Commissions from Buyers?

Whats normal??

There has been a lot of discussion here about the advisability of having a buyers brokers agreement before spending too much time and effort with a potential customer.  The agreement would specify a commission to be paid by the buyer. But this commission would be offset by the commission paid to the buyers broker by the seller, through the listing broker, under the terms of a co-broker agreement. ie if the buyers broker agreement specified a x% commission, and the co-broke is x% the buyer owes nothing.  but if the buyer commission is x% and the cobroke is (x-y)% then our buyer owes y%. A nonrefundable retainer fee, may or may not be part of such an agreement.

There is an agent in my office that wont take out a buyer without such an agreement She does not collect a retainer (yet).  Ive done it once for one unusual deal... My client wanted a specific kind of property with certain special features, and we couldnt find it on the mls. We negotiated a 5% buyer paid commission with  a $2500 deposit paid up front to find him what he wanted (refundable if we couldnt find a property meeting his needs),  It took six months to find a willing seller(fsbo), but  Im looking forward to settlement in early August