The following ad was in M’s junk mail yesterday:
Note this is a "Realtor communication" – not intended for general consumption. Coincidentally once more ARMLS reiterated their policy on listings yesterday- no talking about bonuses:
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d. Any monetary value items potentially given to the buyer’s agent, which may appear to steer a prospective buyer’s agent to show his or her clients your property over another property. This includes but is not limited to: Any type of bonus information (bonus information is allowed in the Realtor Remarks).
2. All fields
a. Commission Information. All commission language or references are hereby banned from inclusion anywhere in the MLS listing except for the Buyer Broker (BB) or Sub-Agent co-broke fields (SA), and except for the bonus information allowed in the Realtor Remarks(private).
Can you say, "Conflict of interest?"
The very idea of a buyer’s agent getting paid a % of the sale price is worse than a conflict of interest — it’s a disincentive.
Given the recent studies about Redfin saving buyers a buttload of money on every purchase, we have to assume that the mass-market buyer’s agent is a threatened species.
The other interesting thing here is that every bubble and bear market breeds its own corruption. The bubble gave us negative-equity loans and mortgage fraud; now the bust is handing us secret buyer’s agent kickbacks.
I think its harmless.
“Only good with a FULL PRICE OFFER”
Yeah like that will happen.
Don’t assume it Josiphos – there are plenty of suckers out there, and plenty of so-called buyer’s agents who are willing to fabricate multiple offers, pending price increases, or other falsehoods to get a buyer to pay their huge commission and bonus.
I suppose knowing the bonuses exist gives buyers leverage when buying a home.
“They said your offer was too low.”
“Well, how about you take some of your bonus money to raise it a little?”
Good idea Linenoise – in fact, if you’re 5% off or less, many desperate Realtors should be more than happy to make up the difference themselves, assuming you’re using one.
Actually, to be more clear, you should be able to make up anything up to a 5% difference even without a special bonus offering on the property, and if there is one, you can throw that in on top.
Igor’s word: firesale
I say this half tongue-in-cheek…
But considering the large amount of money involved in real estate commissions….
Would it be possible for a future where anybody that wants to buy or sell a home quickly go out and get themselves a real estate license?
(1) The concepts involved in getting a real estate license are not rocket science. It is not like scientists and engineers leave their jobs because selling real estate is more mentally engaging.
(2) I\’ve seen ads that say \”get your real estate license in 2 weeks\” or something like that.
If using up a couple of weeks to get a stupid real estate-selling license meant that I can save $20,000 on a transaction (that would otherwise go to somebody who did very LITTLE work for it), I would spend the two weeks to get the license without thinking about it twice.
Sure, there\’s an annual fee to having the license, but I would think it is far lower than the amount I\’\'m saving.
“Would it be possible for a future where anybody that wants to buy or sell a home quickly go out and get themselves a real estate license?”
Yes, it would be possible. A bit cumbersome and front-end loaded in terms of time/cost.
In AZ, there is 90 hours of classroom time required. You can fit that it in a couple of weeks if you can do it full time. Weekends/evenings would take longer. School fees. State exam/fee. Extra 6 hours of contract writing class. Modest state license fees.
If you want MLS access, NAR, AAR, plus local (e.g. PAR – Phoenix Assoc. of Realtors) membership fees. Lockbox access key fee. You can hang your license with a broker for under $100/month, plus transaction fees or have a percentage of commission deal.
It could be worth it if you are definitely going house shopping. Maybe take the class, pass the exam, and hold off on everything else until you want to start your search. I think that you have a year from passing the exam to activate your license.
I suppose knowing the bonuses exist gives buyers leverage when buying a home.
Problem is, the buyer will never find out about it.