Should You Negotiate A Real Estate Agent's Commission?

If you visit home sellers forums on line, or read home selling tips books or blogs, one thing you'll read in several places is that the listing real estate agent's fees are always negotiable. What they are saying is that you do not have t simply accept the fee the listing agent quotes to you to start with. This is, usually, a true statement. There is no law that sets the commissions real estate agents charges for their  services.

There are even discount rate real estate agents and companies that charge a  substantially lower fee than other agents as a matter of course. Some of these discount real estate companies will even charge just a simple flat rate fee.

The sole purpose for hiring a real estate agent is to take advantage of their professional approach to selling your home. The agent has specialized knowledge of home sales, the local market, advertising and marketing campaigns, and other home selling skills. By contracting the agent you gain the advantage of these skills to sell our homes. The reason people want the agent selling their home is that they  recognize that the agents have access to resources they do not have access to. They have a greater chance of putting a buyer together with the home and getting that buyers signature on the real estate forms that will sell the home. A faster sale, hopefully at a higher price offer, means more money in the seller's pocket and fewer expenses getting there. Often the mortgage payments a homeowner will not have to
pay alone will make up for the agents commission. There is no other reason to hire an agent.

When you consider it this way it doesn't actually make a lot of sense to use a discount agent or broker to sell your house. It also doesn't seem as attractive to try to negotiate the commission with the real estate agent. If you get the agent to accept a 50% reduction in their fees, they know that at best, selling your home will earn them half of what selling another home in the same price range would earn them. If you knew that you could do the same amount of work and receive twice the compensation from one source as you would from another source, which would you invest your time and money in? The real estate agent's answer to that question is the same as yours. Why would they push your home when, for the same amount of time and effort, they could push another comparable home and earn twice as much income.

Given this scenario, which home do you think is likely to have a new owner filling out the real estate forms and going to closing first? Think twice before negotiating on the agents fees, what little you save there may cost you a lot more before the home is sold.