Buyer Agent Strategy to Determine Co-Op Fees

[Stuart Udis]

I am hearing from a number of sellers (mostly developers) who are clearly being forwarded copy and paste emails from buyer agents evidenced by questions that aren't even relevant to the properties they are selling. However, the one constant in these emails is a request for the broker fee co-op and determining the offered co-op fee seems to be the motivation behind these emails. A few of the sellers I've spoken with  and who previously offered the broker fee as a marketing tool are getting frustrated with this type of behavior and want to shift away from offering a co-op and instead make it a negotiable concession when genuine effort is made on the part of the buyer agent.   My initial thought is to advise them to continue to offer the fee to avoid alienating buyer agents, especially if this is how buyer brokers are creating their short lists to share with clients. Is this a trend others are seeing?  How are others handling this?