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Originally Posted by frayedends
You say it cost you nothing, but you paid the buyer's agent by paying for the house. The seller included the 5% in the price and their agent paid your agent from those proceeds. So it was all built in to the house price.
Going forward, will selling agents decrease their commission because they aren't paying a buyer's agent? Maybe, and maybe they will tell the sellers to plan on paying a buyers agent if the offer requires that. Maybe the seller agent lowers the commiss. to 3% and the buyer's agent is on their own. The buyer may have to offer less if they can't afford to pay their agent. If they don't have cash they will ask for cash back at closing. Lots of ways this could pan out and I think this result only makes everything more complicated.
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At least in CT, I agreed to pay a 5% commission when I listed the house. It was standard, really not negotiable in most cases. If the buyer didn’t have an agent, the listing agent kept the entire commission. If there was a buyer’s agent, they split the commission. This all tended to balance itself out as most agents are agents for some buyers and agents for some sellers. A lot of realtors won’t let the seller’s and buyer’s agent come from the same agency as there is some kind of special rues around this.
I do not have a fluent understanding of all of this or the new rules that are going into play, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out, but one thing is for sure, if commissions come down, there is less money to be made and some realtors and agencies may not fare as well as before.