re: Selling Home with Agent but Found Buyer Myself

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As an aside, I can’t stand the Realtor system. It’s incredibly archaic but has lasted due to the high potential opportunity costs and apathy by the buyer (buyers don’t directly pay it thus they have Realtors, who obviously don’t want to show a FSBO home). I’m hoping that the selling market eventually becomes more like the rental one, where tenants and landlords can use a realtor if they want, but it’s perfectly normal for individuals to not do so. In the last decade I believe we’ve seen some erosion in the fee structure, from a standard 6% to 5.5, if not 5% in certain situations. Nonetheless, I thought the change would be faster with the introduction of zillow and the likes.

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But yet you chose to use one at least twice? With Zillow and FSBO sites, I don't see why most adults of average intelligence bring agents into the deal. For your first house, okay, but after that you should have a decent understanding that the title company and the lender do most of the work.

As far the existing deal, it seems to me that you present the numbers to the agent in a fashion that the only way this deal goes through is if you only pay him 3% (or whatever you deem worthy.) Then he can help push this through or not. Let him know that you and the buyer are willing to wait out the contract if needed.

Best of luck.

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For the sake of argument, the listing realtor could always argue that they are responsible for any leads as even a coworkers or family friends would view the Zillow listing and photos, and might only know the home was for sale due to a Zillow listing. To continue the argument into further absurdity, couldn’t any near-future real estate agent that solicited me after the home was delisted, due to my firing the original agent, have been said to be alerted of the home due to the original listing?

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While I applaud the effort of mental gymnastics here this doesn’t exist. Your realtor paid probably $150 for those professional photos and he owns them. He also spent his time uploading the listing onto the MLS and into the IDX which then pushes everything to Zillow. If a new realtor gets the listing then that person will also pay for photos and take the same steps as the first realtor. That second realtor would then be responsible for the listing.

Just talk to him and say the person doesn’t have an agent but his offer is less than I’m willing to accept. The only way the deal gets done is if he’ll not charge on the buyer side. He’ll then have to decide if he wants to get the deal done or not. I’d put it on his plate and see what he does.

Next time don’t sign a 6% commission agreement. You should’ve been able to sell for 1% on listing side and 2% on buyers side.

“For the sake of argument”. I like how you want people to believe that absolves you when you ask about doing something that you know is wrong.

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You are in a bad spot on this. Read the contract, it says you owe and you also owe if it can be shown the buyer initiated interest while the contract was in place. Realtor’s will absolutely enforce this and file suit if needed to protect their contacts and to ensure it does not become a common thing. Maybe you can have a discussion with the agent and work our a reasonable fee.

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Hey hey hey. Somebody giving good, legal advice in a real estate thread.

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Maybe you can have a discussion with the agent and work our a reasonable fee.

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Best thing to do, tell the agent the buyer is willing to wait until the listing expires, you can make maybe 1% now for your efforts, or nothing later.

(no message)

At least come on back and let us know what your listing agent says....

You should contact an attorney with experience with real estate contracts. I don't know that you can simply fire the agent without cause and consequences.

You are talking about a valuable property. I would think the real estate company would sue you for the commission you tried to skip out on, their attorney fees, and court costs.

If the buyer found you, why do you have to pay a buyer's commish?

Some of those contracts have stipulations that if the house sells within a certain period of time after the contract ends, then they are owed their fee. I recall a situation where a new agent came on to sell a property, did their marketing and paid for staging which did not take place with the first one; went to contract within days; the new agent had to split the commission with the original agent because the buyer was someone that came in the first time it was listed.

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they’ll let me save the buyer agent commission.

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I don’t think your listing agent has any claim on the buy side commission