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As a real estate agent team, we are often asked What Is The Normal Commission For A Realtor. The answer is: There isn’t one.
The commission is always negotiable. You’ll find listing agents for 1% commission, others for 6% and even 10%. There are also variable commissions which you’ll learn more about in this video.
Video
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Read more about Closing Costs when Selling a House here.
Take Aways
- The commission is Always Negotiable
- The seller pays the commission for buyer’s and seller’s agent: Example: 6% commission can be split 3%/3%
- There are variable commissions available with some agents such as in a dual representation situation
- Not all agents are created equally
Transcript
Hi, my name is Lori Ballen. I am the owner of Lori Ballen team here in Las Vegas or Reno, North Las Vegas and Henderson. We have a great team here to represent you, but today I want to answer the question, what is the standard realtor commission?
You’re trying to figure out how much is it going to cost you to re to use a real estate agent? Well, if you are buying a house, chances are the co-op, the buyer broker commission is paid by the seller. It’s probably not going to cost you a real estate commission as the buyer. Now, make sure that you check your contracts and talk to your real estate agent.
Now, if you are the seller and you’re trying to find out how much that real estate agent commission is going to cost you to sell your house, I want you to know that there really is no standard. In fact, we are prohibited, through our real estate division to even talk about a standard commission because there really is no standard commission. Nothing can be set. What I can tell you is that commission is always negotiable.
Now, let’s just take an example.
A real estate agent can have their own set fees. We just can’t set them as a state or a city or as a board or as a nation, that type of thing. Let’s just say you contact Lori Ballen team and you’re interested in selling your house and you speak with David, my fantastic agent who lives here in Las Vegas, and he comes out to talk to you about selling your house.
Now he may talk to you about the fact that our fee is going to be six percent of the sales price. If there is a six percent listing fee, that’s what’s going to be listed in your contract. There will be a contribution to the buyer’s side. That can be any of any percent of that total six. You guys get to decide that because it’s negotiable. Let’s just say we say we’re going to want three percent on the listing side. The agent would then offer that with the listing in the MLS.
Now, your seller’s agent, your listing agent, which would be us, Lori Ballen team, our fee at that point, is 3 percent. And the buyer’s agent side is going to get three percent. If your house sells for $300,000, which is pretty much the median sales price right now here in Las Vegas, at a six percent total commission, you’re looking at about $18,000 and that would be 9,000 to the listing agent and $9,000 to the buyer’s agent.
Now your listing agent is going to have fees with their own broker. They’re going to have possibly franchise fees, we’re going to have a marketing costs, potentially staging costs, signs, videos, tours, that kind of thing.
Now, let me give you another example of where you might find some room for negotiation too. Sometimes the seller will negotiates a with their listing agents to discount the commission if they bring the buyer.
Nevada is one of those states that allows for that dual agency relationship where the agent can represent both the seller and the buyer through full disclosure, of course. And when that happens, there can be a variable commission that says, okay, I’ll agree to pay you six percent or seven percent or 10 percent or five, whatever your listing agreement is. You guys agree upon. And if you bring the buyer that I want the commission to be changed to five percent because now we’re representing both sides. Now your commission that you’re paying out from it goes from 18,000 to 15,000 if your agent is the one that procures that buyer. So you have room to negotiate.
Always make sure that you interview the real estate agent. And be sure that you’re clear and understand what that commission is. One of the reasons why there is no standard is because every agent’s different.
Now today, in a seller’s market, it may not take as much to sell that house. So you may have some negotiating room. You might also deal with an agent that’s in the top one percent of local agents that sell houses, that does all the marketing and the tours like we do here at Lori Ballen Team, That has a fantastic reputation. And we know what our value is. We know what works. We know how much easier we’re going to make the process on you.
We know that we’re going to get that home sold as fast as possible for the highest dollar amount. We’re incredibly skilled and educated with how to price your home. I personally am a digital marketing strategist and specialize in online marketing. So from Facebook ads to BING to Google adwords to Instagram, LinkedIn: all the social, we know how to present the home of the best light and how to get the most amount of buyers, which leads to the most amount of showings, which often case leads to multiple offers and higher price ranges, potentially cash buyers that can get you out of that gets you close that much quicker.
And if there’s no appraisal, the cash buyer might even be able to come in higher than somebody would with the loan where the appraiser is low. If you’d like more information on this contact as Lori Ballen team, we would love to come out, take a look at your property, talk to you about pricing strategies and how we can get the most amount. Therefore, you are in that bottom line. Thanks for joining me today.
