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Been looking for a place up here in Kelowna, two different realtors, seen houses we really like, one realtor says don't offer less than 3% of asking price, I figure I decide what to offer.
Other realtor says he will present my offer but don't be insulting by offering too low or the seller will not want to deal with us.
One house we want is listed at 699,900.00$CDN I will not pay full price, wife is worried we will lose out, but I figure there is always another house.

It is YOUR money... offer what YOU want. The realtor makes MORE money the higher the contract price - so it is in his/her best interest to get more money. Also, they WORK for the seller.... do NOT sign a buyers agreement.

Don’t trust anyone who works commission. This “insulting offer” idea is total bullschit. 99% of them are as useless as tits on bull. A listing with 50 pictures on Zillow, competent home inspector, and a real estate attorney is all you need.

They hold each other’s hands in a monopoly where fools make the biggest purchase of their lives and don’t know schit about it.

If they won’t make your offer, tell them to hit the road.

Does said realtor realize that's not the same thing as 97% of asking price?

It's fairly common too for realtors to start off showing potential customers unsold property they've had listed the longest and properties that contracts are close to expiring.

Your money, your rules. A good real estate agent facilitates not dictates.

I think it is a matter of knowing the market and how long good listings stay up, and whether they get asking price or not. (local conditions) A good agent should be able to provide lots of insight into local market conditions and also which neighbourhoods fit your needs/wants best. The last part is quite important if you are not familiar with the town/area. It could save you buying in a neighbourhood with some significant issues.

there are listing agents and selling agents

In a small town, some agents cover both bases. Also in a small town, agents are all part of a combined board of agents.

They all cover each other's asses.

To them youre just a one-time deal. To the other agent, they both are riding on the same gravy train.

Here locally, a residential sale is 3-5%.

By the time you split that with the other agent and your office broker, you person might be only getting 1 or 1.5 %
(Still not too shabby on a 1/2 million$ deal)

Agents here my town deal with mostly soldiers buying $150k, couple that with there being apprx 500+ agents in local Board of Realtor association. It can be dog eat dog. Not sure how many agents a small place like Billings, Montana would have.


A buyer's agent might also have listings that they listed and if they can put you into one of those...then it's 'both sides' of the commission they get.

That's how it is here, not sure how all that works in your socialist economy.

No No no we'd be living in caves and and cardboard boxes if it weren't for Realtors , realtor - worse than a used car salesman . But I do love their Glamour Shot photos on their business cards .

Lmfao

"Glamour Shots"

You nailed that.

We had this Realtor "power duo" man and wife team. They the biggest hamball self promoting wads of dickcheese in town.

They had billboards up all our city. Bragging about their number of listings and sales. Only thing was, it was a farce. The man's brother was the biggest contractor in this city. By default every new spec he built was an automatic listing for them. They never had to beat the bushes or even hit a lick at a snake.

Both of them were 400-500 lbs each.

They crop their pictures from the first chin up. Pictures be lookin like they bounced out of studio 54, lol. She's have earrings on like they plucked the crystals off of the chandelier.

Never a body shot of them at a property.

Realtors are used-house salesmen. Just like used car salesmen, they can only be trusted inversely to amount of sniffling they do. Don't let other people tell you how to spend your money, particularly when they get a cut of what you are spending. And only give your wife's opinion the consideration it deserves. Some women are good at that stuff, and some aren't. If your wife only has worries about it, she is likely in that latter group. I'd be more "worried" about paying more than I needed to pay. Depends on the location/market to some extent, but with Boomers starting to die off, and younger people not having the same level of wealth on average, houses in that price range are generally a buyer's market, rather than a seller's market.

We've been in this place for 18yrs. I got the 1st look, made an appt. for 4-5 days later to bring back my wife and my dad. Got a call the same night, "Owners have a contingency offer in on another house that's been pushed. They have 24hrs to sell, and if they don't, it's off the market." Wife and I went and looked that very evening. I made an offer that night, 22% below asking price. Realtor was incredulous and feigned offense. Said the offer was too low and she couldn't present that to her clients. Wife and I got up to leave. Realtor decided that she'd make the offer. Received a counter offer for 15% off of asking price. Sat on it until there was less than 1hr left on their contingency to see how desperate they really were, then accepted.

There are some great realtors, like any other sales position. There are customers/clients that will view/vlaue a great realtor as an indispensable advisor. And, like all sales positions, there are some truly heartless/unscrupulous folks who'd rob you blind with a smile.

Huge turnoff for me when we were house-hunting 20yrs ago that's stuck with me: "Stretch and buy all you can right now, then your income will catch up". Male or Female, I wanted to face-plant everyone who uttered that.

^^ This ^^ ...... There are some markets in Canada that will support just about any priced asked. If the buyer wants to lowball in a market like that, he/she might as well look elsewhere to live.

I just got home from a visit to my home town last week in S. Ont. (Fergus/Elora/Guelph/Elmira/St. Jacobs/K.W.) area. The house I grew up in sold about 10yrs ago for $400K. After a few minor upgrades on the ground floor only, it recently sold for close to $1 million. This sort of pricing and value increase is not uncommon in this area. Very hot market there, not much for sale and no lowballing happens. If you don't buy it, someone else will.

What has worked well for me is to find the listing agent of the house i am interested in and go to them directly without a buyers agent of my own. When they are getting the commision for listing the property and selling the property they have a bigger incentive to make the deal happen.

Can you imagine if you were selling instead of buying and a realtor said, "a guy wanted to make an offer but I refused to write it because it wasn't within 3%"?

I think the sellers reaction might be, "YOU DID WHAT???"


Sellers are always going to want to hear legitimate offers.

Don't fall in love with a house. It's just a house. I'd tell my realtor to fu ck off if they were telling me what to offer.

Buyer has a budget of 200k, agents shows them a 1/2 dozen piles of schit in that range, wears them out, momma is hopeless, kids are scared they have to move to another school district and leave their friends.....

Suddenly Joe agent finds one that’s “a little out of your range, but I think the family will like it”


Hello $250k sale....

RE agents get paid when a house sells. Period. They want the sellers they advise to list the property as low as possible, so that the least amount of sales effort is required. They want the buyer they advise to purchase at a high price, again to facilitate the a quick payday with the least effort.

Now they can be valuable, but a smart buyer needs to do his own homework. At the end of the day, to a buyer, the agent is mostly a salesman.

In most states, real estate agents are required by law to present ALL offers. But, here in Florida, a lot of them think they have the right to call the shots on which get presented and which don't. If you have a realtor that is not presenting your offers, first thing to do is tell them what the law is and that you might contact the Board of Realtors to help them get educated.

IME, I have found most Realtors not worth the let it would take the knock them over. There are some good ones, but they are few and far between.

NEVER tell real estate agents or car salesmen what your budget is. PERIOD.