Also if you sign a contract with a shitty buyer’s agent, you’re screwed
Cripes. In Melbourne, buyers agents exist, but finding a house and showing a house are the reason for the existence of sellers agents.
The sellers agent can’t make the horse drink, all they can do is bring it to water. They don’t “sell” your house, they market to buyers. The reason for having a selling agent is because they bring in buyers.
When would you use a buyers agent in Aus? If you live in China, you get a local agent to represent you. Or if you are buying something at the top end of the market, without a clear market value, you get someone to tell you what the apparent value is.
Like with all things many of you are trying to over simplify this. The key thing that is important is we’re talking about the real estate market. And all markets fluctuate. Sometimes the buyer has the upperhand, sometimes the seller has the upperhand. For last few years, since the increase in mortgage interest rates, it has been difficult to be a seller in this market. So yes you probably need to consider paying the buyer commissions in this current market, to attract buyers. When the market swings back and houses become in much greater demand, similar to 3+ years ago, when buyers would forgo inspections, buy homes above appraisal costs, buy them on the internet sight unseen, a seller will probably not have to pay the buyers commissions.
It’s market dependent.
To which I’ll add that all markets are local. Exceedingly local. There are areas where real property is still pretty hot right now.
Sorry if it has been mentioned before, but my understanding is that a significant aspect of the lawsuit was to clarify which party each agent was working for. In my vague recollection/understanding, a buyer could have an agent show them houses. But as soon as the contract was signed, both agents were working to make the sale go through. Not necessarily representing the buyer’s interests.
After the lawsuit, whether or not there is any savings to either party in terms of percentage paid, it is clear that one agent represents the seller and the other the buyer.
Apologies - I may be mistaken, and acknowledge I am not expressing this clearly.
This sounds like a significant switch in role. Once a contract is signed, the first part of the process is complete. Buyer found for house, house found for buyer.
There might be an uneasy interim depending on the terms of the contract and local laws. Where I am there is a mandatory cooling off period in which a buyer can walk with no penalty. (But not on auction sales.) Another common caveat is pending financing approval and pending building inspection. There is occasional bad behaviour from both sides but mostly things go smoothly. Buyers tend to have pre-approved financing, and building inspections don’t find any bodies buried in the walls.
The actual transaction of purchase is something an agent of some kind is important for. Where I am they are conveyancers. They individually act for one party, and ensure that the atomic transfer of title and funds occurs. Their entire job is to make sure the transaction is ACID. Atomic, concurrent, independent and durable. Ensure there is no possibility of it going wrong and say - the money is gone but no title received, or the converse. Very unlikely to go wrong, but given the stakes are at the level of wrecking a person’s life, you want to engage someone who does this for a living and acts on your behalf and in your interests. This is unlikely to be an agent whose day job is selling stuff. Conveyancers here must be registered (or be a legal practitioner) and registration has minimum qualifications. There are rules restricting companies that engage in both real estate and conveyancing.
Overall you really want to be clear who is engaged by who and is working in whose interests. This whole buyer’s agent deal doesn’t sound like it does.
Just out of interest, I’ll say that around here a conveyancer’s job is to avoid the f-g government paperwork shit. The title is simple (Torrens title system), and the ACID part is simple too – you sit at a table and exchange documents, lots of middle-class people I know do that themselves – but unless you are a registered conveyancer/lawyer you have to deal with a stack of extra documentation for the title transfer. Include the extra work of dealing with a deceased estate, and locating the title, and it’s the kind of task even careful literate middle-class people hand off to a tradesman.
In Japan they have judicial scriveners, who are licensed to record deeds and file other types of legal paperwork. They are separate from the agents and their fee is split between the buyers and sellers.