I have never in 16 years in 5 states worked for a company that dictated what I could charge or what concessions I could make.

Negotiating from the seller side is nothing new and it is pretty easy to do a 3% reduced to 2% if the seller purchases their next home and 1% if the buyer comes sans agent, by using an addendum to the listing contract from day one.

What I have seen in the industry nationally, if not locally, is that Brokers don’t get involved in commission negotiations, but draw the line when an agent “advertises” that a commission is “negotiable”. Even though it is my understanding, that in every state, legally there can be no “set” fee and that each fee is negotiated with the client on a case by case basis.

I think your case was somewhat unusual, given you found the buyer for your house yourself and the agent was out of town. At least I hope it was somewhat unusual. I’ve never had a seller find their own buyer. In fact, if they even think they know someone who might buy it, I exclude that buyer from the contract altogether. Though I did once hear of an agent who charged someone who sold their home in the end to their own daughter…pretty creepy.

Excellent post. I took this opportunity to re-read the Redfin post and I have to say thought that I disagree with your premise. The 3% fee for buyer’s agents is a lot more cemented into the current market structure than you realize. I bought my house in Greenlake about 6 months before Redfin came along. I used a Windermere agent to sell my current house and then buy my next. He got both ends of the deal and was completely unwilling to alter the fee structure, saying that Windermere would fire him for doing anything out of the ordinary. I found my new house online and sold my other one via a buyer I found at work. I did a huge percentage of the work (my agent golfed in Portland all week and had someone else run his broker’s open,) and still feel like my experience is more ordinary than extraordinary. If Redfin had been around at the time I bought my house, I would certainly have used them (and would today.)

Marcus Holliman
http://www.metrocr.com