03/18/2024
Only time will tell if this "disruption" helped or hurt consumers. As an ethical and honest REALTOR, let me offer some thoughts.
(1) posting coop fees in the MLS made it easy to show sellers what their "competition" was doing to help them attract buyers. It also allowed buyer agents to readily know whether their buyer was a viable candidate for specific properties that would essentially cover or greatly offset the fee(s) they agreed to pay their own agent.
On the downside, unscrupulous agents were able to "hide" property listings that did not financially appeal to them. These agents NEVER belonged in this business and appeared to be a VERY small percentage of those working in Real Estate. Was this process worth trying to neutralize them?
We live in the age of the Internet. A typical buyer was as familiar if not more familiar with the active market than many agents who work with a variety of buyers "shopping" in different areas.
How many asked why their agent did not "present" specific listings for them to see? Were they "under contract" or did their offers of compensation not appeal to the buyer agent???
(2) Our rules ALREADY REQUIRE that agents have formal, written contracts with their clients that spell out our "duties", our compensation and how we earn our fees. PERIOD! Some agents fail to use our contracts and their clients may NOT have understood our fees. Was this process worth trying to neutralize them?
(3) Commissions have ALWAYS been negotiable. However, commissions, specifically offering a "coop fee" to a buyer broker, is a marketing expense intended to maximize exposure and competition which should help sellers achieve their highest selling price.
In theory, a seller could say they would pay their own listing broker but NOT offer a penny for the purpose of their listing broker paying the buyer broker. That is legal but makes little sense if prospective buyers for those houses are not financially capable of paying their own agent. Many are NOT!
Admittedly, the typical practice of sellers paying listing brokers and listing brokers paying buyer brokers "appeared" to create a conflict. So does "dual agency" but many states allow that!
In most cases it made for an effective and efficient way for many to become home owners without breaking their bank accounts (they call that "house poor"). After all, many buyers buy homes with NO DOWN PAYMENT or 3.5 of the purchase price down. Should we require that buyers pay cash? Again I ask, was this process worth neutralizing the "mis-perceptions"?
Someone wiser than me once said "be careful what you wish for". I hope that is not the case here!
While many details remain to be worked out, I hope that low-income buyers or those who have had trouble saving for a down payment won't face a "disparate impact" from what may be nothing more than micro-managing what has been a largely beneficial arrangement.
Are we throwing the baby out with the bath water? Let's remove bad actors from this industry.
PERIOD!
A settlement announced by the National Association of Realtors on Friday, which ended its litigation with some homesellers, is expected to fundamentally change the rules around how Americans buy and sell their homes.
