When a company transfers an employee from one area of the country to another, it is not unusual to enlist the services of a relocation company to help with the move. A relocation company assists the employee with selecting real estate agents in the new and old locations, finding a moving company and sometimes helps with the mortgage process. Relocation companies are usually compensated by receiving a referral fee from the real estate agency that the employee uses to sell/buy a house from.
I spoke with Peggy Richard, of Rise Real Estate Parkway Perimeter and Team Richard, about unusual events in the home buying process. She provided a story from team member Dick Smith about an unusual occurence with a relocating client, where Smith ended up paying two referral fees for one client.
The Case of Paying the Piper--submitted by Dick Smith of Team Richard
This is an unusual story of having to pay referral fees two times for an out-of-state client relocating to
the Huntsville/Madison, Alabama, area. The client was employed by a major government support contractor.
Team Richard subscribes to some referral services, where a fee is paid up front for referrals during a specified period of time. A family referral was received recently from one of these services. Team Richard responded immediately by assigning a Realtor to the case. The Realtor met with the family and started the house-hunting process within a couple of hours.
Many houses were reviewed during the next two days and several were shown to the prospective buyers. The effort resulted in a successful purchase contract. The purchaser made several phone calls to his employer to verify our compliance with their relocation guidelines. This was done at the Realtor's request.
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'Becca, I think they had better not use this referral company any more. Thirty-five percent is on the high end of the range and there should not have been an upfront fee. It is usually a case of either/or NOT both.
Bill Roberts