Am I taking advantage of my broker?

I like negotiating with sellers and writing offers out. I’m working with a real estate agent, and even though its part of his job to do that, I perfer to do it myself. Any property that he sends me through a MLS or pocket listing I told him I will pay him commission for it. I heard that when an agent does not write offers on properties he doesnt get paid. Some people even said that doing this will be taking advantage of my broker. How true is that?

You should always make sure that your professionals get paid. If you do all the paperwork and you go to closing you have to put your agent’s name on the paperwork to assure that the selling agent knows the commission needs to go to him.

So even though im negotiating with sellers and making offers, my real estate agent will still get paid just as long as I put his name on the documents?

There’s a place on the contract where you list the commission and how it is split. If you put it on there, the closing attorney will make sure the money goes to your agent.

Ohh okay. Thanks for the help

Remember Pig’s get fed and Hog’s get butchered! I learned that lesson a long time ago. If out can’t find enough room in the deal to make sure everyone gets paid then the deal itself is too thin. Personally I agree with you that negotiations of the deal should be done by the buyer and wish that I always had control of my deals. Yet that being said even though I am not a huge Realtor fan for the most part, I always pay them in the deals they find me. I may cry on the way home from closing or throw the closing gift at a poster sized picture of them when I get home… YET I generally make sure they get paid… Last month I gave a Realtor 13 listings (OUCH) So when I don’t pay him that well on the next 13 deals I am sure he will totally understand. (YEAH RIGHT) Anyway lets not talk about how I really feel about it here. We still did a great number of deals last month without him… I still paid the Mortgage and kept the lights on…

One of my favorite sayings.

You get a closing gift? What is that?

Yay! I am now a Member of the Jelly of the month club!! LMAO

Last closing gift I got was a framed picture of the house I bought that the Realtor didn’t know I sold 20 minutes later… It made a great RE-Gift to the end buyer though!

LOL. Retail Realtors are a challenge.

If a realtor brings you a lead but you do all the work after that, how much cut do you give them? Not the same as if they did everything, right?

Stuart

To be honest flynpa it depends on how many leads they are bringing me… If they are bringing good quality leads all the time I would pay them 3% if they are worth it. One thing to keep in mind is that if they do the final contract they have their E&O Insurance to cover anything wrong in the contract. They are responsible to make sure that everything is included and that the contract is done right. For that reason alone it makes it worth the 3% sometimes. Also I guess it depends on the deal if they bring you a skinny deal that you can’t afford to pay the full 3% on it is highly negotiable. So I would go on a deal by deal basis personally I never have the need to use a Realtor that often anymore. Last month we found 17 listings and I get paid a flat fee for all of those from the lender directly, my company is just doing something totally different so we find them deals not the other way around.