Monday, August 18, 2008

It's Negotiable

Was delighted to see that one of my favorite publications, Consumer Reports (who would have guessed ;) did a recent survey on real estate.

Below is a very interesting conclusion from their study, which is good news for both buyers and sellers (hat tip to the WSJ Developments blog):

"Many real-estate brokers are willing to cut a deal on their commissions, and readers who successfully negotiated for a lower commission, often cutting the traditional 6 percent to 3 or 4 percent, tended to be just as satisfied with the result as those who paid the full fare."

If I had my way, I would completely redesign the compensation system. Here are my thoughts on how commissions should be structured.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There just has to be a way to leverage the Internet and all the great blogs to eliminate Realtor commissions completely and turn it into a fee-based service for the parts of the job that are actually valuable.

Maybe a reverse auction website like a few tried at the end of the 90's. I go post "looking for someone to show me 10 homes in EDH on 8/25/08, willing to pay $150/won't exceed 4 hours" and then whomever has access and wants to work can.