Selling my house. Why do I have to pay the buyer's agent?

The agents generally split the commission. Everything is negotiable, you don’t have to. You don’t have to pay your agent 3%, it can be more or less.

The buyer’s agent will do the most work with the buyer. Showing your house, talking with them over options, getting it in front of them. If you’re not willing to pay them for that, it’s very unlikely they’ll be willing to show your house. If you refuse, the buyer will be responsible for their realtor fee, and this will impact their offers as well.

You have to pay your selling agent. They are the ones that will be paying a buyers agent, if they bring an acceptable offer.

If the selling agent finds a buyer, they get the entire 6%.

Don't hate on the agents, hate on the system. The individual agents typically earn their money. But that doesn't mean the entire system isn't flawed

We’re closing on our old house Friday. Just went through this.

We sold by owner on Zillow, FSBOBR, etc. If a buyer comes with no agent, problem solved. In our case an agent reached out to us and said a client is interested, are we willing to work with an agent. We said yes at 2%.
Good thing we said yes, otherwise our house might still be on the market. In my opinion, it’s worth the 2% to unload the house.

When selling my last house, we worked with a flat fee sellers agent. They sold my house for a fee of $1,250. On a nearly $300k house, that means they made .4% commission. We still included 3% for buyers' agent to get it sold quickly, but could have easily written the contract for lower. This is the only way I will use an agent going forward.

Smart Choice Realty

I sold FSBO and gave any realtor 3% who brought me a buyer and did all the paperwork.