Broker Salaries & Commission
How do brokers who work in a large firm, i.e., Brown Harris Stevens, Corcoran, etc., get paid? Do they have a regular salary in addition to a commission? How much of the commission on a sale do they have to give to the company?
How do brokers who work in a large firm, i.e., Brown Harris Stevens, Corcoran, etc., get paid? Do they have a regular salary in addition to a commission? How much of the commission on a sale do they have to give to the company?
A decent, full service agency will take care of all the negotiations, in addition to the marketing and the pre-screening of buyers and handling all the showings and open houses. Sellers shouldn’t be calling up the buyer’s attorney or any of that. And in fact most attorneys working on behalf of the buyer wouldn’t even take a phone call from a seller because they consider it unethical to deal with the other attorney’s client.
I wouldn’t want to give up $59,0000 either but I don’t care how desirable a property is, I would not want to have a stranger who could just be wasting my time or worse in my home. Especially with small children and a pregnant wife. Is there some way to prescreen potential buyers before actually letting them into your home. If I do list with an agent, I will make that person earn every dime of their commission and I would not be on the phone with another agent or calling someone else’s attorney.
“Savvy” people are not as smart as they pretend to be. However, everyone is entitled to their opinions.
The time of the broker is slowly coming to an end. With technology and increasingly savy people, its only a matter of time until people realize the service they provide is not worth the price.
3:43 here again.
I am the first to agree that to a certain extent we lucked out in that we found a buyer and had accepted their offer within 4 days of posting our initial ad. But we had a highly desirable (despite it being a walk up) property with 2 bedrooms (plus attic bedroom) with a terrace and views of Manhattan, Statue of Liberty etc. We were also zoned PS321.
And that is my point – if your property is desirable; in a good area etc then I can see little reason to use a broker. Both my wife and I had full time jobs as well as a 18 month old child plus she was pregnant again. But for a $59,000 saving I’m not going to get overly concerned about getting detached from our apartment and showing a few strangers around.
We sold ours for over $500,000 more than we’d paid for it 3.5 years earlier although we’d basically done a gut renovation as well as adding moldings, baseboards, new kitchen, laundry, baths etc. Sure we made a ton of money but I can not see the point in giving a huge slice of that to a broker when it was going to be so easy to sell. I never understand why brokers get such a huge junk and attorney’s not so much and could someone explain why a broker’s fee should be dependent on the selling price.
I agree that the broker does some of the work – but there’s still a lot of work for the seller – I had to negotiate counteroffers, etc., stay in touch with the buyers and their attorneys ’til closing, too, when I sold – and doing it through telephone tag with one or two brokers in the middle was more complicated than doing it directly would have been.
I figured it was worth it because they marketed it for me – I didn’t have to do that part. But if they underpriced it, like 3:43’s potential brokers did, I’d have to rethink whether it was worth it.
I have both sold homes on my own and with a broker. There is a lot to consider when making the decision to do either. When I went with the broker, I had a full time job and two young children. I did not have the time to market and sell the home which had appreciated outrageously. I therefore listed with a realtor who did the work for me to earn her commission, which came out of my gain. The next home I sold myself and I had to work to get it sold. Although the home was in a prime area it was not as easy as 3:43 makes it out to be. I had to make appointments with complete strangers and allow them to enter my home. I had to become emotionally detatched when showing the home. When I got an offer, which didn’t take long, I had to negotiate the counter-offers and other conditions. Of course the buyer wanted a huge discount because there was no broker. I had to stay on the phone with the attornies and buyers until closing. If your home has appreciated considerably, list it with a broker. If you are working with financial constraints do it yourself. It’s like paying a painter to paint your house. If you have the money you’ll pay someone to do it because it’s a pain in the a**, if you don’t, you’ll do it yourself. I think at the high end of the market, most qualified buyers are coming by way of agents though.
Wow, 3:43 – that was eyeopening. I sold my place well-located, desirable P.S. apartment with one of the big P.S. brokers, for about what they told you you’d get – now I wonder if I could have gotten 75K more. With prices going up so much, it is hard to imagine the brokers underpricing by so much, but what you wrote has made me rethink what I thought I knew.
6%?? That can always be negotiated, especially for higher end properties. Btw, in Queens, it is 3%, and in other places, i.e. New Jersey, it is also 3%.