As you may have read elsewhere, Lowe's has discontinued the REALTOR discount program effective next week, and invested in SoloPro - a real estate website promoting flat fees for Buyer Agents and rebating the Buyer Broker commission to the Buyer.
It's evident that the decisionmaker at Lowe's is CLUELESS - this direct from the SoloPro website instructing the Buyer Agent to make increased commission from the Seller part of the contract!
Would not fly in Arizona:
http://www.solopro.com/agent/closing-agents
How do I ensure that the seller pays the full 3% commission?
If the offered commission is less than 3%, then prior to making an offer you need to present the buyer with two options.
Option one is accept the lesser commission amount as the rebate amount.
Option two is adjust the commission up to 3%.
If option two is chosen, then your agency agreement should set your commission at 3% and and obligate the buyer to pay the shortfall between the offered commission and 3%. For example, if the offered commission is 2.5%, then the shortfall is 0.5%.
Most buyer agency contracts are set up to accomplish this by simply filling in the desired minimum commission. Obviously the buyer does not want to pay for his own rebate, therefore include a provision in the purchase contract that the seller agrees to credit the shortfall amount (in this example 0.5% of the sale price) to the buyer at closing toward closing costs.
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