This is a real possibility now:
Bill Colson, who is preparing to sell his Maryland home next year and purchase a retirement home outside Blue Ridge, Georgia, believes the changes will create more costs.
Colson, who is 57 years old and retired from the Navy, said a Realtor in Maryland advised him to offer the standard 6% commission split between his agent and a buyer’s agent when selling his home. But in Georgia, Colson said another Realtor told him to be prepared to pay his own agent out of pocket to make a potential offer more competitive.
It means Colson would be responsible for paying out commissions for both transactions, which would have been unthinkable to many homebuyers and sellers before the changes.
“If you want to stand out, you’re going to have to pay,” Colson said.
“In the end, we may end up paying something like 9%,” he said. “Instead of making things better, it just got a lot worse.”
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/19/business/real-estate-commission-changes-wellness/index.html
This is all happening because banks aren’t foreclosing.
By not foreclosing prices stay high + the supply is artificially limited,
Buyers willing to live on extended levels of credit have been rewarded for 20 years.
How long before lawyers see an opportunity? Who needs any agent just to transfer an asset?
Yes at 9% they might be interested….
The entire real estate transaction process from realtor through closing is ripe for disruption and streamlining. We are in the early stages of this process as the industry participants are digging in. Many of these jobs are obsolete, making the process bloated, inefficient and expensive. “The first to charge through the wall, get bloodied”. It’s going to be painful to many to unravel this antiquated process and replace it with improvements but I have faith in capitalism and, in the end, you won’t be able to fight progress.
We are just waiting for a juggernaut to come in and sell homes via auction. Amazon, Costco, etc – take your pick, someone will do it.
It will be over for us realtors – and sellers and buyers will just get what they get.