r/realtors

I listed my house 21 days ago and have had only 1 showing. I was offering the buyers' agents only 2.5% because I'm trying to minimize my loss.

But now I'm wondering if it's possible that some realtors haven't shown their clients my listing because it's 2.5% commission instead of 3%?

That's my question.

Dropping the price hasn't helped at all -- it's 10K less than the comp that closed last month. The house is 2 yrs. old, on a good lot, and loaded with upgrades. The new builds in my neighborhood are at least 100K over my price, and they've been selling like hotcakes.

It kind of feels like my house is invisible, and I'm wondering if raising the commission to 3% might help.

Thanks in advance.

I'm unsure how to handle this situation or if it's out of the norm. Our realtor had photos taken of our house last Wednesday. He said the photos would be back by Friday and he'd have our house listed over the weekend and Monday at the latest. We signed all forms on Wednesday, including disclosures.

Fast forward to Monday, hadn't heard anything. I reached out and asked if it would be listed. He said he hasn't received the disclosures. We said it says we signed them last week (electronic). He agreed they had them. Didn't hear back, reached out again on Tuesday. Same thing, just checking for the disclosures with his assistant but ensures us the house is active now. Wednesday rolls around, house still isn't showing active or on any search engines, including their personal website that they post listings on. I reach out again in the morning (Wednesday) asking for the link to the listing itself. He said he was driving but that his assistant would send it to me soon. It's Thursday morning, still haven't received anything, house still isn't showing active. I have several people I know that are interested but no listing or photos to share.

We live in a rural area where the realtors here aren't very good, but this is the best realtor around which is why we signed with him. In one of the papers we signed, it said we can't terminate our agreement with him or we owe them $1,000. At what point is what he is doing abnormal? Or is this typical? We're moving for my husbands job in less than three weeks and he knows that every day counts for us right now.

Thanks in advance!

I’m trying to start a career in property management and want to learn from people who have actually done the job.

I have 10 years of customer service experience and I can write code. I’m open to starting at the bottom, but I want to be thoughtful about where I begin: leasing, assistant property manager, maintenance coordination, operations, owner relations, or any other position.

For those of you in the industry:
* What’s the best first role to target?
* What separates people who do well from people who burn out?
* Are certifications like CAM/ARM worth it early on?
* What’s the fastest way to become useful?

I’d be grateful for any honest advice. Also happy to DM if anyone is open to sharing their experience.

I have been looking into solar because the energy bills from BGE are getting insane and are supposed to be getting even worse. I talked to a company recently that said that leasing is and option and the contract is fully transferable when we sell the house (we are in a starter house right now so we will be moving in the next 5-10 years). I worry what happens when we sell the house. Had anyone had any experience selling a house that has a solar lease?

I’ve got money saved for a down payment and a job with a decent income. I’ve researched Zillow ( along with many other online sites) and see lots of homes for sale by owner in neighborhoods I like . I’ve spoken with several lenders and compared loan rates and terms. You don’t legally need a realtor to buy or sell a home, so why do i need one?

As many of you know, Compass partnered with MRED -- and then MRED pulled their listings feed from Zillow.

How'd it go today? Chaos? Business as usual? A lot of educating sellers on what happened?

Sellers should be watching this because less of a % of buyers will see listings unless it's posted manually onto Zillow (if the MLS bosses allow it).

My wife and I put an offer on a bank owned home that would need some extensive rehabbing in the state of Colorado. It’s been on the market for 300+ days. We found a lender willing to lend on it. Through our agent, went sent the offer. A few days later we were told there was 3 other offers and to give them our best offer, which we informed them the original offer was our best offer. Weeks went by and the listing’s asking price dropped another $10k. Our agent inquired and through a “portal” found out our offer was rejected or let to expire. We asked if he could ask why it was rejected, or if they could counter and the listing agent never responded. Now 2 months later the house is under contract.

Aren’t we legally entitled to a reason as to why our offer was rejected? My wife and I suspect the listing agent was lying about other offers, isn’t that at least unethical? I’m unsure what the correct word I want to use, but we feel we were discriminated against, or unfairly not given an opportunity to purchase. Are there any ramifications if the house sells for less than our offer or close to our offer?

Hiring a real estate coach

I have been through Buffini, Sell it with coaching. Got frustrated with the non realtors coaches. Connected with a top producer who offers
Coaching and had several zoom calls. I do think he would be great to tale advice from. But the
Cost is about $700/mo. I’ve been a realtor for 5 years and know what I need to do but I’m
Not organized. Who out there has had a coach during their RE career. Was it money well
Spend? Did your business grow? I would appreciate the feedback.

I'm in the process of moving and so far, I've seen a few questionable apartments that the realtors have been pushing me to sign the lease for. Please share with me your knowledge all of the red flags to look out for! 😊

I have been doing real estate for only a little over a year. Done a few deals. Hosted open house on the weekend and met a couple clients. They came in, we chatted, I asked if they had an agent, they said yes. Agent later arrived at the open house, introduced herself, gave me her card, stayed for about 10min with her clients and then left again. The clients stayed for a total of maybe an hour or so.

After the clients left, they called me and asked me to call them after open house ended. I did, they asked questions about the house, and I answered what I could. They asked about pricing, offers, etc, and I said I'm not their agent so cannot assist them, and they will need to ask their agent.

The next evening really late, they reached out to me and wanted to see if I can put in an offer for them and talk to me about pricing. I asked them if they had a BRBC with the agent they were working with. They said no. They want to work with me, not her. I didn't ask why. I figured it's the client's choice. The next morning, I sent them the BRBC and started working on the offer.

Clients call me telling me that their previous agent is pissed off when she found out they are using me instead of her. Clients told me and told that agent that it's because she has been unresponsive when they asked for help. She has always been hard to reach, takes a long time to respond, and overall, they were not happy with her and do not want to work with her. The agent has showed the client a couple homes and even with the showings, one of it was showed by the agent's daughter, not her. Clients said they told the agent the night before they want to submit an offer on the house and again, the agent took over 12hrs to respond. They didn't want to lose out on putting an offer on this house as they felt time was of the essence so they asked me to represent them since I was a better fit for them and very quick to respond and help them.

The other agent called my team lead who has known her for years, calls other people in our industry, blasts my name around saying I stole her client. My team lead said I messed up and shouldn't have done that and because the other agent is very well known in our city and has been doing this a long time, she's going to basically ruin my reputation for doing this.

I never intended to steal her client. I don't know her, didn't have her card with me, don't even remember her name, never crossed my mind to reach out to her before working with her clients. It never crossed my mind. I know by law, I didn't do anything wrong. But ethically, did I? I asked my brokerage and they said legally I didn't do anything wrong since she didn't have a BRBC with the clients. But ethically, I guess it's not that cool what happened.

I told my team lead I can give her back her clients. It's not a big deal to me as I never intended to "steal" them from her anyway. But the problem is, her clients don't want to work with her. Even if I don't represent them, they don't want to work with her. They told me she is love bombing them, calling, texting nonstop and it's scaring them. And begged me to represent them. I said sorry I can't. So I dropped my client and told them to either go back to her or find someone else. Clients found someone else to represent them. That agent is still going around asking who is representing the clients now and contacting the clients asking them who their new agent is, how they found them, etc. My clients messaged and told me.

What would you have done? Am I wrong? After this experience, I think that if this were to happen again, I would as a courtesy reach out to the agent to let them know their client wants to sign with me before I move forward and I am not trying to do anything unethical. But this whole situation has me feeling conflicted. Thoughts?

TLDR; Clients came to open house. Had an agent but no BRBC signed. Clients contacted me and asked me to represent them. The other agent is mad and calling other industry people blasting me saying I stole her clients. Clients told her they didn't want to work with her because she has been hard to reach, slow to respond, MIA. So that's why they went with me. Agent is still pissed and spreading this around. Clients still want to work with me but due to the situation, I told them I can no longer represent them. Clients refuse to work with the previous agent and went with someone else entirely. Am I wrong?

Successful agents - just curious the longest you’ve gone between closed transactions. I’m generally a 10-15 house a year person and my business has always been a roller coaster, either everyone’s calling me or no one is..

Just curious if other people are steady as she goes or up and down - business wise.

I have an agent who will get commission on the property we are buying. Should they also get commission from me on our current property we are selling? I’d prefer buyer pay closing cost. Is this common?

Finally got an offer!! I’ve been trying to sell this house for a while. Initially priced too high, but now right around where I feel is reasonable. Sellers bought the home while out of state, knew nothing of the area and flipped it. Issue is that it’s a historical district and people move there for character, not LVP and black fixtures with millennial grey walls. Nonetheless, I just knew it would take a specific buyer. Seller has been patient! We got an offer asking for $18k in closing costs. I asked the agent what all these costs were for and she said that it was the max (6%) that FHA would allow. She had no idea what the buyer would use it for (his costs were only $10k). With a slew of other things they were asking for, home warranty, new appliances, removal of exterior shed, PLUS a contingency for an unlisted home. The seller opted to not counter, it was truthfully a hard offer. Weeks go by and the agent stays in touch and their home finally lists. It’s in a very similar area that has a high DOM. I knew it wouldn’t be a fast sell. They resubmit their offer, asking for $10k in closing costs, appliances, warranty, removal of sheds, + contingency.

I encouraged the seller to counter with a first right of refusal, $7500 in closing, appliances, broker comp, and to not remove the sheds.

Agent told me the buyers no longer wanted to proceed because the seller is being “difficult” for a house with this many DOM. I guess I’m just ranting here. The buyers home could just as easily sit for extended period of time because of average DOM, and my seller will lose 60 days of market time for no reason if your home doesn’t sell? But we are unreasonable?

When I told her the risk it would pose for the seller to accept, she told me “I didn’t ask for your feedback” 🙁

She has only ever sold two homes. EVER!

Quit my 9-5 I’ve had since I started Real Estate because of scheduling. Any recommendations on jobs I should look for that allow me to focus more on real estate? I’m blessed enough to not need a 40 hour work week or a super good check. Just something to get by.

How would you advise a client?

Have a friend who purchased a property with fiancée at top of market. Home is worth 50-75k less than what they owe. Large development that was supposed to “change neighborhood” is now cancelled. Bad neighborhood is now worse.

Friend used fiancées sister as realtor to purchase home. Her first deal. They got screwed. On top of overpaying the Homes in bad condition and terrible layout. Fiancée broke up with my friend, followed by friend getting shot in a gas station robbery. Friend now has ptsd, and was formerly straight edge developed a drinking problem and just got dui. Friend now wants to sell property because his work is an hour + away and he lost his license for 2 years.

Most homes on the market in his neighborhood are superior and have been listed for over a year. No sales besides 1-2 new constructions. Priced 35k-50k less than what he bought for.

I am willing to list for free to help. Make him pay for photos and lawn care. But I’ll get photos virtually staged. His home is about 40 minutes from me, so I won’t have bandwidth to monitor property like I like.

Do you advise him to sell? He can’t come up with 50k+ at closing for difference if there is a buyer. But my gut is this home sits offerless for years. Tell him to look into foreclosures and short sales?

Advise him to rent it and lose 500 a month? The home is barely habitable to live in. Unsure if ac works- bad news in GA summers.

Any other options I’m missing? What would you do? Any advice on this bad situation would be very helpful. Thanks!

I’m fairly new to this and it’s not going well. I managed to sign a buyer from one of our Facebook ads and she turned out to be a whale. we have seen a number of luxury properties and we seemed to be getting along well. I have done a ton of research on construction for her desired features and she has been very grateful. the last home we saw was beautiful but the listing agent straight up lied about the equestrian features, which are key for this client. I apologized after and she said not to worry, and asked me to schedule a showing at another property, but she hasn’t confirmed that showing or responded to me through any channels since. have you ever managed to turn a situation like this one around? my system says she’s opening my emails but no replies. This one would have turned my whole year around and I am devastated.

I bought a house in July 2024 and paid my realtor 3% of the purchase price. I'm selling the house now, in 2026, and have to pay the buyers realtor fees as well as my own. I'm losing money on the house and having to pay $10,000.00 to the buyers realtor stings.

When I bought the house in 2024, should the seller have paid my realtor fees? I remember my realtor telling me about the big change that happened because of someone suing someone, but when I looked it up just now, I found conflicting info about when the change (to the seller paying both realtors) occured.

I would like to also mention that I was wronged by the realtor, inspector and seller, but didn't know what to do and just thought I was stuck with the consequences of a bad choice to buy.

Thanks!

In a situation where I got a friend of mine referred her coworker to me, he’s out from out of state(much cheaper market) and has a low budget for our market, making it hard for anything to meet his expectations. The only places in his price range are usually 2.5 hours away. I want to help this guy because he’s had bad luck with agents and I feel bad for him. But also don’t want to drive 2.5 hours for no reason. I don’t want to waste either of our times, but I’m also in my first year and don’t want to turn down business. He’s always sending me places even 5 hours away and I don’t want him to think just cuz he has a low budget I don’t want to help, cuz that is truly not it. But I think it’s hard for people out of state to come to terms with what they can realistically get in our market. (From The south, and our market is Seattle)

I am a first time homebuyer learning the ends and outs of purchasing a home. I recently put in an offer for an older home that will require a good but of work. The appraisal determined that the home was worth $254,000 SUBJECT TO REPAIRS required for an FHA loan. The appraisal stated the repairs could cost between $10k-23k, but advised to get an estimate from a licensed contractor.
 
Per my realtor, the seller did not have funds to cover any repairs. They agreed to reduce the price to $254,000 with a $5,000 credit, but we would need to need to fund and complete the required repairs prior to closing. NOTE:I have a family member who flips homes who would handle the rehab for a reasonable price. I also have the refunds to pay for the rehab, but I did not feel comfortable paying for repairs prior to closing.
 
I asked if the seller would reduce the price to $250k for the inconvenience, but they responded that he can not sell the house for less than the "appraised value". My realtor asked me to get an estimate of the repairs from my family member, but I did not get one because I did not feel comfortable with the idea of doing any work on a home I did not own. I was told I had to decide if I wanted to accept the seller's terms. After I expressed a desire to leave the deal, my realtor offered to research if a conventional loan appraisal might allow us to close before the repairs were completed. This ended up not being an option, because the repairs were major issues that would be required for a conventional loan as well.
 
One night, I sat down to review the appraisal and decided to look into meaning of "subject to repairs." Upon doing some research, I realized that the home was only worth $254,000 once the repairs were completed. I brought my research to my realtor. First she confirmed my research with the appraiser, who also confirmed that I was correct. She then responded by reminding me that the seller was offering a $5,000 credit. She stated multiple times that we would have been completing these repairs anyway during the rehab process and this is why she did not pursue a greater price reduction. She reminded me that I never provided her with a quote from my family member.
 
Now that the cost of the repairs might have more of an impact on the numbers, I reached out to my family member for a quote, which returned at ~$25,000. Suddenly, the seller became more invested in getting their own quote and researching ways to cover the repairs. During this time, I did some more reading and ended up looking more closely at the FHA Loan Contingency ppwk that we signed. Apparently, when the home appraisal is low, the SELLER should get an itemized estimate of the repairs from a contractor of their choice and provide it to the buyer. From that point, we have three days to negotiate new terms or terminate the agreement. My realtor explained that she only asked me to get an estimate because she knew the seller could not afford the repairs and she figured that I wanted my family member to do the work. Overall, I wish that  we followed the protocol in the contract and requested that the seller get the estimate in the first place. I also feel that no one was looking out for my best interest when it came to the post-appraisal negotiation. The $5,000 seller credit would not have been a equitable concession for paying $254k AND $25K for the repairs BEFORE CLOSING.
 
In the end, the sellers took two weeks to provide us with two quotes, one for $~28,000 and another for ~$23,000. The seller eventually agreed to reduce the price by $25k, but I decided to walk because I did not feel comfortable fronting the repairs before closing.
 
Again, this process was new to me, but in your opinion, what are your thoughts on how the situation was handled? How should circumstances such as these usually be handled by a realtor?

Do you think it’s a good time to be an agent in NJ? I would be brand new. I am only one exam away from getting my license as I finished my entire course. But I’m having doubts and second guesses. All around me are literally brand new hire rises, sky scrapers with luxury apartments. And there’s a huge influx of the south east asian community and other demographics that can afford around 5k a month rent. So what do you guys think? I just want an opinion that’s solid especially from brand new agents themselves in the NJ area. Thanks