Quote:
Originally Posted by margaretmattson
When buying a home, at anytime, you can drop one agent and get another. You have no contract with any of them. In fact, you can have several, if you want. No one can force you to work with them. So, is there an OFFICIAL buyers agent in Florida? I say no. If you say yes, we are just splitting hairs. It depends on one's definition. I have never had a buyer's agent. Just a man who saw $$$$ and kept following me from house to house. He didn't even negotiate terms, I did! Lol. If he wasn't there when I decided to buy, I would have contacted the listing agent. I would rather pay a good home inspector to follow me around. But, that's just me!
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In Massachusetts there can be a contract with a buyers agent. If not there can just be an agent disclosure that one is acting as a buyers agent. If there is a contract it usually has a date set on it. Even if the buyer walks away from that agent but is under contract that buyer's agent will likely still get that share of the commission. Years ago this exact thing happened to me. I had a buyer's agent (It was my first house and I had no idea about these things). I walked away because I didn't like her. But she showed up at closing and got her money. She did nothing in the way of helping me except send me to the house the first time. But the basic ethics rules is that agent that had the contract has some rights via the board of realtors to that commission.
Even if there is no contract but that agent shows the buyer the house, that agent will get their share of the commission, regardless if the buyer then stops all contact with them. The first question an agent should be asking when they get a call from a buyer is, "Are you working with an agent." There are times buyers don't disclose this and it can cause issues with commissions.
ETA: This lawsuit will likely increase the amount of actual contracts between buyer's agents and buyers. Because it seems the buyers will have to pay their agent directly rather than from the proceeds of the sale. It doesn't really help anything. It becomes more complicated. Here's an example.
For easy math...
House is worth 500K. Old way, it is listed and sells for 500K. At closing the 2 realtors split the 25K commission (5%) that was set on the listing.
New way: Owner lists and sells for 500K. Seller pays their listing agent 12.5K. But the buyer is under contract to pay their agent 12.5K (obviously, this number is whatever they negotiate). But buyers don't always have thousands extra laying around at closing. So they will perhaps write an offer that asks for 12.5K back at closing. Similar to how buyers will ask for closing costs back at closing. In the end the seller took home 475K in both scenarios.
One benefit I could see is in competition among buyer's agents. If the commission is now set at the listing, the buyer can hire any agent. But if there is a contract with the buyer's agent that sets the commission, the buyer's agents can compete with lower commission/pay.