Quote:
Originally Posted by Trojan97
I've never had to oversee a sale of my home so I'm curious how commonplace it is for a realtor to be asking for additional commission in the conditional offer.
Further info...
My mom lives in the prairies and has put her house up for sale in anticipation of moving back west in the next six months or so. She is on a very flexible timeline and has acquired a 3% realtor to handle the sale of her home to save herself some money since she can afford to be a bit patient.
Long story short, house has been listed at 399,999 which is quite fair given the quality of available homes currently in her marketplace and what her home has been appraised at. The market is obviously down but the same house last year, one block over sold for $418,000. In my moms case, the initial offer came in at 375k which was seen as a bit of an insult. That offer was countered with 395,500, with 395 flat being the lowest by mom will go.
This is where my gears start to grind. The other party has countered at 390,000 but new offer calls for an additional point of commission for the buyers realtor (so he'll make 2.5% on this sale instead of 1.5%). My mom has countered with two offers. 1) 395,000 and the standard 1.5% commission, 2) 399,000 and the realtor can have his 2.5% (interested party is also using him to sell their current home).
The realtor for the other party generally makes the standard 5-6% commission and is apparently known in the area for telling his clients "he is worth it" when he negotiates these added percentages on his commission when he is selling homes involving 3% sellers. In our case, my mom is prepared to lose the sale rather than be pressed by this guy.
This sudden request for an additional percentage point with this 390k offer screams money grab to me and I find it rather greasy that this realtor has added it to the offer when there was nothing about an increased commission in the initial 375k offer. Like I said, it has pissed off my mom enough where she's already said she will refuse to negotiate with anyone represented by this guy in the future should this deal fall thru. I thought that was maybe a bit dramatic on her part but I have since found a realtor review site that has multiple complaints about the guy for this exact same reason.
So I ask, how common is it for a buyers realtor to ask for additional commission from the seller of the home in a situation like this? It's certainly left us with a bad taste in our mouth, but we are also admittedly naive towards the inner workings of the business.
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I think you and your mom are getting way too butt-hurt. Her counter offer seems reasonable, but their initial offer was reasonable, too. Coming in at 6% below asking is not a low ball. I think they came in too high, personally. I would have been come in below that if I was the buyer. The fact that your mom is only willing to come down 1% means - to me - she is a bad negotiator and her asking price is too low relative to what she's will to give up the place for.
In this market she is crazy to not expect people to come in below asking. The buyers gave her a very serious offer, but she's acting like it's amateur hour. I don't blame the realtor for asking for more commission. I suspect your mom will be tough/time-consuming/annoying to deal with. I did like her counter offer, though. Let the buyers pay their realtor; I don't see any reason why she should (from her perspective). But she really needs to take her emotions out of this and just make the deal or not based on numbers. Hurt feelings over a sane offer is immature.