patrick.net

(I posted this in another thread and am reposting as a separate topic)

[I'm adding this "assumptions" section because people who don't read this whole post are making misguided comments and not using common sense.]
Assumptions: 1) you are (or you have a friend who is) a CA-barred lawyer who has taken the DRE exam because you are planning to buy your (or he or she has bought his/her) own house and can save up to 3% by not paying a used house salesman
2) you can be your own (or this friend is willing to hook you up too by being your) buying agent (or selling agent) when you've already found a house you want to buy (or sell) -- the idea is not that your friend will drive you around like a used house salesman
3) I'm not suggesting you pay your friend to take the DRE exam. It would be far better to study for the DRE exam and take it yourself if that were the case.
4) if you (or your lawyer friend) is not a real estate attorney, they can specifically say they are not providing legal advice with respect to the transaction, and you can hire a real estate attorney for cheaper than a used house salesman (at least in the expensive markets in CA) who actually knows the law and can give you legal advice on disclosures, instead of non-legal advice from a realtor

One thing you can do in California is find a friend who is a member of the State Bar who is willing to help you out. A lawyer in California can take the brokerage exam (automatically qualified to be a broker by education and qualification) and become a member of the local real estate association for probably less than $1000 all in.

Your lawyer friend can then take the fee that would have gone to the buyer agent, 2.5-3% or whatever, and refund a portion to you. In addition, your lawyer friend would get all of the standard used house salesmen forms that realtors use for transactions from the local real estate association, so you won't be missing anything you would have gotten from a realtor.

One thing your lawyer friend may want to do is make it clear they are not providing legal advice, but are only providing services as a real estate broker in this case, unless they specifically want to provide legal advice (and are covered by their malpractice carrier for this). Instead, you could hire a real estate lawyer with the money you save to review all the disclosure issues and other material aspects of the transaction.

That way, there's no double-end issue and no dual agent issue, and you can save up to 3% on the deal. I highly recommend that most members of the Bar who are comfortable going without a buyer's agent take the DRE exam and become a member of the local real estate association when they want to buy property. Instead of paying 2.5-3% to a buyer's agent, you can pay $1000 or less. You'd still have to pay the listing agent, of course.

Other benefits are that, by being a member of the local real estate association, you get access to full MLS, not the cheap consumer-facing version that lacks realtors' internal comments and that lacks a lot of pertinent information.

Update: Since people keep asking, I'm not saying that you should get a friend who is not already licensed by the DRE to do this. I'm saying that if your friend already did this for himself/herself, they could also do it for you. There might be insurance issues and other business risks, but that's true of any business. I'm also suggesting that you simultaneously get a real estate lawyer to review the transaction, instead of paying an absurd fee to a used house salesman that has no relation to the value they provide. Let's not pretend that I'm the first person to suggest that a lawyer could easily get DRE-licensed or that plenty of lawyers aren't also DRE-licensed.

#housing