r/AskRealEstateAgents

Our real estate agent went on maternity leave. We asked who would be handling showings, paperwork etc. during the time she was out. She said her Mom with who is also an agent with the same broker, would do all the showings for her for a few weeks. “Tag team,” if you will. Mom was in on texts about showings, offers, acceptable minimums, etc. Mom did a few showing. Mom showed the home to a buyer who had no agent. Mom quickly became the buyer agent and now had put in a lowball offer. Suddenly, Mom has also left the brokerage she was listed as. Very upsetting! Is this even legal? They won’t even consider a reduction in fee. We are in GA.

"Real Estate Leads"

What it is:

- Motivated

- Valid Expected Price Range

- Closing Timeline

- Owner is expecting your call

What it isn't:

- Reason for selling: I want the money

- Market Value Expected Price Range

- No Closing Timeline

- Didn't give you a time in the day to call him/her back

There are many big misconceptions on what a proper qualified lead is.

We went under contract with a contingency clause that the sellers would have 2 additional weeks to go under contract with a new house for them, and the closing date for both of us would be 30 days from the signing of that contract.

The sellers went under contract within that time frame and our contingency was removed via us and the seller signing an addendum stating that.

We just got word that the sellers are now backing out of their contract, as their new house failed inspection, and asked if we are going to back out of our contract, and if not, could we push the closing date back to whatever their new closing date will be.

We have no intention of backing out, as we love this house, but are hesitant to push the closing date further out, as we will have to extend the lease on our apartment to month to month, and our contract has language that states the seller will have to pay us a daily fee if they occupy the house after our closing date, which will cancel out our extra rent payment.

Our realtor is telling us that this is difficult to enforce, and our only options are to either back out or push back the closing date. We feel like we should stand our ground, pay for an extra month of rent, and be lenient on the move-out day knowing that the daily fees will cover that cost. We don't want to be jerks, but we also don't want to lose additional money when we had language in our contract to cover this exact situation. Are we correct in our reasoning/interpretation?

My house was on the market for less than five days before we received an offer at our full asking price. My husband and I spent months upgrading, repairing, deep cleaning, decluttering, landscaping, and preparing the house to get it market ready. By the time it officially listed, a tremendous amount of the heavy lifting had already been done by us.

We hired a real estate agent who suggested a listing price that we had actually already planned on before even meeting with her. Professional photos were taken, the listing went live, paperwork was sent through DocuSign, we had three showings, and within a day we had an offer at asking price. After one conversation mentioning there was another interested buyer and that we would sign at asking price, the buyers agreed.

Now, to be fair, the process is not over yet. Inspections, appraisals, financing, repair requests, and closing could absolutely become complicated, and agents often earn their commission during those stages. I fully recognize that.

But it genuinely has me questioning the traditional real estate commission structure in today’s world. With modern technology, AI, automated forms, online listings, electronic signatures, and hot markets in certain areas, some transactions seem dramatically less labor intensive than they once were. Yet commissions are still often tens of thousands of dollars.

So my genuine question for real estate agents is this:

When you know a listing was unusually easy, do you internally recognize that? Are there ever situations where you feel uncomfortable taking the full commission because the house essentially sold itself and the workload was minimal? Have any agents here ever voluntarily lowered their percentage or given money back in situations like that?

I completely understand that good agents often sell homes quickly, and that is exactly what sellers want. I also understand there are difficult listings where agents absolutely earn every penny. But I also believe some homes are simply highly desirable and practically sell themselves once they hit the market.

I’m honestly not trying to attack agents. I’m genuinely trying to understand how agents themselves view this specific (probably rare situation.)

My father passed away last week. He was living in a condo community that is very popular with empty nesters in his city, and his unit is particularly desirable because it is first floor/single level. Five days after he died - before we had even held his funeral - I get a text from an agent saying she has a buyer ready to make an offer right now on the condo.

This agent is actually someone who was friends with my parents, and she helped my dad buy the condo after my mom died and he decided to downsize. She said "I know the timing isn't great, but an agent I work with has a buyer named [insert buyer name] who wants to write an offer for your dad's place. It is my fiduciary duty as a real estate professional to present this to you." Mind you, my sibling and I have NOT hired this woman to represent us, nor have we spoken to ANYONE about our plans to sell. I texted her back and said we do not intend to sell anytime soon, and we will NOT consider an offer from someone who thinks it is OK to reach out so soon. I don't care if this person offers more than anyone else; we will not sell to them.

Am I wrong in thinking that this is TACKY behavior, both on the buyer's part as well as both agents?

My (former) realtor was a friend/acquaintance. When it finally came time to list my house I was excited to hear his price opinion. He supposedly looked at comps and recommended a range of like 424-445 so I went with 439. We got a ton of interest but no offers. I finally contacted him (maybe one month in) and said that I think we should do a price reduction cause, frankly, I would let the place go for 400. His exact words were, oh we shouldn't go down that low, how about 424. So I said OK. I live an hour away, I have someone mowing the lawn and I asked my realtor to tell me if it ever looked bad. I get there yesterday and its not looking good at all, and the house smells horribly musty and just needs a basic cleaning. At the very beginning I asked for cleaner recs from my realtor and he said he would help, which apparently consisted of moving one box. Me and my yard work helper scrambled to do as much cleaning as we could and mow the lawn before photos were taken (I got like 24 hour notice) and then I went back to my busy life an hour away. Long story short three weeks after the last price reduction my realtor says it needs to be reduced to under 400k and he always just approaches the whole thing like it is my fault, taking no accountability that he set the price less than two months ago. I did call him out for having an open house in a dirty smelly house and reminded him I had asked for recomendations for someone who would do the cleaning. In my book it is better to invest in cleaning and landscaping before slashing the price 40k. Somehow in our text exchange he just cancelled our listing and wants nothing to do with me. I was direct but it wasn't like I was swearing or anything. I am involved in a type of law that involves a lot of real estate sales, I had never seen so many price reductions in such close succession. One of the things I texted him was "where did the 440 price come from?" and I guess he couldn't take it and just cut the listing. It isn't like I don't know other realtors but I am super frustrated, I've been paying two mortgages so long and I have done nothing but follow his advice every step of the way. But I was not about to go into slashing the price 20k every two or three weeks. He has been a successful realtor before, I do know my house was his first listing that he left his bigger agency. I am just alarmed by the unprofessionalism and the lack of accountability. I wanted to understand if we just WAY over priced my house or if the market is actively tanking. But all he would say is "we are in this together." The house got a LOT of views, a lot of viewings, I would have expected people who thought it was over priced to make a lower offer at least. It makes me wonder about his sales ability. I, personally, believe I have a right to ask about a forty thousand dollar price difference in two months and I am really shocked by the behavior of this person that I used to consider a friend. I feel like when my finances are on the line I should get a little leeway for being frustrated. To me this is wildly unprofessional but I tend to have higher professional standards than most people abide by. Interested in input on the drastic, short term price reductions.

Listing my house at $2M. If I offer 5% ($100k) to the buyer’s agent, would that actually incentivize agents to show it more and help it sell faster?
Curious about real experiences now, does higher buyer agent commission still move the needle on high-end homes?
Thanks!

this is a long rant, but my husband and i need help if there is anything we haven’t thought of yet.

my husband and i bought a house a year and a half ago for $147k, and we thought we would be here for a lot longer. but my husband got offered a new job we couldn’t pass up. exact same pay as where we are, and we already found a house where we are moving.

we put our house on the market and immediately got an offer that we took, they wanted it so bad they offered $161k. we thought life was amazing. until the inspector came- said he recommends we replace all the plumbing, need a whole new roof, and need someone to redo the electrical.

we are broke. we made $2k on the house only having it for a year— we paid all interest the first year, of course. we had a plumber come out to look at our house, he said there are places he recommended replacing in the piping but there isn’t anything wrong with all of the piping to need to replace EVERYTHING, it’s just older. the buyers done care, they want us to replace all the piping for 16k-20k. we can’t.

when we got the roof inspected when we bought the house the guy said it was at about half it’s life. great. 2 new inspectors came and said it’s dead, and it’s not from storms or anything. so insurance won’t cover it. $25k to replace, we can’t.

we do have a guy coming to fix all the electrical for them.

is there any way we can come out of this not going into debt? we don’t care if we make $0 selling this house. we just can’t be $40k in debt. we want to be done with these buyers and relist as is but our realtor thinks it’s a horrible idea. please help. i’m pregnant and stressed and just never want to look at this house again.

We are in a competitive market, where most houses in a quiet neighborhood with a yard go very fast (regardless of needing work or not) and for anywhere between $100-200k over depending on the specifics. We found a pretty basic 3 br/1 bath on the smaller side that needs cosmetic updates and a new kitchen (my father in law is a contractor so that's no issue for us), but otherwise is in a quiet neighborhood, great schools and good structural condition. It is being sold directly by a realtor who bought it for relatively dirt cheap (probably around $550k), most likely from an estate or something of the like. They cleaned it out, did zero work and relisted for $659k, which is still underpriced for the area.

We tried to jump the offer deadline because the realtor said they would entertain offers before the deadline. We offered just over $700k, waived mortgage contingency and inspection for informational purposes only. The realtor did get back to us saying that they got two offers a day early and ours was the higher one. They also said they would've accepted our offer if it was cash and that they'll just wait and see what else comes by the deadline.

We have a chance to resubmit today and raise our offer, but I'm struggling and thinking we are bidding against ourselves. Our realtor thinks a cash buyer could swoop in, but my guess is that they would have already if it was above our original offer and even if they do go above our revised offer, we weren't going to win anyways (the ROI really doesn't make sense for them to offer $100k over and then try to flip it again). I know waiving the mortgage contingency isn't exactly the same as a cash buyer, but is it weird they made that comment? We're thinking of increasing our big by another $10k instead of another $30k. Opinions welcome!

First time home seller here. We recently listed our home for sale in a very seasonal tourist town. We have been in our new home for a few months, but waited to list because there is very little activity outside of the summer months and we didn't want the house to sit on the market. Most buyers here do not have home sale contingencies attached, as they are either cash offers or second homes. We are looking at an offer that does have a sale contingency, but I am nervous about it not working out and consequently losing out on peak selling season. If it falls through and we have been off the market for several weeks, we very well could be out of luck and have to wait until next summer to get it sold.

Is it reasonable to ask for a larger earnest money deposit in order to take this risk and be faced with another year of costs? If so, what amount might be considered reasonable? Might be some other options in this situation?

Thanks for any ideas/info!

We are FTB almost at exchange. When we first met our estate agent, we liked her because she wasn’t pushy like the others we’d seen. She also didn’t dissuade us when we put in a lower offer that eventually got accepted.

During our second viewing, however, she was on her phone scrolling the entire time, but we just thought she was leaving us to it. We asked her a bunch of questions about the property, which she just didn’t answer. She then pushed us to get a survey before we instructed a solicitor, saying they’ll only take it off the market if we do that. After 2 weeks when the solicitor was doing their thing, she asked my partner and I for a review, citing that she and her colleagues were having a contest and they needed reviews in by that day. I was still blinded by my love of the property and just believed her and kinda wanted to keep her sweet.

Fast forward to a month in and we learn through our solicitor that the flat was underpinned back in 2004. The agent had known but didn’t tell us. This time I got vexed and told her outright that she should’ve told us. She said she didn’t want to get into a “he said, she said” exchange. I didn’t even know what this means considering she never told us.

This caused us to prolong things and get a structural survey, which came back as having moderately high subsidence risk if trees weren’t kept in check (they are - council is liable). Anyway, the solicitor wanted to tell the bank, so we did and told our agent.

She then replied with an obviously AI-written email saying this was “unnecessary concern” and that she “strongly urged us to rethink sending it to the bank, which could delay our purchase”. We basically replied and said we would heed our solicitor’s advice, thanks.

The bank is making an on-site visit to value it. We told her this, but she’s now not replied to our last two emails. I really want to reply and CC in her manager, but I know this is a bit of a d*** move. What can we do if we aren’t happy with the seller’s estate agent?

I am going through the home buying process. We recently put an offer in ($5k under asking) and my agent told us that the sellers were accepting our offer. The sellers wanted until 7/10 stay in the house, that worked in our favor since we aren't in a rush. Our initial offer had them paying us rent for a month after closing. They countered by pushing the closing until 7/10 instead of paying rent. That was fine with us, except we are going out of town 7/10 so the agent suggested changing closing to 7/9. By amending their offer of closing from 7/10 to 7/9, we apparently reopened the negotiating window and they received more offers in that time. According to our agent, our previous offer was going to lose so we upped the offer to $1k over asking (from $5k under). We ended up getting the house and are happy. But I recently heard that we don't have to be at the closing in person so we didn't need to change their offer and basically lost out of $6k. I agreed to the change and we made the decision to up the bid $6k but I can't help but feel our agent made a mistake here. At the very least she should have know the change in dates would have opened up the negotiating window and she should have suggested closing not in person. My question for you is, did my agent make a mistake? Is this a big deal and should I take any measures other than not recommending the agent to friends in the future? This is in Ohio, apologies if I got some terminology wrong.

(First posted on r/realtors but mods suggested this forum a better fit)

Property listed on Friday, and viewing calendar went nuts, as it is a beautiful, well-maintained property within walking distance to elementary, middle, and high-schools in the one of the best districts in the state. Sellers told all interested parties that they should put in offers by Monday (yesterday) at 5pm. My agent suggested that I put in an all-cash offer with an escalation clause and no contingencies. I agreed with him, since it was the house I wanted in the location I wanted, and I have a budget that would allow me to tackle even the worst of hidden problems (thanks Nvidia!).

House listed at 900,000. My offer was all cash 990,000 with an escalation at increments of 10K going up to 1,250,000, with 50K earnest money. Again, waive inspection, no contingencies for financing, closing dates, etc. etc. etc.

Last night at 10pm my broker calls me and he tells me that he has news, but it is “weird.”

Listing agent says that there were 9 offers on the house, and that two of them are tied; mine and one other, but that the other one did not have an escalation clause. Given the language of the listing agent who communicated the situation, my agent seems to think that it was also all cash at 990K and similarly free of contingencies.

But here is where it is weird. The listing agent says that the sellers are uncomfortable with my escalation clause since it is “unfair to the other buyer” and are therefore now asking just me and this other buyer to each submit a “highest and best offer” by 5pm today (Tuesday).

Shouldn’t the listing agent have honored my escalation clause since they didn’t exclude this option in the original listing? By asking me to resubmit they are informally invoking my escalation without actually formally triggering it (state law stipulates that they would have to show me the official record of the competing offer that triggers any escalation). But by rejecting my escalated offer and demanding that I resubmit a highest and best offer the listing agent and the sellers have now seen my highest amount (1.25M). So they know how badly I want the property, how much, exactly, I am capable of paying, and could well be fabricating this other offer in order to force me to make an even higher offer, which I feel compelled to do in order to buy the house.

Is this sketchy behavior by sellers and their listing agent, or just a strange situation? I am not asking for advice here, just to get a sense of how professional realtors view the situation. Thanks in advance!

My wife and I are looking to purchase my grandparents home that they have paid off for $250,000, we have already been preapproved and got the letter emailed today. My grandparents are okay with selling at that price, while my wife and I are obviously looking to get the most beneficial deal for us, while not trying to screw over my grandparents.
We were told 19,000 in estimated closing costs & down payment.
I guess my long worded explanation boils down to this question. What is a fair amount to ask my grandparents to cover of those costs ? If they were going to sell the house, on the market with a realtor, with those fees included as well as any potential buyer negotiations, is it fair to ask for half ? For more ? Or less? And advice is appreciated.
We live in Oklahoma and are doing a FHA 30 year fixed rate.