How much the agent's commission should be?

[Jun Valasek]

I've been selling my house since August and it seems I can't find a good buyer. I decided to have some agents.. How much or what percentage should I offer to any agent?

Thanks a lot

[stevetrang]

Most agents ask for 6%. Some brokerages ask for 7%. Be wary of anybody that says there's a standard commission percentage, as that is a violation of the Sherman anti-trust act.

[sweetdeboo]

I belongs to Delhi, India here the agent commession is 2 to 5 %......

[lylej]

There is no set commission, as that is illegal. Many agents who only list properties are open to negotiation.

[maryd]

In Arizona, the "typical" buyers agent fee offered in the MLS is 2.5 to 4% However, if you've been on the market since August, you may want to re evaluate your price. It may be a tad high

[jamesww]

I've been selling my house since August and it seems I can't find a good buyer. I decided to have some agents.. How much or what percentage should I offer to any agent?

Thanks a lot

Jun,

If you are overpriced increasing the commission will do little good. If you are near comparable solds and still having issues then you need to make sure you home is staged. If it is staged well and priced at comps then you can gain a major advantage at getting your home sold by offering a larger commission to the buyer's agent. Taking on this strategy you must promote the difference in commission. What you should do is make sure that your agent is distributing knowledge that your listing has a higher commission via fax and flyers dropped at offices. The flyer should discuss the property and then on all four corners have a star burst with something to the affect of 4% BAC or SAC depending on the agent nomenclature for your area.

The amount of the commission depends on what the average commission offered to buyer's agents in your local MLS. Whatever this number is an increase of 1% and the suggestions above on getting it noticed will help. Now with this said it is more important to stage and price at the comps.

[satxproperty]

Are there any ethical issues with a buyer's agent that pushes one property over the other based on the compensation that the agent might receive?

[thataway61]

There is no "Standard" commission in the industry. Each company is free to charge what they wish.

Are there any ethical issues with a buyer's agent that pushes one property over the other based on the compensation that the agent might receive?

Yes, there are ethical issues if any agent "pushes" any single property. However, if there is an apple that pays 2.5% and another apple that pays 4%, I certainly would put the 4% apple in the mix for the buyer to look at. If he chooses the 2.5% apple, that is the choice of the buyer and you do the best darn job of representing the buyers interest regardless of the apple he chooses.

[johndale]

Some would go for overboarding that's why you have to double check the maximum in some areas. Around 3 to 4% on our country.

[SLP-NYCT]

I can not believe how many of you are actually discussing commission openly here. That too is a violation of the Sherman Anti Trust act since we are among mixed (different) companies. May I suggest you edit the posts to say.

There is no "Standard" commission in the industry. Each company is free to charge what they wish.

and then go on to tell this person some of the mistakes sellers make?

Read up on the Sherman Act violation cases and you will see very few actually had to do with a conspiracy to fix prices and more of them had to do with discussing them like you are doing here.

Randy, in NY, if you do not have a Buyer Agency Contract (Agreements) signed stating what you will or won't show them, you have to show them everything, including those listings that pay nothing. Every Buyer's agent should be utilizing one of these contracts even if only for an hour or a day.