Sylvia Barry, MARIN, S.F. North Bay Real Estate

I have to agree that I think there is something wrong with -

1) for a Listing Agent to discourage a Buyer agent from showing a house or presenting an offer becuase they might ask for a certain percent of commission and/or

2) for a Buyer Agent to refuse showing a house or presenting an offer because he might or might not receive a certain percentage of commission

Because unless the house is being shown and the offer is being presented and negotiated, an agent will never know what might come of this. That's called negotiation.

Noticed I did not bother to say which side in the last comment. Without going into an endless loop - the whole thing can be looked upon both ways.

And it does not matter how you dice it, there is a net to the selling price / purchase price. Again, that can be looked at from both sides.

I hope I have not enraged all NY agents because I am getting myself into trouble with both sides coming from a clueless CA agent (again!) and I agree, it's easy for me to say it because I am not in the midst of this.

So sorry. Maybe I have to destruct these postings again! .

Gonna go and get ready.

Sylvia - A few minutes ago

I think you can argue it both ways - as a listing agent and as a buyers agent. Again, I do both, so I am only saying this because you mentioned.

This is very simple from what I can see - You signed a Buyer Representation with your buyer which says your commission is 3%. To the buyer, you are worth that much.

So, when you put in an offer on the house, knowing that the seller (or L.A. with seller's blessing) will only pay 1% to you, then you should ask your buyer to pay the additional 2% because that;s what you are worth to him, not to the seller. Or his offer to the seller will be 100% (or whatever) with 2% of those specifically goes to you.

Just like you said, you are not concerned about what the listing agent makes, you only care about what you are making. The same argument can be that the listing agent don;t have to care about what you make, they only care about the agreement between him and the seller.

If you are skillful enough, you will negotiate so the seller will accept the 98% or you will negotiate so the buyer will pay the 102% and you get your whole 3%.

If I am a seller, why would I want to pay 3% to a buyer agent so he can negotiate for a buyer? Yes, you brought a buyer here, but again, if your buyer likes the property and the seller offers you 1%, will you not show the house or will you tell your buyer that you two has the agreement that if you found him a great house, you get paid 3%, and now he has to pay for the difference? That is what you are doing, right? Searching for a home for your buyer.

There are definitely two ways to look at things, all depends on which side you are on... ...

Sylvia - Yesterday, 23:46

J.R. - I have not seen or known anybody in CA that pays 0% or 1% to S.A (buyer agent) unless that's FSBO or flat fee or discount broker. Because that would normally mean the L.A. also gets 0% or 1%.

Our practice is that in Listing Agreement, the seller decides the commission to pay and we split that with the S.A.. However, CA agents do the transaction from start to finish, we don't use lawyer's service. So, I can't answer your question about what happens of S.A gets 0 or 1%.

Laurie - Your statement says it's an inequitable split (in the eyes of Tom's buyer). I re-read Tom’s question a few times. There is no mention whether the whole commission is 2% with 1%/1% split or if it's 3% L.A. and 1% S.A.; and no mention of the BUYER thought it’s inequitable, so I don’t know where you read that?

What I read was that Tom's agreement says he'd get paid 3% commission as buyer agent regardless. This L.A says the S.A. gets 1% (again Tom did not mention how much L.A. is getting). So, to me, Tom is saying whatever price the buyer offers, his 3% commission is built in and it's foolish of seller not to pay him 3% if the seller wants the sale. I can agree if the L.A. is getting much more than the S.A. then there will be inequity, but I don’t know that from reading the question.

I am very curious about this because again, in CA, customarily is commission split 50/50. I recently have a S.A. made a counter offer with commission from 2.5% to 3%, which will cause inequitable split. She sent that offer in along with a (rude) email saying how my seller should do that otherwise lose the deal. In this case, my client is already losing a ton of money from the sale, and she would not want to lose more by paying more commission. I personally would have kicked in that 0.5% just so that it'd work for my client if not for the very low ball offer which would not have worked anyway.

Either way, when I saw her offer, I thought of how greedy she was and how she could have explained that to her client - that the purchase won't go through unless she gets that extra 0.5%. Is it true that her client wants that house but net enough if SHE does not get that extra 0.5%? I could not comprehend. Again, she would have gotten 2.5% which is not a small sum. Where does the fiduciary duty lie in her case? Exactly what I thought at the time and still now.

So, sorry, CA is quite different from NY and Tom is from NY.

Now, if you all think I am muddling the water by bringing up a totally different pracetice, then I will delete both of my answers. .

Sylvia - Thu Jul 24 2008, 08:14

Hi Tom:

I am confused by your question and your reasoning.

I represent both buyers and sellers, but I am not an exclusive buyers agent where I sign a contract with my buyers saying I demand to be paid a certain commission if I represent him/her on the purchase of a home. I usually get paid according to the agreement between listing agent and the owner.

So, now you are saying that is a house is priced at $100,000. The listing agreement says the commission will be 5% split between listing and selling agents. You come in with a buyer, you will then demand you get paid 3% while the listing agent get paid 2%?

And if the listing agent (after he did all the work to advertise and market the property), said, he will split the 5% with you 50/50 as agreed with the seller, you will not recommend your buyer client to buy the house and the seller will lose the buyer and the listing agent is not acting upon the sellers' best interest?

My question to you then is, are you acting on your client's best interest for not encouraging your client to buy the house because you are not getting paid your 3%?

Just a thought to look at it from the listing agent's angle and let me know what you think.

I want to emphasize the fact that I do represent both buyers and sellers and I tried to get the best deal for either depending on which side I represent, so I have no gain in your answer here either way.

Sylvia - Wed Jul 23 2008, 23:24

Looks like you are in the Top Voice for Austin Tx in two out of three categories. I won't worry about one of the top voices who must have answered 1,000 questions in just one week span.

Give quality answers and be consistent, you will be top voice also - look at Don Trepper - he puts in thoughts in a lot of his answers.

Best,
Sylvia - Earlier today

Normally ,we have the tenant pay for the water, which is not covered by the rent.

However, you might want to put something in the lease agreement to make sure the tenant keeps the lawn in good condition (or at least the same condition as you turned the house over). This is especially important just in case the tenant does not want to incur a huge water bill (yes, it's drought season, and our water company is charging us premium if we use more than a certain amount of water) so they don't stop watering the lawn and destroy the landscaping.

If you split the water bill, then you might risk paying for somebody;s waster of water also.

Sylvia - Earlier today

The purchase price plus closing costs (title, prorated tax, mortgage and interest, insurance, HOA, insurance, misc fees etc) are what you will need to close the escrow. However, you will need to budget costs for inspections, possible repairs for items that are required by the local government if not covered by the sellers.

That's pretty much about it. Just make sure you don't go out and buy some expensive items which can adversely affect your loan application.

Sylvia - Yesterday, 23:05

Hi Beth:

Various towns in Marin do allow kennels and boarding services, sometimes the business are actually for sale - I happened to see one a couple of months ago.

The best place to find out about zoning for kennel or boarding animals is to talk to the cities you are interested in and the county (if the location is in the county proper). You can actually call the planning / zoning departments first before deciding if you want to go down and talk to them. The will also let you know about the process of gettng property permit and such.

Once you have decided the area to look at, then you can find the available property that's suitable for your purpose.

Then again, you can save all the troubles by talking to a Realtor who will be able to do the research for you and see if there are properties that are currently available for your purposes - not only for the boarding/kennel but also for the home, lot size, location, community you might be interested in within the price range you are looking for.

This is what we do best.

Good luck!
Sylvia . - Yesterday, 12:23