In U.S. residential real estate transactions, agents representing both the buyer and the seller are paid from the proceeds of the sale. That means that technically the seller pays the commission of both his own agent and the agent representing the buyer. Of course, anyone in the industry, or anyone who’s bought and sold real estate often enough is keenly aware that’s not entirely true.
“Ultimately the buyer is paying for it,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president of market economics at Auction.com. “It’s baked into the price of the property. How the gatekeeper of the transaction is paid is something a lot of folks don’t completely understand and that’s what’s at the heart of some of these legal actions.” ...
Making it easier for consumers to understand transactions may be at the heart of the legal actions, but making it more enjoyable — or at least less painful — to do the deal is core to many of the new ideas and billions of dollars flooding into the housing market recently.
“Consumers are pissed off,” Hahn said. “There’s more and more sentiment from consumers that Realtors don’t earn their pay.”
Patrick, I detest the 6% cabal as much as you do, but this is not the case. Who pays a tax, commission or other fee in real estate is just like any other transaction - it is based on elasticity of demand. A house is a slow market that will only sell for 350k will not sell for an additional 6%, so the seller eats it. Likewise, in a tight sellers market, the price can be boosted to cover the 6% so the buyers eats it.
Great Britain has a system where the "Estate Agents" do it for 1% (no MLS, though). That is what we need here.
How does that work? If there is no 3% to the selling agent, no one will show your house. Or do you mean you pay a flat fee like $2,500 to list and then 3% to the selling agent?
Selling your house is a legal transaction frought with liability. Not too mention people get fucking crazy during the process. Commissions aren't going to go much lower.
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