Ask HN: Why would seller broker not put their skin in the game?

1 points by cploonker 9 years ago | 4 comments

As soon as I listed my property for sale by owner on zillow, i started getting 100s of calls(10x more than actual buyers) from realtors wanting to be my seller broker. Though i offered to pay 2.5% buyer broker commission most realtors were selling hard to be seller broker instead of taking advantage of the buyer broker commission.

So i offered the following: "Besides giving me the listing price also give me estimated lowest sell price. And then i asked them to put their skin in the game and lose their commission if the property were to sell below their recommended lowest sell price"

Since nobody accepted, i am curious why would the seller brokes not put their skin in the game?

JSeymourATL 9 years ago |

> then i asked them to put their skin in the game and lose their commission if the property were to sell below their recommended lowest sell price"

The propositon as framed, sounds all or nothing. You as the seller ultimately control the acceptable offer price. Relative to 100s of calls, that's a demand indicator of property in your market. Often a Selling Agents value is qualifing true buyers, dealing with all the bozos, moving the process towards a speedy close.

A good question for these guys might be, how would you sell my property faster/better/smarter than I'm doing all on my own?

cploonker 9 years ago | |

How about following: asking/reference price is determined at the time of signing the contract.

"For every 1% change in the selling price, seller broker will get 10% change in commission rate. i.e.

Sell price Seller broker commission

Reference/asking price 2.5%

1% less than asking 2.25%

5% less than asking 1.25%

10% less than asking 0% (same for anything more than 10% less than asking price.

1% higher than asking 2.75%

5% higer than asking 3.75%

cploonker 9 years ago | | |

I created a sheet which shows the same calculation as above. It shows how when the selling price increases with respect to reference price(agreed between seller and broker) both benefit. Actual listing price on MLS does not have to be same as the reference price. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RZPJ0PxdZo-tMwsTG3g7...

This ensure that the seller broker interest is aligned with the seller. And the broker will tend to come up with a realistic price as reference price rather than an inflated price before signing the contract and then constant nagging for reducing the price after signing the contract.