All Forum Posts by: Kay March

Correction to previous post. I guess the agent's contract with the buyer does not specify a commission. It's just a matter of convention, and therefore negotiable, that the commission paid by the seller to the buyer's agent is 3%. It will be helpful to look up some sample documents.

Thanks all. After looking at some law firm websites, I gather that not only does transitioning to transaction agent status allow the agent to jack up the commission to 4% from the 3% originally agreed to by the buyer under her single agency contract, it also greatly reduces the agent's potential legal liability -- an understandable consideration when the agent has to begin working closely with both parties to the transaction.

I have four sfh rentals in one neighborhood in Gainesville, Florida. They are all 3/2 with 2-car garage. The HOA is great -- just $337 every three months for each house, and they take care of the exterior of the houses as well as mowing, edging, and pruning (except for a small area in front of the bay window on each house), and they replace the roof every 15-20 years. I'm approaching age 70 so am selling off the houses. If you would like more info, please let me know.

Having relatively small annual rent increases (say $25) built into the lease can actually benefit the tenant, because when rents are rising the landlord has an incentive to end a long-term low rent tenant's lease. Not all tenants are clearly desirable or undesirable, so if a tenant is just so-so, or is a pain to deal with, and if he's been in place for a while and the property is in need of some cleaning and refurbishment anyway, the landlord might decide to end the lease and start fresh with a tenant paying higher rent. Having the annual rent increase included in the lease prepares the tenant mentally, too, and quite a few tenants won't move out over a $25 monthly increase.

Thank you for explaining those scenarios. I understand that as the seller I will pay any commission that is negotiated, so I will just have to decide whether the price offered by the buyer is acceptable given the amount of the commission that will be deducted from the proceeds.

Thank you! That sounds right. He said something along those lines.

For relatively small jobs, such as replacing flooring in a rental house, you can get a contractor with more accountability by hiring through a big box store. The contractor might not care so much whether you are happy with him, but he will care whether the big box store that gave him your job is happy with him. 

Thank you. So in any case I, as the FSBO seller, am the only one who pays the agent, and I can negotiate that amount. So why does the agent want to transition to acting as a transaction broker rather than as a buyer's agent?

Please see previous post. Or could it be that he is still going to take 3% from her and also 4% from me? If so, why would he transition to acting as a transaction broker?

Thank you all. It seems to me that the agent might have told the buyer that his transitioning to the role of transaction broker would mean that she would be relieved of having to pay her 3% buyer's commission, and that promise to her might have actually clinched the sale. Kind of clever on his part. The upshot as far as I'm concerned is that I have to pay 4% instead of the usual 3% to the agent. I don't hate it! Selling sooner rather than later could well be worth the extra 1%, considering savings on property taxes, utilities, insurance, etc.