Before you ask your agent for a discount.. please know this

Friends,

Before you go and ask for a discount on commission from a Realtor for helping you sell your home, please understand what you're truly asking them to do, and ask yourself this question: If your boss came to you and asked you to work overtime, but wasn't going to compensate you for doing so, would you still do it?

Another day, another person who says realtors are overpaid and an unnecessary part of a transaction. I’m assuming that those who think this have either been watching too much Million Dollar Listing or think they know how to do it all on their own.

A few things to consider:

There is no salary in their job.  No guaranteed income for them until the home actually sells (or you utilize their services to purchase one).  If it doesn’t go through for any reason, all of hours and time spent helping you and your loved ones go without any compensation for the time spent.  That means that all of the agents efforts, time energy gas spent traveling to your property and possibly showing you another home.. are gone and the agent is actually injured.

You see 3% on a $300k home as $9k. The agents sure don’t. That commission is paid to them:

- Before taxes

- Before broker splits

- Before marketing

- Before board dues

- Before office bills

- Before professional photographs on your home

- Before Listing fees to MLS and Syndications so that your home is broadcasted over the internet

- Before all the other costs of doing business

Out of what’s left of their checks after all this, they can then begin paying for everything else. But wait, that’s not all!

They don’t get afforded a lot of the things that those who have "regular jobs" have. For example.. 

They don’t receive:

- Employer healthcare

- Employee matched retirement accounts

- Paid vacations

- Weekends off

- Nights off

- Maternity leave

- Bereavement pay/leave

- Company car

They pay for all of this out of our own pockets. Every single penny.

Yes, there are some realtors married to people working company jobs who receive some of these benefits. But the vast majority of real estate agents, they support their families on what’s left after their benefits are taken out and spoken for.

Yes, they did choose to sell real estate. It’s a career which they love and it allows virtually uncapped growth and income potential. But they also have to often be available at any time of the day when needed. Whether it’s showing homes at 7pm, writing offers at 11 pm or doing final walkthroughs at 6am. They are there, available to help their clients when they are needed.

So before you tell another one of them that they make too much money and aren’t really needed anymore, I encourage you to do the following ...

Get your own real estate license, start lead generating on your own, find clients who like you and trust you to help them with the BIGGEST purchase of their lives.

Make sure you know not only what goes in the blanks of the contracts, but also what the promulgated parts of them say.

Learn the legal steps of what happens once you write a contract, and what business partners are a good fit to help you and your clients and who’s a scam.

Try and keep deals together when they’re about to go south with critical thinking skills all while staying within legal parameters.

Educate your new homeowner clients about what’s going to happen after they close and what to expect in the years to come.

Then listen, repeatedly, as others tell you the money you’ve been paid is WAY too much and they could do what you’ve done for much, much less.

Then ask yourself if you would go to work everyday and commit yourself to all the tasks above fulltime for ZERO compensation.  Real Estate agents work so hard and do all of this on a "promise to pay" at the close of the transaction.

Exhausting, isn’t it?

Thank you for considering and reading this post :-)