Benjamin J Vigil, Real Estate Pro

Due to recent legal verdicts and settlements in several lawsuits involving real estate commissions, sellers are no longer required to offer cooperative compensation to a buyer's broker.  Buyers agents are also required to negotiate their fee upfront even before they can show you a single property. 

Yes!  You can request that the seller pay for the buyers agent commission within your offer.

We call this a buyer's agent commission overage.  As an example, if a seller is offering a buyer a blanket $10,000.00 for the purpose of paying their agent's commission, our agreement with you for buyers agent services could be several thousands of dollars less.  As your agent, it is our fiduciary responsibly to look out for your interests, not our own.  In this example we would probably advise you to do the following:

1.  Ask the seller to convert whatever amount of overage there is to a seller concession so the excess funds could be used towards your closing costs.

2.  We may ask that the overage amount be returned to the seller.  This could strengthen your offer in the sellers eyes as it would increase their bottom line without having to raise the purchase price in our offer.

******According to Lesley Muchow, general counsel for the National Association of Realtors, a buyer agent should not amend compensation on a buyer agency agreement solely to match what is being offered by a seller.******

There are other possibilities but remember any offers made by the seller should be controlled by you, the buyer.   

We will never omit or ask you to omit any properties you wish to view solely because the seller is not offering a buyer's agent commission.  We believe it is unethical for an agent to make this request and it is a breach of our fiduciary responsibility to you, our client.  Look at the properties you wish to view.  Frankly, if your agent refuses to show you properties that aren't offering a buyer's agent commission or encourages you to take such properties off your list, you should find a new agent.

There are ways of addressing this type of situation.  Please contact us for more information.

A flat fee is easier to understand and to calculate.  There is also no underlying incentive for a buyer agent to increase the price of an offer in order to make a higher commission.  Our commission rates are negotiable but they will never increase from the agreed upon compensation.