|
Last year, our entire real estate industry was rocked when a class action lawsuit involving buyer agent commissions was settled in favor of the homeowners. The simplest explanation I can come up with is the buyers believed they had to pay both the listing agent fee and the buyer agent fee. Both were "baked into" the sale price.
While this is true, someone has to pay the buyer agent fee. They're not going to work for free. How many buyers are happy to pay the buyer agent commission themselves? Do they even have the cash reserves after they pay closing fees and down payment?
This ruling has only made the lives of the listing agents and buyer agents more complicated. Ironically, the sellers are now coming out ahead because they can negotiate the buyer agent fees down, whereas before, they were stated on the MLS.
We're constantly being bombarded with changes and new real estate forms. Now that they're in effect, the attorneys must deal with all the potential conflicts of interest between the agents, the buyers and the sellers.
Fortunately, we have a great team of highly experienced agents. It seems every other week we're discussing the changes in our contracts. This is sure not the time to be a "lone wolf" agent.
|
