Buying and Selling: April 2008 Archives

I just last week closed a transaction where my clients did not make the high bid (or even close), but did get the fully negotiated purchase contract and the property. By building an airtight case that this client was capable of promptly consummating the transaction, I persuaded a rational seller to accept less money than they might theoretically have gotten from another interested party.

Let me make it very clear that this does not work every time. It takes a seller with a certain amount of knowledge of the market to make it work, and their agent cannot be clueless either. Your first time home seller with no knowledge of the reasons why transactions fail, or how frequently, is not likely to realize where the probability of money is. So after that seller eats carrying costs for the property for two to three months at several thousand dollars per month before they discover that the buyer cannot consummate the transaction, they might start to get rational about what's important - providing they haven't lost the property to foreclosure in the meantime.

The better the agent is, the more likely they are to be on the side of the more certain transaction. Over forty percent of all escrows started in the last year locally did not result in consummated transactions. Why did all those transactions fall apart? The loan couldn't be done. No other reason but "the loan couldn't be done." Transactions that fall apart for other reasons - newly discovered major repairs, and all of the little problems with interpersonal relationships that strike between contract and recording - are mostly unknowable in advance. We can all spot the purchase offer (or seller's counter) that says "Danger, Will Robinson!" but most of them aren't that bad. And the fact is, no matter how unwilling sellers may be to deal with newly discovered issues, they're stuck with them and the buyer isn't. Nobody's going to buy a house where you can't flush the toilets, as I had to explain at length to a listing agent about a year ago (Indeed, both law and lenders will make it very difficult). The most important question in the mind of any rational seller or listing agent has got to be, "What assurance do I have that this buyer can consummate this transaction in a timely fashion?"

As a buyer's agent, that's what you want to sell in a competitive bid situation: increased certainty of the transaction happening.. Confidence that you and your client can make it happen, given the opportunity. Show the sellers why these buyers are qualified. Telling nothing but the truth, paint a coherent picture of an easy transaction. This is one of the big reasons why real estate agents need to understand loans, whether they're on the listing or buying side. Walk the walk, don't just talk the talk. If your clients are all cash buyers, pound the point home - and get rid of that financing contingency! What's the credit score? What's the income, how stable is it, what's the debt to income ratio? The loan to value ratio? With client approval, you can even remove the account numbers from statements, and show them where the funds for the down payment are coming from!

Pre-Approval or Pre-Qualification letters will not get this job done. Neither one of them means anything real. I'll write them, but the only one I trust is one that I wrote. Why should I expect any other agent to give them any more weight?

The more qualified the buyers, the bigger the down payment and deposit they're bringing in, the better this works. A good sized deposit says you and your buyers are confident you can get it done, particularly if you'll waive one or more of the usual contingencies.

You do need both a good agent and a good loan officer to make it work. If the loan officer and agent are both the same person, that's even better, but this isn't happening with a discounter if the listing agent has more than an hour in the business, even if they're a discounter themselves (although I've never had a competitive bid situation happening with a discounter's listing. I don't wonder why, and you shouldn't either).

This pretty much can't work if you're in a Dual Agency situation. That agent counsels the owner to take the offer made where they get both halves of the listing commission, but the owner gets less money? Ten minutes in court or a regulatory hearing and that agent is toast. Yes, some agents are that stupid - but this is a mistake nobody makes twice, because once puts them out of the business. Not to mention that that owner is going to figure that the agent is out to line their own pocket at their client's expense.

For my buyer clients, I'm always looking for something valuable to the seller that isn't cash, or isn't purchase price cash. This is one of the best, because it doesn't cost my clients a darned thing, and yet it really is valuable to sellers.

Caveat Emptor

Article UPDATED here

I don't know how many people have told me the story of the Purchase Offer That Was Accepted But Couldn't Be Done. They come to me because they lost their deposit or are about to and they want some way to make it not happen.

But it's never happened to offers I write for my buyer clients. I doubt it ever will. There are many reasons why real estate agents need to know and understand loans. First off, to save their backside. Somebody defaults on a purchase money loan, the agent is an obvious target to drag in. E&O insurance plus fiduciary responsibility equals rewarding target for lawsuit. The second reason is even more important than that: Saving the client relationship. What could possibly be more damaging for a buyer's agent than losing a client's deposit? There really isn't much. When I write a purchase offer, the built in structure is always of a loan I know that I can do.

This is particularly important where there's less than 20% down payment being contemplated. For the last ten years, there's pretty much always been a loan that could be done, no matter how poorly qualified someone was. That has now gone by the wayside. Stated Income and NINA loans are now much more difficult to find, and with declining market designators, I'm not certain I can do 90% Loan to Value loans stated income at all right now, even for a primary residence.

All government programs - VA loans, FHA Loans, FHA Secure (not a purchase money program), Mortgage Credit Certificate, and locally based first time buyer assistance - all require qualifying based upon full documentation of income.

Given this, you have to know if you can afford it before you make an offer. You're going to spend roughly $1000 to pay for an inspection and an appraisal as soon as you have an accepted offer, not to mention you're tying up a deposit of several thousand dollars in escrow - a deposit that's potentially "at risk" if you are unable to qualify for the loan that will allow you to purchase the property.

I know that I'm not very respectful of pre-approval, let alone pre-qualification. This is because there are no real standards for either one, and I've seen enough pieces of paper swearing a loan could be done when it in fact could not to make a fair sized bonfire. There are several reasons for this. There just isn't anything to gain personally, and everything to lose, for a loan officer to tell someone "Sorry, but you do not appear to qualify." So they issue the pre-qualification or pre-approval on hope and a prayer, because they might be able to get a loan done.

So you want to make the loan officer go over the numbers with you" Debt to Income ratio, Loan to Value ratio. Add up all of your other debt, add up the full payments for principal and interest, property taxes, and homeowner's insurance. What percentage of your verifiable monthly income (monthly average over the past two years) is that? How much do you have available to use in your bank and investment accounts? Does that cover the projected down payment and sufficient money for the closing costs you'll need to pay? If you need to buy the loan down with three points in order to qualify on debt to income ratio, is there still enough available to make the required down payment?

In some cases, writing the purchase offer correctly - structuring the transaction with the loan in mind - can make a difference between a loan and a purchase that can be done, and one that cannot. This is definitely the case if you are looking for anything over ninety percent financing, and especially if you want 100% financing. The only 100% financing available right now that doesn't require being extremely careful about how you write the purchase contract is VA. It can be done, even in declining markets, but you have to be extremely careful to write that purchase offer in consideration of loan requirements.

Now if your real estate agent is a highly qualified loan officer, it's no sweat. I write every purchase offer with prospective loans in mind. If I don't know I can do the loan, I find another way to write the purchase contract so that it can be done.

The time of writing a purchase contract and worrying about the loan after acceptance is gone, and it may not return. Even for well qualified borrowers with plenty of income and down payment, it can't hurt to get a loan officer involved when making an offer. For those with marginal income and not much down payment, getting a loan officer involved before you write an offer (or accept a counter) can make the difference between a viable transaction, and one where everyone's wasting their time and money. Yes, you can potentially renegotiate a purchase contract later. Is there anyone who wants to tell me that's as good as getting it right in the first place? Do you think you might be opening the door to issues of trust between buyer and seller getting in the way on those renegotiations? Do you think that the seller might demand fresh concessions, where if it had been negotiated correctly in the first place, you would have something that's essentially the same terms as the initial contract? Not to mention time lost, delays in closing, opportunities for the entire transaction to go south? Write your offers with loans that can and cannot be done firmly in mind, and you won't need to renegotiate for the sake of the loan.

Caveat Emptor

Article UPDATED here

Here was an idea I had: Pack a list of the most important things consumers need to know about buying real estate, as packed into the words I can say in sixty seconds without sounding like an over-clocked squirrel.

Here goes:

Spend some time making your property shine before you put it on the market. Doing it yourself is better than giving an allowance. Spend the effort to find a good listing agent, and sign a listing agreement at least a week before you want people to know your property is for sale. Consult the agent as to what can be done to make the property more attractive before anyone sees it. Agree to pay your listing agent for the good they do, and offer buyer's agents at least an average commission - you don't want them trying to sell someone else's property to the people who like yours.

The property is only worth what someone will pay. Price it correctly from day one. You'll end up with more money, faster, than if you start too high and reduce the price. Not all goods are in the form of cash - decide what's important to you, what's not, and how much money it's worth, before you have an offer.

Once the property hits the market, make the property as available for showing as you possibly can. If you don't show it when people want to see it, they might not come back. If you possibly can, don't be there when your prospective buyers are.

Negotiations are give and take. You shouldn't expect to get unless you're willing to give, and a stubborn attitude can sabotage your sale. Remember, you have a property and you want cash. There are lots of other properties out there

How's that?

PS: You might want to give this guy a chance to earn your business!

Article UPDATED here

I've been saying this for a long time: Short sales are poison for buyers. I don't know why people encourage buyers to look at short sales, because there is no advantage for buyers that I am aware of. In fact, there are several decided disadvantages. I'd much rather make offers on lender owned property, or anything else for that matter.

For those sellers who desperately need to sell, which is pretty much every short sale, I really am sorry. But I have a fiduciary responsibility to my buyer clients, who come to me wanting a better property for less money, and less hassle. The facts of life in short sales work against getting a bargain, while sabotaging our (mine and my clients) ability to control the transaction. Therefore, I advise against. Much better for buyers to look for lender-owned or other property.

The issues lie with the lenders, who are in denial of the situation. I've never come across anyone in any lender's short sale department who didn't have their head stuck in cloud-cuckoo land. Instead of making a prompt approval or disapproval of an offer, they sit and delay and hope for a better one. Most often, I've got the purchase financing ready to go in about two and a half weeks from the date of the purchase contract. For any other property, it's pretty trivial for the listing agent to be ready to close by then. We're done, and my client is happy.

For short sales, we usually won't get word as to what the lender is going to do for at least a month after that. I've literally never had an approval from a short sale lender within a normal escrow period of thirty days. This has implications for the buyer's loan. Mortgage Loan Rate Locks are more expensive for longer periods. Pulling a rate sheet at random, a 45 day rate lock adds a sixth of a point to the costs for a thirty day lock, while a sixty day lock adds four tenths of a point. On a $400,000 loan, this works out to roughly $667 and $1600, respectively. If you need an extension, a tenth of a point (roughly $400) buys five calendar days. Some lenders aren't extending locks at all for loans above the conforming limits. Or buyers can float the rate, leaving themselves at the mercy of the financial markets as to the loan they might eventually get. None of these is an optimal situation from a buyer's point of view.

When they do respond, the short sale lender will always try to squeeze more money out of the transaction. They're in denial about their loss, with the practical effect of making that loss worse. The property is only worth what it's worth. The first few days on the market are the best time to get the highest offer. If you didn't get an offer then, you're not likely to get more money later, as I said in How to Sell Your Home Quickly and For The Best Possible Price. But loss mitigation departments are congenitally clueless about this - and they will forget whatever you manage to teach them within 4.3 nanoseconds. They are structured towards shaking the most possible money out of the transaction, and seem completely unable to learn that all this does is result in a failed transaction, no matter how many times it happens. What's that definition of insanity again?

So what usually happens (after 45 to 60 days - weeks after my buyer clients could be living in any other property) is that the lender wants two things: A higher price out of my buyers, and a commission reduction on my part. I'm not going to say that I'm in love with commission reductions, but I'll agree in order to make clients happy. But the deal-killer is that they want the buyer to make a higher offer. Ladies and gentlemen, I went out and negotiated a good deal that my client is willing to accept with the seller, despite all of the delays and problems in short sales, and here's this third party essentially vetoing the purchase contract. If I did get a heck of a deal, it's now gone. In any case, my clients are going to be unhappy, being presented with what amounts to an ultimatum: Pay more money or lose the property. Show of hands, please: Is there anybody reading this that would be happy to get such an ultimatum? Unilaterally attempting to alter the purchase contract is forbidden with any other transaction. Why in the world would a rational buyer want to subject themselves to that? Why would any but the most clueless of agents not discourage them from doing so? I'm not going to say it's impossible to get a great bargain on a short sale, but it is highly unlikely.

I do consider my clients being willing to deal with a short sale to be worth some serious concessions in the purchase contract, as does every other agent with any experience in dealing with them. So it's not difficult to negotiate a pretty good bargain initially - but it's extremely difficult to keep that contract intact when the short sale lender gets involved, because their priority, the only thing that's on their radar screen, is shaking as much money as possible out of all the participants.

Nor is there anything I can do as a buyer's agent that's going to make the transaction fly faster, or prevent the short sale lender from sabotaging it. I can argue until I'm blue in the face. They're not going to listen to me. They might listen to the listing agent, but not the buyer's agent. I can help them with what to say, but I'm still relying upon someone else to convince that short sale lender. Whatever they do, they're going to take their own sweet time responding, hoping for a better offer.

The cold hard statistics is over eighty percent of all short sales fall apart, and most often it doesn't even get as far as whether the buyer is qualified. The short sale lender wants more out of the buyer, wants the seller to come up with more money than they've got, the buyer gets tired of waiting and moves on - something. No matter what is is, my buyer isn't going to be happy. Quite often, I get the blame, at least in my client's mind, for the transaction failing - even if I warned them as to why this was a bad idea in the first place.

If you do get an approval from a short sale lender, quite often they're written on a ridiculously short deadline. Given all of the facts above, I'm not going to advise my buyer clients to spend their money on appraisal, inspector, etcetera until we do have an approval. That's just money thrown away if the short sale lender doesn't approve it. But waiting on them means it's likely to take more than a week to get the loan done once we do have an approval - and dealing with a one week deadline was an actual experience I had once. Not to mention the effects of waiting for such an approval on the buyer's due diligence period, and possible exposure to loss of my client's deposit (at the very least, it's sitting there tied up in escrow while everything gets sorted out).

Seller paid closing costs, integral to most transactions currently, and Down Payment Assistance are also extremely difficult to get approved. These are money out of the lender's pocket, and they're going to require a higher than what they consider "market" price in order to compensate them. This is intelligent and reasonable, but if you're looking for a bargain due to them not understanding their bottom line, it's not going to happen, and in fact, when one or both of these things are part of most transactions, the "market" is priced to include them. Result: The buyer who needs one or both of these is likely to have to pay more for a short sale than any other property they might fix their eye upon. And those buyers are wanting me to find them a better property, cheaper. Are you still in doubt as to why I advise buyers against short sales?

It is far more fruitful for most buyers to focus on properties in other categories. For this particular property, better to wait until is is lender owned, at which point the bank is on the hook, paying money out of their pocket, and usually the money tied up in this non-performing asset costs that lender heavily in leverage on their working capital. Lender owned properties get turned over to different employees, with different performance incentives, with the instruction of getting that property off the lender's books! The money this costs the lender is their own management's fault.

For any lenders reading this and not liking it: The responsible party is you. If you don't want them to become lender owned and cost you much more money, get real about your short sales! Publicize your criteria so buyers and their agents will know they're not getting into a "black hole" situation, and respond in a timely and reasonable fashion without trying to leave people who weren't involved (the prospective buyer and both agents) holding the bag for your mistake. It will save you money by dealing with the situation before it goes to Trustee's Sale.

As far as writing this article goes, the only one I have any sympathy for is the current owner, who really does need to sell. No matter what past sins they may or may not have committed, that owner is currently trying to face reality and deal with it. As the buyer, however, unless you believe that seller's plight is worth wasting several tens of thousands of your dollars, there's nothing you can do. Buyers should avoid short sales. They're not likely to end up happy.

Caveat Emptor

Article UPDATED here

Most of the articles and things I read about the price of gas seems to be based upon an implicit assumption that the price of gas is only as high as it is temporarily. This is not the case. Gas isn't going to get significantly cheaper than today. As a matter of fact, the way to bet is that the price ten years from no will be much higher. It's a matter of supply and demand. Two billion people in China and India are joining the consumer society, and they want our standard of living. Today, there was an article in AP headlined Gas guzzlers a hit in China, where car sales are booming.

But while sport utility vehicle sales in the U.S. are tumbling, automakers are finding that for China's newly prosperous car buyers, bigger is still better.

So General Motors Corp. has made the Escalade a star of its auto-show display and is eager to get it on the market here.

"If you look at the fastest-growing market segments in China, there are two - SUVs and luxury cars," said Joseph Y.H. Liu, GM China's vice president for sales and marketing.

It isn't a matter of price gouging by the oil companies, or even by OPEC. The real bottleneck is in refining capacity. Oh, there's only a finite supply of oil and eventually it will all be gone. But right now, the things limiting supply are how fast we can get it out of the ground, and how fast it can be refined to a usable form. Doesn't matter how much water is in the lake if you need more supply faster than the pipes can carry it.

Suburban and exurban real estate grew on cheap gas. Five years ago, gas was $1.40 per gallon. A car that gets 20 mph can go 70 miles on $5 worth of $1.40 gas. With gas around here up over $3.80 per gallon, things aren't nearly so rosy. Instead of 70 miles, that $5 will only barely take you marathon distance (26.3 miles), and it's going to get worse. At $5 per gallon, the consumer with a job in downtown San Diego who lives in Temecula (60 miles) has gone from spending roughly $2100 per year on gas for their commute to $7500 per year. That difference of $5400 is $450 per month right out of the family budget. In most cases, two spouses are driving separately, which means that difference goes to $900 per month, or almost $11,000 per year right out of their after tax income.

Temecula isn't the furthest of San Diego's bedroom communities by any means. I know people who commute from Lake Elsinore, Hemet, and El Centro. Many commutes are over 100 miles, plus all the people from even further afield (for instance, Yuma, Arizona) who may not commute every day, but have doctors or other activities here. Despite greatly augmented gas mileage, hybrids aren't going to offset this increase and even if they were, people would be adding the cost of at least one new car in order to do so. I don't know if you've looked recently, but hybrids aren't economy car priced.

With this effectively raising the cost of property further from the job, one of two things will need to happen: Either the places where the jobs are will have to relocate to the exurbs where their workers can afford to live, or people will have to start finding places to live closer to their jobs. The person in the next cubicle over who lives in Clairemont will have the same gas bill that someone from Temecula had five years ago. The older communities closer in have long been less attractive than new developments further out, but raise the price of making that trip enough, and the macroeconomic reality will force people to start thinking more in terms of shortening the commute, even if it means they have to settle for a 1200 square foot house built in 1950 instead of a new 2600 square foot one way out in the exurbs. People are willing to make sacrifices when it's mostly time out of their day, but when it's a continuing drain on the wallet that means little Billy can have an 8x8 bedroom and food, clothes, and a college fund, or a 15x12 bedroom and none of the others, you can expect more people to start choosing the former.

What this means is that exurban bedroom communities become less valuable, while older communities closer in to the job centers become more valuable. For those who may not realize what I'm saying, the closer it is to places where people work, the more valuable it will become. This factor has always been present, and the cost to commute has always been part of the cost of the property, no matter how many people pretended it wasn't. It will become a more important component as time goes by and gas prices rise further. And the further people have to drive to work every day, the less a given area will be worth. The people who work there won't have these costs, of course, but most of the skilled trades that get substantial paychecks have to work in the main job centers, and there aren't as many of those in Hemet or Westmoreland as there are in the central areas of San Diego. Corporate facilities are where they are, and if you can't afford to commute, you're either not going to work there or not going to live there. This has implications not only for where corporations decide to do business, but for zoning regulations as well.

Caveat Emptor

From an e-mail

I've been talking to agents lately and I ask them about the things I've learned about from your site. I thought I would say things like "I want to apply for a backup loan" and they would say "Good idea!" instead of "Why would you do that?" I try to answer the why and next thing you know none of my why's make sense anymore. Here is a summary of that conversation:

Me: Okay, so I need to get a "pre-approval" or "pre-whatever" from a lender so I can put an offer on this house . . . that sounds fair . . . but I want to shop my loan around and in fact, I want to get a backup loan.

Agent: Backup loan? What for?

Me: Because from what I understand what you are told at first isn't what gets delivered and you are at the mercy of the loan officer if you don't have a backup plan

Agent: They have to fill out the form and give you what they promise so you are protected.

Me: So it's the law that they deliver what they fill out on this form?

Agent: No, it's not the law but they wouldn't dare change the terms or I wouldn't recommend them.

Me: Well, most people don't know they're getting screwed until later and most of the ones that notice don't do anything about it.

Agent: Well, if you hire me to be your agent then you should trust my advice . . . otherwise why would you hire me?

A similar conversation ensued when I talked about a "exclusive" vs "non-exclusive" buyer's agent agreement. "There is no such thing as "non-exclusive"". What is the benefit to you? If I have multiple agents then they all work to find me the perfect house and the one that finds me the one I like is the one that get's rewarded. Nope! If you tell an agent you have other agents he won't work with you. Okay, well, I wouldn't tell the other agents. But any good agent is going to make you sign an exclusive agreement.

Anyway, the sales techniques here are right up there with car salesman.

Let me ask you about your experience with monopolies? Your electric provider, mass transit provider, cable provider - do they furnish top notch customer service? Do you think someone might be able to do better, cheaper? Quite likely, because monopoly situations encourage rent seeking behavior. Monopolies are the classic example of rent seeking - do business with them, or not at all, meaning you're stuck with whatever service they choose to give you at whatever price. Why in the world would you do that to yourself?

Only two possible reasons: You don't have a choice or you don't know any better. You do have a choice, no matter how much various people may choose to pretend you don't. I certainly haven't noticed any shortage of real estate agents or loan officers. There's something like 7500 licensees in San Diego County alone. That leaves you don't know any better. It doesn't matter whether it's through ignorance or not following through on the knowledge.

In fact, if you think about it, someone who insists upon exclusive rights to your business is telling you they're worried about comparisons to other professionals. They're telling you they're afraid they can't compete and they're not willing to try. Does this sound like someone who's likely to give you the best service? Someone who's not willing to compete?

Just because an exclusive agreement isn't in the consumer's interest doesn't mean that it isn't very desirable for agents. In fact, most agents take a lot of classes in learning how to lock your business up and cut out the competition before anyone else gets to the starting line - several times more training than the average agent ever takes in learning how to actually give good service and good value to their clients. Look at the average agent symposium sometime. There will be easily ten times more offerings in how to cut out the competition than there will be in how to get your clients the best value. If the average agent doesn't offer a non-exclusve buyer's agency contract, they can pretend such a thing doesn't exist. It does exist; it's available in every state. In California, it's form BBNE in WinForms, the standard computerized package. But if they can persuade you to sign an exclusive contract, they're guaranteed to get whatever buyer's agency commission is due - before they've done any real work, before they've demonstrated that they are really going to guard your interests at all. I've written about the drawbacks of an exclusive agreement before, and even given examples in shopping for an agent, and the games that get played with consumers by agents. If you've signed an exclusive agreement, you're stuck. If you don't, you're not - indeed you keep far more control in your own hands.

Some agents will try to sidetrack you with an exclusive agreement "but you can fire me any time you want!" The first question is where is that written into the agreement? Show me please. In fact, the standard exclusive contract is written to be very difficult to break for any reason. The second question is that even if it is written in, how is that not functionally equivalent to a non-exclusive contract? The answer to that is they've still got your business locked up until and unless they make an obvious blunder. As long as they don't make that obvious blunder, they're still in the driver's seat. But this doesn't mean that they're a good agent - you have no standards for comparison. Indeed, you are agreeing not to acquire any standards for comparison. Matter of fact, they can be the worst excuse for an agent ever and still not make any mistakes that most people are going to fire them for. Plead for one more chance, and most people will give it - dozens of times. The bottom line is that they still avoid any chance at having to compete.

Now just because your agreement is non-exclusive doesn't mean you have to go find other agents. At least half of my clients never talk to another agent. But they have the option of doing so, and that knowledge is one of the things that motivates me to do the best job I can for my clients, and why I keep the list of clients I'm working with at any time short enough so that I'm certain I can handle them all with no deterioration of service. If I don't, they can fire me and find another agent as easy as crossing the street. That motivation just isn't there if you give someone an exclusive agreement. Do you want the agent whose motivation is to concentrate on giving a few clients the best job they can possibly give, or do you want the agent who's a half-notch above getting fired, whose motivations are to lock up as many clients as possible, secure in the knowledge that none of those clients are likely to actually fire them? And if they're confident they can give you such a terrific job, why are they requiring an exclusive agreement? If they're really that good, they should be eager to compete. That;s the best confirmation of their abilities possible - the fact that someone else tried and couldn't do it! As I've said, most of my clients see the job I do and never talk to another agent, and most of those who do end up telling me how much I shine by comparison. But it takes confidence in my own ability to offer that non-exclusive agreement. The ones who won't are telling you that they don't have that confidence. Do you think there might possibly be a reason for that lack of confidence?

Probably the largest number of agents and loan officers compete by being what I call "Social predators" Involved in Boy Scouts, Soccer, Little League, the church, PTA, whatever. They try to make those they come into contact feel obligated to do business with them, because they are after all, a good guy (or girl), they help the cause, etcetera. Surely such a person is worthy of trust? Surely they will treat you right? They lock up the business with an exclusive agreement or a large deposit, raising the barrier to competition as high as they can. This effectively sets you up for the kill. My personal experience leads me to believe that such agents and loan officers are responsible for a truly outsized proportion of the people who are losing their property to foreclosure in the current crisis. It seems like everyone I come across who's in the process of foreclosure has a "social predator" story to tell. Most of them have no clue what happened until I dissect the entire process and show them that their "little boy's wonderful scoutmaster" bent them over and took advantage. The thought process is natural, but the conclusion does not follow from the premise - a thing most people don't understand until how it bit them (past tense) is plainer than the nose on their face.

Ronald Reagan loved a very applicable phrase: Trust but Verify. It's not accident that this principle, which he applied as President, served him and the country very well. On a more personal level, you are willing to trust agents with your business (otherwise you wouldn't be talking to them), but you want to verify that they're earning it. You're not willing to take trust to the level of the spouse who's clueless about their spouse telling them they worked late when they come home at 3AM six nights in a row smelling like someone else's perfume or cologne. This is the best function of a non-exclusive buyer's agency agreement. This means you still have the right to go out and get the only valid standard of comparison: Another agent who has the same opportunity to do the same job as them.

In your situation, I'd be very blunt: "What you're telling me about requiring an exclusive contract makes me believe that you know very well you don't measure up to a good standard. In fact, the harder you argue for an exclusive agreement, the less willing I am to believe you are worthy of one. I'll willingly give you a chance to earn my business with a non-exclusive agreement, but I'm not going to sign any exclusive agreements with anyone. Since you're not willing to sign a non-exclusive agreement, I am wasting my time. Good-bye." They have as long as it takes you to get to the door to change their mind. Walk out and never look back - find someone else who will offer non-exclusive agreement.. In fact, taking this stand in your self defense is the first and most critical point of Shopping for a good buyer's agent. The standard non-exclusive contract is truly a bet you cannot lose as a consumer. There literally is no risk. Doesn't matter if they're a freshly minted licensee who's never done a transaction in their life (How often do you hear that from someone who actually has significant experience?). Go ahead and sign a non-exclusive agreement, and the worst that can happen is they don't get the job done. You're still free to use anyone else who does. You have lost exactly nothing - as a matter of fact, both you and that agent are mathematically, provably ahead for having signed that non-exclusive contract! Hiring them thus can only increase the probability function in your favor! This improvement may be marginal or even zero, but so long as you do your due diligence it cannot be negative.

The same thing applies to the loan officer an agent recommends. The reason they're choosing that loan officer has nothing to do with the best choice for you and everything to do with the best choice for them. That's a loan officer they trust not to screw up the transaction by telling you, "You know, I'm not certain you can really afford this property." That's the loan officer they trust, by hook or by crook, to have a loan ready at the close of escrow, no matter what it takes, so that that agent can get paid. Has nothing to do with how good their loans are, how competitive they are, or any other advantage to you - only that they trust that loan officer to insure their paycheck. That's what the agent is really telling you. The loan officer may be really good, and very competitive on price. Then again, they may not, and the one thing I'd bet significant money on, sight unseen, is that they will never tell you that maybe you're stretching beyond your means - that agent will never send them another client if they do! The only agents I'm certain could tell the difference between good loans and loan officers and bad ones if it bit them are the ones who are also loan officers themselves.

If an agent is recommending a loan officer on the basis of "This person wouldn't dare cheat my clients!", ask them for a copy of the initial MLDS (California) or Good Faith Estimate (the other 49 states) and a copy of the final HUD 1 for that loan officer's last five transactions with their client. (sarcasm on) What, they don't have them? What a surprise (end sarcasm). But if they don't, how can they possibly know whether that loan officer does or does not quote accurately? You've just asked for the only possible evidence, and they don't have it! Nor does this cover how well they compete on price, and as long as the terms are the same and the rate/cost tradeoff is better, a loan is a loan is a loan. There is no reason not to apply for multiple loans and see which loan officer actually has the best loan ready to go at signing time. In fact, to do anything else is trusting someone without verifying - you have no effective control upon their behavior at the end of the transaction. Maybe they'll treat you right, even without such. But loan officers can make more money very easily by adding a few hundred dollars here, a half a point there, and if you're the only loan you signed up for, your choice is sign their paperwork and take what they offer you or don't. As I said in Getting a Loan Provider to Agree to be a Backup Loan, if you apply for two or more loans, you can explain to both providers how they shouldn't be worried about the other one if they're telling the truth, so the only reason for them not to cooperate is if they're not telling the truth. "Trust but verify". It really is a simple, powerful formula, but to use it effectively you've got to understand that it's not words that are important, but actions.

You're right that these sales techniques have a lot in common with used-car sales. Everybody in any sales business wants to avoid competing if they can - it means they don't have to work as hard, and get higher profit margins. Consumers, for their part, need to learn to understand what actions mean, and that actions are important, not words. That's part of the reason why I'm writing this article.

Sales persons, properly handled, are your best friends in the whole world. Nobody solves your problems as well as an expert with the motivation of getting paid for their trouble, and there always seem to be problems that lay people don't realize exist until they're bitten, which is almost always far too late to avoid all the damage that's coming down the pike. Kind of like having a Terminator after you. If you don't have your own very special protector, they're going to get you. I don't like having my clients bitten - not tomorrow, not next year, not ever. One bad transaction can ruin you as an agent or a loan officer, and I intend to be doing this for the rest of my life. So I'll do everything I can to keep it from happening before it happens, and you want someone just as dedicated working for you. The only way to be certain is to watch them in action over time. But if they're asking you to sign that Exclusive Agreement beforehand, how in the heck can you possibly have the knowledge of their business practices to give it to them?

Caveat Emptor

Article UPDATED here

Way back when I was just out of high school, I was doing a lot of things with my time. Working, dating, competing on the fencing team, gaming of various sorts. But every once in a while, I dropped in on one of those math courses I was registered for at UCSD. One of those courses was Math 110, "Introduction to Partial Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems" Bozemoi. That was the course that convinced me that I was not, after all, cut out for a career as a mathematician. All the other undergraduate courses, I got a handle on fairly quickly, but the way my mind works made that one course something like having those alleged brains pounded out between two large gold bricks wrapped in lemon.

I eventually got through it. But one thing I took out of that class in no uncertain terms is the form a real solution to those equations took, and the fact that if you were missing terms ("parts of the answer" for those less mathematically inclined), your answer was wrong. Not incomplete. wrong.

One of the standard ideas of internet commerce is "cut out the middleman and their fees." You can find this in lots of fields. Some of them begin far earlier than the world wide web. "Discount" brokers have been going for decades, for both stocks and real estate. The internet certainly helped them, however. Loan quote services were probably one of the first ten business ideas on the world wide web. On-line this, on-line that. Do business with the faceless on-line corporation with cheaper fees (or none!) and you can't help but be better off, right? It's easy to illustrate that difference to just about anyone. There's money they're not spending, that anybody can point to as a savings earned by doing business in that fashion. But is that the whole story?

Indeed the whole discount proposition cannot succeed without an implicit or explicit assumption that the value you receive from having paid that fee is zero. But if that were the case, these professions would never have gotten going in the first place. Who wants to pay money you don't need to? Anybody want to raise your hand? I certainly don't. The world, humankind, and even our financial markets survived for millennia without stockbrokers, real estate agents, travel agents, or any other sort of business that is now being subjected to disintermediation. Why did these professions come about? It wasn't because our great grandparents were stupid, uninformed of the alternatives, or had no choice. They could and did buy and sell stock and real estate directly. The reason these professions, and others (such as journalism) arose is because they added value to the entire process. The people who made use of these professions profited by their choice. Not necessarily directly in dollars with every transaction, but statistically, the people who spent that money emerged notably better off in one or more important respects, and therefore, our predecessors made a choice to do so until essentially everyone did so.

There you have it: An explicit refutation of the assumption underlying the entire discounter promise. It neglects an essential term in the answer as to whether you end up better off. Was the money you didn't spend really the whole answer? What if by spending that money, you end up better off?

Suppose you save three percent by not having a real estate agent sell your property. Seems like a great idea on the surface, doesn't it? On a half million dollar property, $15,000 in your pocket for what you think is a few hours of work. I'll even start by granting you the same ability to market that an agent has, which isn't the case for the vast majority. But what happens if the price you pick isn't right for your market? I've gone over that. What happens if you don't disclose everything you need to? Then let's consider negotiations. Trying to match wits against a buyer's agent whose been in everything that sold in your neighborhood in the last six months is a guaranteed lose. Do you know what's appropriate for contingent sales? What about negotiating repairs disclosed by inspection? These and many other things need to be negotiated, and just telling the other side to do it your way will result in a failed transaction. Do you know how to find out if a buyer is qualified? The two months you spend waiting to find out that your prospective buyer can't qualify costs you roughly six thousand dollars all by itself. I could go on and on.

The same applies on the buyer's side. In the current environment, any decent buyer's agent who tries can make at least a ten percent difference by suggesting the correct property, negotiating to their strengths, and using the seller's weaknesses against them. Usually it's more than that. My average is running about twenty percent. Sound like a good bargain to you? Spend ten to twenty percent to save three? If so, come on into my office, and I'll give you $30 for $100 until you're broke.

The intelligent question is: Does spending that money save you more than it costs? Most people will spend $10 to save $100. That's rational. Most people will spend $90 to save $100. That's still rational. Some people will spend more than a hundred dollars to save $100, though, and that's not rational. Nor are all of the costs in money, either. How do you quantify not making a mistake that most people don't know is there until and unless it bites them?

That's really the whole question, isn't it? Furthermore, it has to be answered individually, because few situations Admittedly, with the internet, it's gotten easier for consumers and more difficult for members of those professions. But the internet can only help you with questions you actually think to ask, and then do the work to make certain you debunk wrong answers to find out where the truth really lies. It's not going to tell you any of dozens of reasons why this freshly remodeled home of your dreams is going to turn into a nightmare.

I'm getting ready to close on a property right now where the folks contacted me with information from a popular discount model brokerage in their hand, and those were the first properties they wanted me to look at (which I did). The difference in value they are receiving for their money is such that they never went back to that discounter, because I went out and looked at properties, I gave them reasons why this property was or was not one that they were going to be happy in, I gave them reasons why this property was a Vampire while that property was not. I explained to them how the surrounding environment was going to impact them in the property. I showed them what needed to be fixed, and gave them an idea what was involved. When I found an especially good value for their money, I got them out there and told them to act fast if they wanted it - if I hadn't, it would have been gone by the weekend. I can't talk about some other stuff until the transaction is done, but I can truthfully say that I wrote an offer that the seller chose to accept even though it wasn't the highest offer they had, and the difference was a lot more than my company's three percent commission. If those kinds of services aren't worth money to you, then you're not a good candidate for my services anyway. But all that discounter had to offer was how cheap they were, while I gave my clients more value than they would have saved before they put the offer that was accepted in, and they knew it. Once the clients started thinking in terms of what they were receiving by giving up that discounter's commission rebate, the discounter never had a chance. By CMA of all comparable properties in the area, my buyers are saving at least (temporarily censored but over ten) percent, and that's just by square footage - not including all of the amenities the property has that the competing ones don't.

I'm not going to pretend this one isn't an above average bargain, even for me. I'm not going to pretend that every full service agent can make that kind of difference on every transaction, because I know it isn't true. But making more of a difference to the client than the three percent a full service agent makes is an awfully easy mark to beat for the agent who tries.

Caveat Emptor

Article UPDATED here

Here was an idea I had: Pack a list of the most important things consumers need to know about buying real estate, as packed into the words I can say in sixty seconds without sounding like an over-clocked squirrel. Here goes:

Figure out what you can really afford before you do anything else. Shop by purchase price, not payment, and refuse to look at properties which cannot believably be obtained within your budget.

Listing agents are contractually and legally obligated to sell the property as quickly as possible for the highest possible price. They represent sellers, not buyers. If the listing agent can sell you the property for $100,000 above comparable market price, they have done nothing except their job. Never allow the listing agent to represent you as a buyer.

Buyer's Agents represent buyers, not sellers, and having a good buyer's agent will make more difference than anything else to get you a better property value for less money. Get at least one buyer's agent before you start looking. Sign only non-exclusive buyer's agency contracts, insist they cover bad points as well as good on every property, and fire any agent that won't, or any agent that shows you a property that cannot be obtained within your budget.

There is no such thing as a perfect property, or the perfect time to buy real estate. Properties in immaculate condition command premium prices because the owners can get more money. If you want a bargain, be prepared to do some cosmetic work. A good buyer's agent will help you know what's cheap and easy to fix, versus what's difficult and expensive.

How was that?

Caveat Emptor

P.S.: This guy is one of the best buyer's agents there is

Article UPDATED here

Notice that it doesn't claim that you can do so legally.

I saw another of these signs on the way to the office this morning.

When things are going sour, there are any number of scam artists who will promise the moon. We had them in the early nineties, and we have a lot more of them now.

Perhaps the largest number of these are flat out liars. They have no ability and no intention of actually delivering whatever they're dangling out there as bait. They're just putting something out there to get you to call, so they can get you into their office and try to do whatever it is that they do. Most of these are probably fishing for victims of a "subject to" scam. Notice that they didn't say they could do it for everyone? "Subject to" deals are illegal, but quite often the lender will let you get away with it. Of course, if they don't, they go after the person who signed the Trust Deed, not the scamster who talked you into it. Note that if they're reasonably careful, the people who are dangling "subject to" deals are legally in the clear. Nor is it illegal (as far as I know) for them to use an advertising hook they have no intention of delivering. Even if it is illegal, it's not like anybody gets charged for the initial handmade sign by the side of the road that's long gone before there's any investigation into what happened.

Even if these people are telling the truth as far as they go, there is something wrong with this scenario.

Either 1) you weren't in a negative equity situation in the first place - you really could sell for at least what you owe on the property, or 2) You are going to commit fraud, and the lender is not going to be happy when they find out. Expect a very unpleasant visit from the FBI, large legal defense fees, and an extended vacation courtesy of Club Fed.

There is no lender in the world that is going to accept a short payoff where the borrower walks away with cash. End of discussion. That's the entire bargain you make with a lender when you borrow money. They get paid every penny they are due first - and you get only the excess, however much - or little - that may be. If their payoff is short, they will not accept you walking away with a single penny from the sale of that property. To do anything else is a violation of securities and banking regulations. The Wicked Witch of Wall Street may be politically dead, but this is one issue that the financial world has developed extreme sensitivity to.

If the lender did not know about this cash that you are supposedly getting, you are going to be committing fraud. The person who sold you this scam is very probably committing fraud as well, but you definitely are committing fraud if you do this. That lender is going to require you, the owner of the property, to sign a statement to the effect that you are not receiving any money that the lender does not know about. So let's add perjury to the list of charges against you, and quite likely conspiracy. Your defense lawyer is going to cost more than any cash you're going to get out of it.

I had someone ask me whether an agent can volunteer to just give you some money from their commission. I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I am aware, it is legal. However, if they're bringing you into their office and getting you to sign up with them to sell their house based upon such a promise while the lender ends up with a short payoff, you are still committing fraud, perjury, and conspiracy when you sign that document that says you're not getting any money from the sale from any source, and that agent is committing at least fraud and conspiracy as well. The whole set-up is pre-arranged, and that give-back is a condition of the transaction that you and the agent are both aware of, but the lender is not. This makes you guilty of those three crimes. My understanding is that In order for the "gift" to pass legal muster, it has to be a pure gift, conceived by the agent with no pre-arrangement, executed for no consideration and no exchange of value on your part. Since that is not the case - they're luring you in with the promise of cash from before they even saw you - it's not going to get past the courts. Furthermore, even if such a gift was a pure gift on the part of the agent, it's not likely that the courts or a jury is going to believe you when there are well-known scams like this going on.

People put these scams out there because they figure they've got an angle whereby they can still make money. I can think of several ways to do so off the top of my head, from using the property as bait to meet buyers (see Tina Teaser) to having you sign an agreement for a very large listing commission, and several ways in-between. All of them involve a violation of that agent's fiduciary duty to you. Show of hands: How many people would sign up with an agent who straightforwardly told you he intended to scam you, and that as a consequence of this transaction, you would be likely to spend several years in prison? Anyone?

It is kind of elegant in a way: The victim of the scam (that would be you) can't complain without putting themselves in line for several years as an involuntary guest of the taxpayers. But it's amazing how often some outside causes the whole thing to unravel. Actually, cancel that. It isn't amazing at all. Real estate and mortgage operations are all a matter of public record, and audits and record keeping are a part of life for anyone in either field. Failure to keep complete records is in itself an offense that practitioners can and do lose their licenses over, and the escrow and title companies have their own record-keeping requirements, and the lender will most certainly keep records. Matter of fact, if they can show you've committed fraud - and you have, make no mistake - then any legal shelter you may have had from their ability to collect the money they lost simply vanishes.

You don't want any of that to happen, and once you do it, you have no defense except to hope that you get unreasonably lucky, and nobody notices until the statute of limitations runs out. The only justification for doing a stupid stunt like this is if it gets you out of a worse predicament. It doesn't. If anything, it makes any existing predicament worse.

Caveat Emptor

Article UPDATED here

Here's the real issue about commissions: They need to be structured to incentivize good results - rewarding those agents who do good work, penalizing those who don't. The current structure, where the brokerage gets a flat percentage of official sales price - doesn't really motivate agents to perform. It really doesn't make a huge difference to the brokerage whether a property sells for $500,000 or $400,000. Assuming a 3% commission, they get $15,000 in the first case, while getting $12,000 in the second, despite that any monkey should be able to sell a $500k property for $400k. Basically, they get 80% of the reward for doing nothing, but that failure makes a huge difference for the property owners. If they owe $400,000, that's the difference between going on to their next property with about $60,000 in their pocket or coming up short about $30,000 and having to do a Short Payoff, with all of the resultant consequences to that family's future. Nonetheless, at 3% commission, all this means is the difference between $12,000 to the brokerage and $15,000. There is a dissonance betwen the interests of the owner, who this makes a $90,000 plus difference to, versus the agent who will still get 80% of the same paycheck if they do nothing but persuade the owner to accept the first lowball offer that comes along.

This dichotomy of interests encourages all sorts of games, from "buying a listing" (leading a homeowner to believe the property will sell for more than it will in order to secure the listing) to failing to negotiate hard to accepting too many listings to be properly serviced. If I can really service six listings, and I take ten, the individual selling prices will suffer while I make more money - ten times $12,000 is more than six times $15,000. Most agents - just like most people - will do what aligns with their interests.

The major alternatives - "net listing", where the consumer "nets" a certain amount and money over that goes to the brokerage, and "Flat fee listing" don't really float my boat either. The first has the advantage of pay for performance and severely discourages agents from over-promising on price; nonetheless the homeowner isn't motivated to maintain the property, and the agent is a little too motivated to wait for a better offer that isn't likely to come. As for the "flat fee listing", all that motivates the listing agent to do is get it sold - never mind the price. Whether the owner makes $60,000 by selling for a great price, or loses $30,000 by not getting so great of a price, that's all the same to the agent. But the owner wants it to make a difference to the agent, because they want that agent to get the best possible price, not just the first offer. As for the "flat fee in advance" listing, why should that brokerage want the property to sell at all? They've made their money already! If the property sells, now they have to do all that work and assume all that additional liability!

What we really want is a fee structure where the agent is motivated to get the highest possible price as soon as possible, the latter being more important than is generally recognized, as carrying costs eat profits very quickly, especially if the family vacates so as to show the property to best advantage and get the best price, or if they've already moved to their new home for whatever reason.

There should be several terms in this equation. It should take the form a+b+c+... For every factor the owner and the agent can agree upon having an effect upon consumer benefit, there should be a term in the compensation equation. Note that if the agent doesn't measure up in some way, any of these terms (except the one for doing the base paperwork) should be able to go negative. It's likely that good agents should be making more for listings than they are, while ineffective bozos quickly go bankrupt.

I'm not concerned with getting paid for a listing that fails to sell. In fact, I consider the concept anathema to a good agent - or any other business. If I do not get the job done, I do not deserve to be paid. Nor does any other agent or any other business. The world doesn't pay off on a good try, and my experience is that listings that don't sell aren't likely to have been a good try. I just visited a listing yesterday, a preview for a prospective client. Showing instructions said "vacant -go" Got there, it's a combo lockbox, but no combo anywhere. Spend half an hour in the front yard on the cellphone trying to get a combo from agent, listing office, number listing office referred me to, the number I was referred to from that, and so on. Finally gave up. How many others like me have there done that? Sounds like an agent who wants both halves of the commission to me, discouraging prospective buyers represented by other agents. Sound like someone you want to work with? Sound like someone you want to reward if you do inadvertently sign up with them?

This doesn't change the fact that if it does sell, there's a given amount of work no matter what the price is, and a given amount of liability. That's just part of being in this business. No matter how careful you are, no matter how good you are, eventually something is going to bite you. It's just a fact of life, and is the reason for E&O insurance. The commission structure needs to recognize this fact of life, or it will fail. But this is not how agents should earn most of their money, and most agents don't do this paperwork themselves, but have assistants paid as little as they can get away with to do it. A flat fee of $1000 is probably about right in California. Enough to pay the rent, the utilities, and the receptionist who actually generates the paperwork off WinForms.

Performance pay is a separate issue, and should be a separate term in the equation. I'll happily pay $20 to make $100 ("here's another $20 if you bring me another $100!"). The most central idea of engaging an agent is to get a better price for the property. My client shouldn't be expected to pay me if I'm not performing services of value - enabling them to get higher price for a quicker sale and less. Any twit should be able to get $300,000 for a property that's worth $400,000. That's not a valuable service, and that's not something an agent should get paid for. If the agent can't get a good enough sale price to meet even a minimum test of benefit for the client, they should lose money. If the sale price is low enough, it should eat up even the base transaction fee, or even send the commission negative - the agent pays the consumer for so badly bungling the transaction. This is nothing unusual in other businesses. Even doing mortgages, I'm perfectly prepared to pay money out of my own pocket if I can't deliver a loan on the terms I quote (for reasons other than client not telling me the whole truth, that is!). The goal is complete consumer satisfaction, and taking money when my client doesn't benefit doesn't help my business in the long term either.

This performance pay should be steeper than current standards. Between ten and twenty percent is about what I think will do the most good. Give the agent a good solid incentive to want a higher price if they think its coming, while still reserving the lion's share of the benefit to the client. If I get Joe a price $20,000 higher than he would have gotten without me, Joe should be quite happy paying me a portion of that money by prior negotiated agreement. I would be ecstatically happy to do so in the reverse situation. And if you wouldn't happily pay it, I suggest you need to be confined because you're not sane. You want the agent to have a personal incentive to make that money for you. But it should be 10-20% of the excess or shortage relative to a base amount - whatever the seller and their listing agent think it could be sold without the agent benefit. It should also be based upon the sale price net of all negotiated "seller givebacks" not related to specific later discoveries (i.e. inspections and requests for repairs based upon them). It an inspection shows unsuspected repairs costing $20,000 are needed, the seller would have to pay that anyway, and it's not the agent's fault that need exists. But the idea is that client benefit should translate into agent commission, and client detriment should translate into money out of that agent's pocket.

There should also be a healthy term built into the equation to reward or penalize the agent for a quicker sale or a slower one. This can be based upon a flat duration, or upon average days on market for properties in the same class. More expensive properties take longer to move - that's just a fact. But this component term should be based upon date of sale, and should be based upon a very high percentage of carrying costs for the property - about thirty to fifty percent, maybe even sixty. I'll happily pay fifty bucks if it means I don't have to pay a hundred! Say average days on market in a given market are roughly 120 from listing to close of escrow, and it costs $4000 per month to carry the property. So for every month above or below four months, at fifty percent carrying costs, the agent gets $2000 more or pays $2000. If it's a six month listing with no offers, the agent pays $4000 at the conclusion. This would force agents to learn what are and are not qualified offers, and force agents to live with the same kinds of tradeoffs that our clients do. No more, "Sorry that escrow didn't close. It happens," when it should be part of our business to know that that offer was pie in the sky in the first place. When it's their own pay being docked, agents will do real investigation.

So far, the structure the ideal listing commission formula looks like this. $X basic commission, plus or minus $Y price performance (based upon 10-20% commission for over- or under-performing a certain price mark, plus or minus $Z time performance. Note that all of these are based upon demonstrable good for the client, and the client ends up with more money in their pocket as a result of every penny that agent is paid in incentive.

There should be one more flat component built in, contingent upon events. You don't want agents discouraging other offers, but you don't want them turning away foolish buyers who don't want a buyer's agent either. If someone is foolish enough to come in unrepresented by an agent, you don't want to shoo them away. So a fee for handling the buyer's end of the transaction is in order if there's no buyer's agent is a good idea - roughly half a percent of the sales price seems about right. Not enough that your agent is turning away offers made through other agents or pretending they don't exist, but enough so that they won't shoo any unrepresented buyers away, either.

None of this has any bearing upon the buyer's agency commission. That's a completely separate issue, and a separate article. But there are two issues you don't want happening to you. You don't want the listing agent discouraging buyer's agents so they can get both halves of the commission, and you don't want them shooing away an unrepresented sucker because it's extra work and liability that they won't get paid for.

Here's the really fun part: all of these terms need to get negotiated with every listing. Furthermore, it would tell a consumer quite a bit about whether they can really expect to get that listing price. I certainly wouldn't take a listing on terms which I wouldn't expect to get paid for, and neither would most agents (unless it's a "Hail Mary" to save their business).

As I've said, good agents would probably make more on this scheme, while poor ones will make considerably less, if they don't end up actually paying the client. You'd have agents advertising their average commission - paying a higher commission would do clients demonstrable good, rather than the standard "statistical studies show" argument NAR wants us to make. "Yes, I happily paid Joe $16,000 because because we agreed anyone could sell it for $250,000 in six months, and he closed a sale for $300,000 in thirty-two days." That's an five percent plus listing commission if the agent can pull it off - far more than any percentage I've ever heard of - that the seller was happy to pay because they demonstrably made more money and spent about $10,000 less in carrying costs! If an agent is that good, they can make that kind of money on every listing, and the clients won't be asking "What do you do to earn that money?" They'll be lining up to pay it! But to earn it, the has to deliver something good for the client, and if he can't help the client, he's going to end up owing the client money. Performance becomes the reason why agents are paid, individual performance for individual clients. It completely kills "buying listings", it completely kills "do nothing" agents as well as clueless ones, it discourages accepting more listings than you can service, it discourages working with more clients than you can handle, and it rewards agents who can actually get the job done better by the only universal measures - more money actually in the client's pockets sooner, with fewer carrying costs. The client benefit always leads to the agent reward - and client detriment always leads to agent penalty.

I have no idea whether this is even legal at this point - but I do intend to investigate. If it is legal, I'm going to start offering it for my listings. It wouldn't require any systemic changes - it all can be written into the listing contract, and it has no effect upon anyone other than seller and listing agent, meaning that if it's legal, there are no other interested parties, and a rational consumer would be as happy as a good agent to sign that listing contract, and happy to pay that commission, because it means they made even more money!

Isn't that what clients want? Isn't that what we should get paid for?

Caveat Emptor.

Article UPDATED here