When you buy, you don't pay the commission, the seller does. So I don't see how your plan can work.

Remember that the sellers agent and the buyers agent split the commission. So it would be nice to know what your agent advertised as the listing commission. If she put 5% in MLS, she's expecting 2.5%. Or she may have put in 6% (if that is customary in your area) and is taking the 1% off her split just for you, so that she'll only be taking home 2% while the buyers agent takes the full 3%. Does that make sense?
If she were to put 3% total commission in MLS, buyers agents may not show your house for a 1.5% share of the commission. I personally don't think it's all that ethical to pick and choose listings based on commission, but I know it's done, so you need to know that it's a possibility.
And as stated above, you have no control over the commission for the house you purchase unless specified in the contract (very rare).

You are under contract with your agent for a specified commission. What makes you feel like you can renig on the contract now?

Haha, well I feel silly for not realizing that the seller pays all the commission on the house we will buy. Thanks for telling me though. Thanks for the explanation on commission c9pilot. I have no idea how she listed it but maybe I will ask. Ncrealestate guy, I know it might sound shady to try to renegotiate now, but I was thinking she would actually make more commission in the end if what I was thinking was possible because we are buying a house for approximately 100k more than the one we are selling. Obviously my thinking was wrong though!

Thanks all for the input. I was just looking for a way to put more money down on our next house, because I think we are going to drop our price $6,000 to $8,000 next week. I guess that's the market we signed up to sell in though!

If $6-8K makes a big difference to your overall finances, then maybe you should not be buying a house worth $100K more. The time to negotiate the commission was when you signed the contract.

We are fine to buy a more expensive house. The $6-8k will make a big difference in our down payment. We have owned our home for over 10 years, have no consumer debt, have never made a late payment on anything and make more than double what me made when we bought our current home. I'm just naive about buying and selling homes since this is our first time selling, but I'm not naive about money in general but thanks for the tip, I guess.

Based on your posting, what impact your house selling are price, neighborhood and lacking of garage, all of these have nothing to do with your agent's capability and performance. I am not sure what makes you think you should give her a "pay cut" to demoralize her.

If I have a property that is challenging to unload, in addition to price it right, I would raise commission to attract all agents" attention and help.

In addition, now you are thinking about cutting her commission after you have already signed a contract with her; even if it could be done, what makes your agent to believe that you would keep your words and pay her more commission in a "potential", "future" buying transaction?

If you need the $6-8K for the down payment, where would you get the fund to pay her the extra commission when you buy?

Why will $6-8K make a big difference as the downpayment? Based on going rate, borrowing $8k less for a 30 years loan would save you around $35 per month. If it would make a difference, as someone suggested you may want to think twice before getting a more expensive house.

Before you sign an offer into contract, please make sure that you are still qualified to purchase, and make sure you have a buffer of cash for that down payment. last thing you want to do is sell your home, and then find out you do not qualify anymore, or you are shy of cash for your down payment.

Well, my husband wants to get "x" amount when we sell. He refuses to lower the price without walking away with a certain amount so I am trying to work the numbers to make him happy and make our house sell. My idea was obviously a bad one and I get that now, but for those of you who think I'm trying to hurt my realtor, I'm not. She will make the majority of her money off of us when we buy a home. The truth is I am not that happy with her. She is very busy and takes 2-3 days to get back with me whenever I ask a question if she gets back with me at all, which half of the time she doesn't. I have been asking her to hold an open house for over 2 months and she keeps turning me down, yet she holds open houses constantly for the houses in the 300k-500k price range. I don't think she really "needs" the money from our house and I don't feel like we are a priority with our inexpensive house. Maybe she just thinks we are overpriced and therefore doesn't want to deal with us, but I would rather she just be honest and tell me that if that is the case. Our house did appraise for more than what we are asking, but I don't think that matters much in this market and this neighborhood. I do want to lower our price but my husband is very stubborn and got mad when I lowered it 4K a couple of months ago. I didn't contact our agent for over a month so it's not like I'm harrassing her all the time and expecting her to talk to me every day. My fault for not doing enough research in hiring an agent. She seems nice enough, but since I am a first time seller I wish I would have picked an agent without so many houses so I could get more personal attention, advice, and open houses. Live and learn I guess.

I just really want to sell this house and be done with it. It took me 2 years to even convince my husband to sell and it has been a constant stuggle to get him to lower the price, which we really need to do at this point.

It sounds as if your husband still isn't on the same page as you when it comes to selling your current house. Maybe your realtor senses this and doesn't think you, as a couple, are serious about the whole deal.

I think you need to identify and address your husband's real concerns before going any further. Perhaps he is worried about job security; not unreasonable in this economy.

Papergirl, I'm sorry you're getting bad service. And I understand that you were trying to be creative and not trying to demote your agent's pay, though she doesn't sound like she deserves the commission. I also don't blame you for being concerned about saving six or eight thousand dollars even when you're buying a $250,000 house. Why wouldn't you be? What, if the house is $250,000 we shouldn't be concerned about a few thousand? That means we can't afford it? I cracked up over that passive-aggressive comment. You go girl. You watch those pennies! That's why you can afford a $250,000 house!

Anyway, I never heard of a realtor taking a listing for less than 5% but I guess it could happen. I think you're going to have to deal with it the way it is, and then when the listing expires (I hope you didn't contract for too long), find someone better.

LoveIn, passive-aggressive? Quite the contrary, if you are spending $250K and you think $6-8K will make such a huge difference to your bottom line then you should not be making that purchase. This is what got us into this whole credit bubble. We are saying she SHOULD be concerned! And for many of us here, $250K doesn't buy us anything in our markets, heck, it doesn't even qualify as a good downpayment, so we aren't even thinking that the OP is rolling in dough because they can afford $250K. Really?

ackrogirl, you make a good point. Maybe she does sense he isn't as on board as I am and is worried we won't accept an offer if one comes in. I think my husband just loves our house and realizes we cannot get something so new, so big, and so nice without paying more in a different neighborhood. We bought the house brand new and he has built 2 porches, 1 nice deck, a huge fence, finished the basement himself, and we have both painted the interior. He has put in a lot of sweat equity and I think he just wants to make sure he gets as much of it as he can. He really does seem to want to sell it now, but I just want to convince him to list it under 160k because I think that may be what it will take to bring in some traffic, and I think that's a reasonable price.

Loveinthehouse, thank you for understanding our penny-pinching ways! I guess the 8k really means more to my husband for his personal pride and hard work than anything else. I think 8k is a lot of money and I think most Americans would agree. Good luck on the sale of your house. So typical that the banks would take our money to save their butts and not want to give any back!

chispa, In the town I live in the median house price is 175k. 300-400k here can buy a dream house to suit most anyone's needs. Love never suggested that I was rolling in dough, and I never said 6-8k would make a HUGE difference to my bottom line. It will make a big difference in this real estate transaction, and I would like to have as much money as possible from this transaction to put down on our next home. So no, I am not concerned about my finances overall, just want to make as much as I can on the sale of my house - I guess wanting to make as much as possible off of this sale makes me the kind of person who ruined the real estate market and burst the bubble.

LITH,
You say you do not know any Realtor that would take a listing for less than 5%. But you hired one for $500...

Oh, Never mind. You must categorize those agents as Data Entry Personnel as I do.

Not in a great neighborhood, no garage, and spouse not really on board for selling......and now you want to cut your realtor's compensation? You are going to have a harder time than usual in your market selling this house. Oh wait, you already are.

Unless you get your husband on board, the whole thing is going to blow up in your face. Not only are you incorrectly involving your realtor in your personal problems here, but if you even approach your realtor about your idea, you probably just assured that your home will never sell. Word gets around. Couples who are stubborn about pricing and aren't acting in a unified manner are problematic for anyone to deal with, as buyers or sellers. There is a certain PIA factor that you will have to overcome, and if your home isn't in the higher price range, the PIA to potential commission for the home is too high for anyone to want to deal with. And no2w you want to cut the commissions. By bye showings.

You are already dealing with that PIA thing now, even if you think you aren't. It's not that your realtor has too many listings. It's the fact that you as a couple are working at cross purposes and aren't really serious, so you are always going to be on the bottom half of her list until you both get truly serious about the process. Which first of all means being realistic about the price that you can get for the property. So, your home will continue to sit until you get hubby fully on board with all of the needed attitude adjustments about selling. If you can't get him on board, then you might as well pull it off of the market.

Why do you want to sell in the first place and how did you "talk him into it"? He may be right and that it's foolish to move.

So, some of you are saying that, because papergirl and her husband are currently disagreeing over lowering the price of their house, it is understandable that their agent has put them "on the bottom half of her list" as far as service goes--ignoring phone calls, refusing to do open houses even when requested, etc.

Perhaps the agent should take a few minutes of her precious time to sit down with this couple and review the advantages of lowering their price. Why are some people here so quick to defend this agent's lack of service? Isn't one aspect of earning a commission taking the time to navigate the seller--especially a first time seller--through difficulties?

Papergirl, when you get an offer on the house, I wouldn't hesitate asking your agent to lower her commission during the negotiations, maybe by half a percentage or even a full percentage. There's no harm in asking--and pointing out to her that she didn't do her job.

Open houses are a waste of time. The only people who come are your nosy neighbors. There are much better marketing strategies out there. But to sell a house, you actually have to want to sell the house. When you have one party that was "talked into it" and is being stubborn about the pricing issue, and wants to be compensated for all of the work he's done on the house, and is emotionally invested in the house, and 8K is going to make or break any new home purchase, well, it's NOT the realtor that's the issue. She can only sell what someone wants to sell. The wife wants to sell, for whatever reason. The husband obviously does NOT, and no realtor is enough marriage counselor to get this to work.

So, sitting down with reluctant clients to discuss better real estate strategies has become "marriage counseling"?

It doesn't matter whether open houses are a waste of time or not. Her client wants her to hold one. So, that's what she should do--or she's not entitled to the thousands of dollars she expects when the house sells.

And I believe that an agent who doesn't answer phone calls or discuss price with her client is an "issue."

holly, maybe my realtor does think I'm a PIA, but I have really tried to be as low maintenance as possible. I did tell her that I'm trying to convince my husband to lower the price - I was just being honest. I don't see that as involving her in "marital problems," just telling her the honest reason we haven't dropped the price again yet. I want to move because I would like a garage - I'm sick of scraping my windows in the winter. I don't mind paying my dues and living in a house I don't love for awhile, but I'm ready to move on. I also am not crazy about our neighborhood, and I live way too close to a lot of my in-laws which is truly making me feel a little crazed! My husband isn't as bothered but when I ask him how he would feel if my mom or sister moved in next door he said it would drive him absolutely insane. I want my home to be my sanctuary. I don't feel at peace here - I feel surrounded.

My husband does want to move now, but I believe his expectations of what we can get from our house are a little out of whack with reality. We have gone to open houses and there's one house he would happily buy tomorrow if our house sold. He would love to have a garage for his golf cart, all of his tools, etc, and he also wants me to be happy and understands I'm not 100% comfortable here. I believe in-laws are great to see on holidays and the occasional weekend but not on a daily basis in my situation. I also believe a heated garage in these horrible winters would be heavenly.

jboling - thanks for the advice and understanding! I have heard of people negotiating the commission at closing and had thought about that. I probably won't if we actually get an offer. Although I'm not that happy with my realtor, I really am guilty of not doing enough research and asking her the right questions before hiring her. One advantage of her being so successful is she can afford to put our house on almost every internet site and her assistant took beautiful pictures of the home. So she has provided lots of exposure but not much else so far. I think I'll ask her to do another comparative market analysis (her assistant did the first one) and that may bring my husband back to earth and make him more willing to budge. He has agreed to lower the price, but I think he's more comfortable in the 4K range, whereas I strongly believe we need to lower it 8k get in the 150s. Thanks again to everyone for all of the advice!

I don't know if anyone else has done this or not. But when we listed our house, DH told the realtor that for every dollar amount we had to lower our house, that same percentage would be lowered for her commission....and she
agreed.

House has been lowered from $342,000 to $299.900....I haven't done the math to see what her commission would be now.....I leave that stuff up to DH (he did have a realtor/broker license a long time ago).

Good luck, papergirl....I hear you on "living too close to in-laws...same here....just another reason I want out of this town~~

papergirl,
If a seller client of mine told me on the day of closing that they wanted to reduce my commission, I would tell them that they either abide by the contract or we do not close. Who do you think is going to win that one?

papergirl, I know you came on here asking for some input about your situation.

If you are not happy with your agent, look at your contract, get another agent, negotiate the commission when you relist.
If you get a low offer, you can ask if the agents will contribute at that time. It is up to you, depending on all the variables.

I wish you the best!

When/if you get an offer that is lower than what you want to accept, that would be the time you could ask your agent to adjust the commission to make the deal happen. And remember, sellers and their agents don't set the final selling price, buyers do.

I posted this earlier this year, and thought that it could bear repeating:

The Market Value of your home IS NOT:
* What you have in it
* What you need out of it
* What it is appraised for
* What you heard your neighbor's house sold for
* What the tax office says it is worth
* What it is insured for
* Based on memories and treasures
* Based on prices of homes where you are moving

The True Market Value of your home IS:
* What a buyer is willing to pay for the property - TODAY
* Based on today's market
* Based on today's competition
* Based on today's financing
* Based on today's economic conditions
* Based on the buyer's perception of property condition
* Based on location
* Based on normal marketing time

As a Seller you control:
* The price you ask
* The condition of the property
* Access to the property

As a Seller you do not control:
* Market conditions
* The motivation of your competition
* Value

nc--I don't think anyone advised her to ask her agent to lower her commission on the day of closing. That would be ridiculous. I said she could ask her to drop the commission during negotiations on an offer. This isn't uncommon.

NC, I do categorize the "realtor" I hired as data entry personel. But that's all I wanted. I paid $300 for them to get me on the MLS and Realtor.com and I offer selling agents 3% just like they'd get from any other listing. I don't know why that annoys you. I'm doing all the other work for the other 3%. Sellers who can't do the job will give up and hire a full service agent. Sellers like me, who've done this a half dozen times, don't mind doing the work, in fact, LIKE doing the work, and will save a lot of money. What is wrong with that? It's just like my own business. Flooring. Sometimes we sell the whole job and we do everything--sell them the product and install it. Sometimes we just sell them the product and they install it themselves. Never as well as we do it, lol, but I have to give them credit for trying and we will even give them tips and guidance just like you give me on here. Sometimes they buy the product somewhere else and we install it for them. But we NEVER get mad at them for trying to save money by doing part of it themselves. If they're capable of doing it and they want to do it, I don't blame them!

Chispa, I just don't think it was very nice the way you attacked the poster for being concerned about $8,000--accusing her of not being able to afford a $250,000 house. She should be concerned about eight HUNDRED dollars. Every penny is her money that she worked hard for, no matter what price range her house is in.

Com'on you guys! We can never have a conversation on here without all the agents getting defensive!

Papergirl wrote:
"jboling - thanks for the advice and understanding! I have heard of people negotiating the commission at closing and had thought about that."

This quote from the poster is what I was referring to.

LITH,
I am a DIYer myself. I praise people trying to do things themselves in order to save themselves money. What I do object to, are agents that let sellers into OUR MLS w/o being fiduciarially represented. The MLS is a co op between agents, not between agents and homeowners. When homeowners or the flat fee agents start to pay dues to the local MLS's for access, then we can talk. My beef is with these agents and the MLS, not with homeowners.

"My question is this: Is it possible to ask her to take 3-4% commission on the sale of our house and take 6-7% when we purchase the new house? "

This is a good idea, and not quite as unrealistic as some of the other posters would have you believe, however it may be a challenge at your price point.

What you may not be aware of is that buying and selling realtors typically split the commission for a sale, and are then required to further split their portion of the commission with their broker. For the sale of your $168k house with a 5% commission ($8,400), this means your agent and the buyer's agent will only get $4,200 each and from that amount will have to pay a significant percentage to their broker, pay their own expenses and taxes - clearly not a lot of wiggle room from their perspective.

With 100 days on market, the home is likely overpriced or it is being poorly marketed (or both!). Hopefully, your listing agreement is close to expiration. If so, you should consider hiring another agent and either 1) negotiating a deal where they get paid less for the sale and more for the purchase or 2) taking phoggie's suggestion "for every dollar amount we had to lower our house, that same percentage would be lowered for her commission....and she agreed. "

InvisibleHand,
The only problem is that buyers agents do not set the commission on the buying side, the sellers and the listing agent does.

"The only problem is that buyers agents do not set the commission on the buying side, the sellers and the listing agent does."

Perhaps things work differently in NC.

I've seen buyers agent contracts which guarantee a minimum commission - effectively setting the commission on the buy side. If guaranteed commission is greater than the seller offers, the buyer is responsible to pay out of pocket. (I'm shocked that average buyers are willing to sign!) Guaranteeing a minimum commission on the eventual purchase could be the answer to the OP's stated question.

LoveIn, I did not attack the OP. She asked for opinions on a public forum.

"Posted by papergirl (My Page) on Sat, Oct 29, 11 at 16:24
The $6-8k will make a big difference in our down payment."

I quoted what the OP said above and I stand by my statement that they might want to review the true cost of their new home. Nothing else to say on the subject. I wish the OP the best of luck.

I don't sense any attack and accusation from chispa's postings and from others. Why people want to "passive aggressive-ing" the original poster? there is no incentive of doing that.

The original poster is very lucky to receive so many valuable inputs from this thread. All the people who provided feedback appear to be either experienced home owners, or realtors.

In my humble opinion, she and her spouse should have done tons of home work before listing their home. Obviously they are very green in real estate process and personal finance, may be to a certain degree, in reading people, understanding themselves, and choosing a realtor that fits their situation and level of experience.

Learning as they go, without clear objectives, when selling and buying in this tough market is asking for trouble and wasting everyone's time.

InvisibleHand Wrote:
"I've seen buyers agent contracts which guarantee a minimum commission - effectively setting the commission on the buy side. If guaranteed commission is greater than the seller offers, the buyer is responsible to pay out of pocket. (I'm shocked that average buyers are willing to sign!) Guaranteeing a minimum commission on the eventual purchase could be the answer to the OP's stated question."

Yes, our Buyer Agency Agreement has this stipulation also. (FYI...I always strike thru this part of the Agreement) You are correct in stating that if the seller offers less than this guaranteed minimum amount then the buyer comes out of pocket with the difference. I really doubt that the OP thinks this is a scenario that she wants... she is trying to save dollars, not spend more.

If you have the time, you can do what my friend did. Her contract with her agent is only for so long. When it expired, she got rid of her agent, for many of the same reasons you speak of. (Not paying attention, not showcasing the place, etc.)

They took the house off the market for a bit, did some minor, but easy to see work. (Put up some simpler, but more neutral window treatments, painted the front door, refinished the hardwood floor in the living room)

Also took the time to find a new realtor. They ended up using a woman, who we joked that the ink on her license hadn't even dried yet. They made the right choice though, because that woman did anything and everything she could for that house in an effort to show that she was serious. She helped stage, she made cookies for the open house, if there was an unannounced showing and my friends were at work, she'd run over and vacuum the rug if she felt it needed it. They put it back on the market and had two offers for the asking price by the end of a month.

For those who say Open houses don't help? My parent's condo sold at the third open house. Woman came in, saw it, ran out of the condo. Our agent scratched his head, but then half an hour later, she came in with her sister and her realtor and said, "This is the condo I want!"

We took a little less than what we were asking, but the condo is in New England and it's in an over 55 community. If we don't have it sold by now, we'll probably be unable to sell it all winter. It was worth the few grand less, just to not have to worry about taxes, condo fees, and the property just langushing for the winter.

Papergirl...I had to work on my husband on the price thing as well. It did take some time and effort to do it. We ended up selling our house for less than we paid for it and had to bring money to closing so it was difficult. One thing I was able to show him was that the carrying costs of keeping the house were such that if it took a year longer to sell at the higher price we would "use up" the higher price just in higher carrying costs. In our case, the agents we consulted with felt the higher price was a "good" price but acknowledged that if we lowered our price (and it was way more than 4k!) then we would be more likely to sell quickly. We had our house on the market for 6 months at the higher price.

The listing expired, we switched agents, listed at a much lower price and had a buyer within 3 days.

To get my husband to agree to the lower listing price, I had the agents pull sales history and listings for 6 months. I was able to show him how people with higher prices were often taking over a year to sell -- some even over 2 or 3 years! Basically there were lots of listings and not a lot of sales. So, yes, our price on paper seemed OK...but it wasn't one that lead to a fast sale. After I really analyzed the numbers and showed them to him, he agreed to try dropping the price. Our first agent, BTW, was nice but didn't give us a lot of advice so we switched when the listing expired. We did interview a couple of agents then who were active in our area and both gave similar advice so we felt comfortable with the new listing price.

We sold our house via an open house also. Feedback from the agent was that there were lots of walk-through's, but no one seemed really interested. We got an offer two days later.

Another service I do for my sellers is that I set them up on two listing searches that are sent to their email. One of the searches will send them alerts when anything happens in their neighborhood, and the other search will alert them the day a new listing comes on the market w/in 3 miles of their home. I call this the "Competition Tracking Site" (It is a website)It also sends alerts when the competition lowers the price, when the status changes, etc. I carbon copy myself on these alerts too. My sellers, both husband and wife, know exactly what the competition is doing to the day. Most of the times, it takes little prodding when it is time to "position ourselves better in the market".
Maybe your agent can do the same for you and your husband, so he can see what you guys are up against.

Even though we don't always see eye to eye, if I lived in NC, and I was looking for an agent, I'd choose you NC.

By the way, I'm wondering NC, how come these flat fee agents are able to put for-sale-by-owners on the MLS? Is the MLS betraying you guys? I can imagine I'd be mad too. It would kind of be like if my flooring distributor was selling the product to anyone on the street. Now that I'm thinking about it, the big box stores are kind of like the flat fee companies. No real service or expertise. We hate them because they sell junk but the customer doesn't realize they are getting what they pay for. Probably how you feel about the flat fee companies.

Wow, thanks again to everyone for all of the great advice. I believe our listing expires in December. I will have to double check. I have met some agents at open houses and have received a few recommendations from friends, so if/when the time comes to re-list I will find a more attentive realtor.

We actually had a showing yesterday for the first time in over a month. I had about 45 minutes notice and have never cleaned so fast in my life! It's usually really clean but I was spending too much of my weekend organizing closets and cupboards again and delaying my deep cleaning. It looked good by the time we left but definitely not up to my usual "immaculate" standard.

Our realtor did tell us about a month ago that a couple is very interested in our house but they are trying to get enough money together for their down payment. Not very promising, but it's nice to be wanted I guess. My husband and I compromised and are lowering the price $5500 for now. At least that brings us closer to 150k than 170k so that might help a bit. I honestly think our house is so much nicer, newer, and definitely bigger than the other homes in our price range, but I realize that location is everything and our location isn't ideal. So many homes in our range are so outdated and need a lot of work, whereas ours is move-in ready, so I'm just hoping someone will fall in love with it eventually and see the advantages of not having to fix anything once they move in. Well, if the house doesn't sell by the time our listing expires I will definitely review this thread and keep all of this great information in mind before signing a new contract.

^^whoops, meant to say we are closer to $159,000 (where I wanted to be) than $170,000, not that we are closer to 150k than 170k. We are listed at $162,500 now.

Do you have a link to your listing?

LITH... Thanks much for the compliment.