'Easy' Deal Not So Easy

Undertstanding how agents work & get paid an eye-opener

Recently, I had a buyer express that they felt that I had an "easy" deal with them - getting paid for "only 1 day of work."

I'd like to share an excerpt of my response to him, in explaination of why it's not always the "slam dunk" it seems to be:

"I am not in sales, per se, the same way you are or like a store clerk, paid by the hour.

Like you mentioned that first day, you wanted my experience and guidance. A "buddy in real estate." You didn't need me to show or find you houses - anyone can do that and that isn't what I get paid for. My worth is not that I can set up showing appointments & unlock doors, it's everything else I do.

If you want to tally what I "did" so far, I have actually worked on your account five days, not one day, if you include the first showing the day we met, the buyer orientation, the day of the 16 showings (note: the "1 day" that was referenced), the day I set up those showings and yesterday.

And that is just the beginning!

We still have negotiations going back and forth with the offer process, the home inspection, negotiating any more terms from the inspection, working with your lender, the final walk through inspection and the closing.

It's about 1.5 months of back & forth work, just for you.

Not to mention the liability risk I take in respresenting you. And all of the time & expense of getting you as a client in the first place (ie. my web site & advertising).

Buyers & sellers don't want to pay us based on time & experience, the way lawyers get paid. We take all of the risk up front and get paid on the back end, only if we are successful. A buyer buying an $80k property often requires a lot more work, yet I get paid a lot less. I am willing to do this because of things that you are calling the "easy" deal. It makes it all a "wash" for me.

I would have also been paid the same amount whether you took 6 days or 6 months. That's a risk I take and a bonus to you, should you take longer & need more. We only get paid once we are successful and the deal that sellers have worked out with us - in order to not pay us unless we are successful - is to consider us successful if we bring them a ready, willing and able buyer and give us a split of their profit if we do. "

"We have a huge risk, everytime we take a buyer or seller client, that we may do a lot of work without ever getting compensation. We agree to take a percentage and not charge based on time & experience. (An agent with 6 months experience gets the same as I do, with my 11 years experience!) Again, the reason we do it is it's understood that it all comes out even for us at the end.

Sellers don't want to pay us based on time & experience. They say, "We'll pay you based on your success, not your time & experience." Yet, when their deal turns out to be "easy" or quick, they always complain and want to break it down to how much time we actually spent on their deal, even though they are the ones that didn't want to pay us based on how much time we spent!

And buyers don't want to pay us at all, in spite of the fact that most of the time consuming, tedious & expensive work we do is working with buyers. Most view us as store clerks, showing them inventory, yet forget how heavily they rely on our experience and guidance, unlike some clerk showing them a pair of shoes. So sellers get charged more, so buyer agents can get paid, too.

So, do I feel that the extra $2,400 I would get....was excessive or unearned or easy or unfair?

No. I don't.

I've worked hard all year, for all of my clients, to earn every cent I get overall - especially the way the market has been."