“I was going to pay you this whole pizza, but instead I’m keeping a quarter of it for myself. Why? Because you can’t spell sociopath without Ci, that’s why.”
Because I have a listing right now, I am aware of the competition. Interestingly, I ran across listings from both Zillow and OpenDoor that significantly underpay Buyer’s Agents.
Note well: Brokers are advised to avoid discussing commission rates amongst each other, since free speech and free assembly don’t count if you’re in business. Whatever. I certainly have the right to talk about commissions all alone.
So first: I hate it that the Listing Agent pays the Buyer’s Agent. We say the seller does, but the lenders would never allow that, just as they don’t allow buyers to pay for their own representation. Instead, the seller pays the Listing Agent a lot more than he will typically earn, with half or more of that commission income going to the Buyer’s Agent. You say the buyer is getting representation. I say I am paying a brokerage fee: The price of the introduction. If you don’t see the Agency problem here – I am buying your fiduciary’s loyalty, aligning his interests with mine and my seller’s and against yours – the NAR would love to have you testify on its side in the upcoming lawsuit over this idiotic compensation scheme.
But second: I Corinthians 9:7-10: “Do not bind the mouths of the grunts on the ground who are delivering your dinner!” Buyer’s Agents don’t work for their brokers, they work for Listing Agents. Freelance. On spec. They live on dreams and promises, too many of which don’t come true. They drive hundreds of miles a day, dining between appointments on drive-thru – when they have that kind of cash to spare.
Yeah, but: “Listing is easy right now. No need to pay extra marketing costs.” That’s the way builders think: “Burn them bridges, what the heck; we’ll bump the commission when we’re stuck with specs.” Whether or not this makes sense for home-builders, being an unreliable friend seems like a poor idea for iBuyers. Meanwhile, it’s much harder to be a Buyer’s Agent in hot markets: Your offers get shot down repeatedly – when you can find anything to show.
What’s funniest? That Zillow and OpenDoor are dicking with commissions because they think they are suddenly good at selling homes, when in fact they are the worst performers in every kind of market? Or that they are confessing yet again that their financial performance is agonizing, despite their public bravado?
Again: Whatever: Big talk almost always means a little gonoph. Chiseling the lowest earners in real estate is a dick move – but we’ve all known all along that the iBuyers are dicks: You can’t spell sociopath without Ci. Every way you look at it, iBuying just looks like a bunch of little gonophs scaled.
