using the listing agent but have your own competent real estate attorney review the contract and offer legal advice when needed.
Lawyer’s Full Employment Act of 2024.
I will join you brother! 🙂
Thanks Paul – spread the word!!
Will a potential strategy be to make on offer on a listing using the listing agent but have your own competent real estate attorney review the contract and offer legal advice when needed.
That sounds good and everyone will agree that it’s sound advice. But the contract is rarely a problem. Usually it’s the dealing with our fellow humans is where problems arise…..and why we have a job. At least why we’ve had a job!
“At least why we’ve had a job” is called sales. You are a professional sales person. There is a price to pay for that. Only monkeys work for peanuts.
I’m as a buyer will obsoletely pay my agent to find a KILLER deal in any market without worrying for payment, worry to get a deal only! As a seller it feels always unnatural to pay to someone representing against my interest.
U.S. adults who say they’re likely to buy a home sometime in the next 12 months expressed a strong aversion to paying their buyer’s agent fee out of their own pocket if the seller declines to cover it.
But if it were to happen, they wouldn’t give up on the home right away.
Only 10 percent of likely buyers said they would be open to paying their agent’s fee out of their own pocket.
32 percent of likely buyers said they would be open to countering at a higher price, but insist that the seller cover the buyer’s agent fee.
The largest group of likely buyers — 47 percent — said they would counter at the same price, but try to sweeten the deal with concessions such as waived contingencies or more earnest money in order to secure the seller’s coverage of their agent commission.
Only 11 percent of likely buyers said they would remove themselves from consideration for the home if the seller initially did not want to pay the fee.
I am buying my next home on Amazon. I will be using my Prime membership.