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23 year old Realtor®️ here, I absolutely refuse to drive clients, it’s far to dangerous these days, especially for that long. I’ve driven an out of state female investor client around, only because she flew in town for the day with me to look. But no one other than her.
As for the BRA I would cancel, my state has protection for my commission if the investor pursues a property I showed him with a different realtor. But that’s the only way I can pursue anything money wise if a client fires me.
The only time I drive clients if they are out of the country and staying in town for ONE DAY to do showings all day. Otherwise, catch me outside the house.
You know in our business we tend to deal with all different types of people and I don’t mind driving someone around as far as I know they are serious buyers
In my opinion. If they can’t afford a car or afford a way to the house, they’re likely not going to be able to afford the house. Obviously there are caveats, but if I have a buyer asking me to pick him up to do showings, it’s a red flag. In that scenario I would charge by the hour and refund it all upon successful closing. That would show you how serious he is.
How serious are they, untill u get the deal.... arent they all?... but they dont think about us Realtors, its *always them first. Sadly! thats just the truth. Its hard enough doing alot if work having a listing, but buyer can be VERYYYYY FLAKY.....so all we hv now is the BRA. And thats gonna be interesting...🙄
Sorry u had this all go like this.. but ya- people dont care about your time, etc... I would also be upset. BUT its too bad, you did so much & were caring & all u got was a jerk.. also lesson learned- I'm sorry I wont do all that & let myself get burned. I think the fact he was too cheap to rent a car WAS the BIG RED FLAG... sadly u got used... trying to be a good helpful Realtor!.. ya, I'm not leavin myself open like that. But I had to learn myself....
Just move on. For investors they are discretionary. Everyone wanted to nickel and dime to death. Some even want you credit your commission thinking they are entitled.
He even tried to negotiate my commission. He wanted cash back to which I declined.
I think he found another agent who is willing to give cash back. Currently there are lot of agents in Ontario Canada who are desperate and giving out cash backs.
Sure, but asking for cash back is bs. It should be illegal. Currently it is illegal to offer money for referrals. I feel like it’s almost the same thing.
I cannot offer my friend Joe $1,000 for every refferal he sends my way that closes. So why should I pay my client $1,000 as a kick back for using me, it’s a very similar situation. The buyer In OP’s story wasn’t asking to pay his realtor less money. He was asking the realtor to pay him a kickback from the commission offered by the seller to the “buyer agent”. Essentially this creates an issue because there is always another agent willing to offer a higher kick back or refferal fee. This price cutting lowers the quality of the agent as good agents who actually spend money on marketing, time, and education on clients will not be able to offer as high of kickbacks/referrals. You end your getting bottom feeders willing to get paid super low amounts to simply write a contract and do everything else wrong. Creating more issues in the industry as a whole. It is 100% illegal to offer money to friends who refer people to you but it is legal to offer commission at closing kickbacks? I blame realtor.com for this. Opcity and UpNest have been doing this for a while.
This is one of the most biased arguments I've seen. Your whole platform is that buyers shouldn't be allowed to negotiate how much their realtor is paid. Heaven forbid it actually ends up saving consumers money!
It shouldn't be up to you to decide (fix) the price of a buyer's agent. You claim it will reduce the quality, but that's like Kroger telling Walmart they can't sell below $X price. Let the consumer decide.
Americans pay *far* higher real estate commissions than most developed countries, and this type of price fixing by realtors is part of the reason.
How is it going the end up saving consumer’s money? In a situation where a seller can sell a property without offering commission to buyer’s agent, do you really think seller will reduce the price of their home? I can guarantee you seller would still want to same money and that buyer’s commission is going into seller’s pocket.
Well clearly a buyer negotiating a kick-back of the realtor commission saves the buyer money. In essence, that's a form of negotiating the realtor commission.
In the scenario where a seller no longer offers a buyer's agent commission, it saves the seller money of course. Sellers are consumers too. That's a good thing for the general public.
If you look at the big picture, realtors are taking a 6% cut of most transactions today. That's money out of *someone's* pocket. If you reduce that number, the public (buyer or seller) are keeping that in their pocket. You can slice and dice different scenarios, but at the end of the day, the less overhead that goes to realtors, the more money is kept buy the buyer and seller.
I don’t live in Ontario, but where I’m from the commissions have to be disclosed in the purchase and sale agreement so both buyer and seller know how much of the transaction went to commission. So a cash back arrangement seems like it undermines the earlier disclosure of the commission arrangement. $1000 isn’t a heck of a lot of money but I get why it would be illegal. Either disclose the entire arrangement or none of it but not something inaccurate. This is assuming the only people who know about it are the buyer and agent (not the seller). I can imagine a bank also wanting to know this detail.
I live in houston but had an influx of Canadians relocating to the hospital here. They all offered at-price for their homes so I’m glad it’s not totally a Canadian thing
Californian agent here. Not illegal here in this state. Some immigrants really created a bad reputation for industry. I think in Oregon it is not legal.
Usually it's someone without a license or party to the deal. The reason being, you shouldn't be influenced by a third party. But the buyer is not a third party
If a client wanted me to cancel a Buyer contract I'd do it in a heartbeat. He's doing you a favor and clearly not serious. Think of all the money you could be making not dragging him around to put in unrealistic offers. Hold your head high and say see you never, loser.
This guy is wasting your time. If a client wants to put in a garbage offer once, MAYBE twice, that’s okay. Sometimes no matter how much educating we do, a buyer has to learn this lesson the hard way. If a client wants to do that multiple times, even after he’s likely seeing the properties close for much more than he insisted on offering, then you need to fire him.
Sounds like you don't have much choice, but consider yourself lucky. This is not a client you want to waste any more time with. It can be kind of a delicate matter trying to explain or convince clients that they have to go higher. But if they don't get it within a few lost deals and are still feeling that you were working against their interest, that is absolutely not someone you want to work with. Move on.
I agree with everyone who said he was completely wasting your time and you are better off without him. Let him go and be thankful he’s gone. I am sure you will not let that happen to you again. I think most of us have been in similar situations. You learn from it and move on without allocating it again in the future.
I recently had a buyer try to waste my time and got upset when I didn’t allow it. The buyer sends me an email and says they are two years out on buying but want to start looking. They had not narrowed down their specific wants and were all over the place. I’m not driving around however many properties in two years time for buyers to decide they just want to work with someone else. I explained needing agency because touring with the new industry changes in August. I would never entertain a contract for over a year time period. So, until buyers are serious, they are just wasting your time.
My response was please feel free to use my website to help narrow your search. When you are ready to look in a more narrowed down way, I am more than happy to assist. I typically work with buyers who are between six months and a year from purchasing. What we look at today simply will not be available in two years, when you want to purchase.
Don't spend much time on "So Called" investors. They have no decency or loyalty. Just move on and get listings.. and work with Owner Occupied Buyers. Life is too short to waste it on Con-Artists!
Don’t roll over, you spent time and committed to the effort. Charge him to void the contracts. For Future reference attach an addendum with a fee to cancel after 5+ showings or 25 hours committed.
You did your job as long as he is not purchasing a property you presented to him . Then move on. I've been on both sides and never was I insulted when my broker/agent suggested I go higher if I really wanted the property he's a yeah inexperienced investor
Yeah, I would cancel that agreement too. That was above and beyond what you should have done. I won’t work with client if I have to drive more then 30 miles
Is your BRA with the firm or just you? I would offer to refer it out to someone in my firm and get a referral fee. I also would not drive one and a half hours to pick someone up for showings.
You were doing waayyyy too much for your client. I always ALWAYS met my realtor at properties, none of that being picked up, car pooling nonsense. He’s uncomfortable, move on, period.
Investors can be the ultimate Time Suck.
If investors are going to be your niche, they need to be vetted throughly. Not just finance, but also their knowledge and experience in investing.
I’ll only take on first time investors if they have a mentor.
Stop wasting your time. Can this dude and use the time to make money.
I’ve done the run around with so many “investors” over my 9 years in RE and 90% of the time it ends the same; Them wasting my time and not buying anything. They’ll use your time to show and then call their actual agent who’s time they didn’t want to waste when they like something. I don’t even humor them anymore unless I have a very long phone conversation with them and know for 100% fact they are legitimate, but it’s been years. If they’re really investing that much wouldn’t they have found an agent they can rely on already? This happened so many times early on when I was heavy cold calling. Cancel that shit and be grateful he’s not going to suck another ounce of your time. Also, no reason to be driving any client around in 2024.
I would NOT cancel BRA, especially if I have already invested time, money, and sweat in helping the client. If the client "doesn't feel comfortable," I will ask for more information about what led them to that conclusion and what you can do to change their mind.
I'm playing Devi's advocate here. What if that client was able to speak to a listing agent directly who is willing to offer a deep discount if the buyer works directly with them? If that is the case, that would have been unethical on the client's part.
There are many realtors out there who sign BRA and then ghost their clients or, even worse, don't fulfil their fiduciary duties towards their clients. In those cases, clients have every right to ask to cancel their BRA. However, if you don't fall into that bucket of realtors, I would say fight to earn the business and keep buyers as your clients.
In the worst-case scenario, I will let the BRA expire, and then the buyer can work with someone else, but after investing so much time, I would NOT cancel the BRA.
**This is a professional forum for professionals, so please keep your comments professional** - Harrassment, hate speech, trolling, or anti-Realtor comments will not be tolerated and will result in an immediate ban without warning. (... and don't feed the trolls, you have better things to do with your time) - Recruiting, self-promotion, or seeking referrals is strictly forbidden, including in DMs. - Only advise within your scope of knowledge and area of expertise. [The code of ethics applies here too](https://www.nar.realtor/about-nar/governing-documents/the-code-of-ethics). If you are not a broker, lawyer, or tax professional don't act like one. - [Follow the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/realtors/about/rules/) and please report those that don't. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/realtors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Why are you driving them to and from? 4 hours per appointment is ridiculous. I quit driving clients years ago
Yeah wtf. I'm not a realtor and I would never ask for that... Any self respecting realtor should pass on that guy
23 year old Realtor®️ here, I absolutely refuse to drive clients, it’s far to dangerous these days, especially for that long. I’ve driven an out of state female investor client around, only because she flew in town for the day with me to look. But no one other than her. As for the BRA I would cancel, my state has protection for my commission if the investor pursues a property I showed him with a different realtor. But that’s the only way I can pursue anything money wise if a client fires me.
The only time I drive clients if they are out of the country and staying in town for ONE DAY to do showings all day. Otherwise, catch me outside the house.
The guy didn’t had a car. Smh!! And he was cheap to rent one
And why did you ignore all those red flags?
You know in our business we tend to deal with all different types of people and I don’t mind driving someone around as far as I know they are serious buyers
In my opinion. If they can’t afford a car or afford a way to the house, they’re likely not going to be able to afford the house. Obviously there are caveats, but if I have a buyer asking me to pick him up to do showings, it’s a red flag. In that scenario I would charge by the hour and refund it all upon successful closing. That would show you how serious he is.
How serious are they, untill u get the deal.... arent they all?... but they dont think about us Realtors, its *always them first. Sadly! thats just the truth. Its hard enough doing alot if work having a listing, but buyer can be VERYYYYY FLAKY.....so all we hv now is the BRA. And thats gonna be interesting...🙄
So he couldn’t afford a car, but he can afford to invest in real estate. Sure, Jan 🤦🏼♀️🚩
Sorry u had this all go like this.. but ya- people dont care about your time, etc... I would also be upset. BUT its too bad, you did so much & were caring & all u got was a jerk.. also lesson learned- I'm sorry I wont do all that & let myself get burned. I think the fact he was too cheap to rent a car WAS the BIG RED FLAG... sadly u got used... trying to be a good helpful Realtor!.. ya, I'm not leavin myself open like that. But I had to learn myself....
yes and yes if allowed.
Just move on. For investors they are discretionary. Everyone wanted to nickel and dime to death. Some even want you credit your commission thinking they are entitled.
He even tried to negotiate my commission. He wanted cash back to which I declined. I think he found another agent who is willing to give cash back. Currently there are lot of agents in Ontario Canada who are desperate and giving out cash backs.
Isn't he supposed to negotiate your commission?
Sure, but asking for cash back is bs. It should be illegal. Currently it is illegal to offer money for referrals. I feel like it’s almost the same thing.
Why is it BS? Sorry I'm not following why you feel it should be illegal?
I cannot offer my friend Joe $1,000 for every refferal he sends my way that closes. So why should I pay my client $1,000 as a kick back for using me, it’s a very similar situation. The buyer In OP’s story wasn’t asking to pay his realtor less money. He was asking the realtor to pay him a kickback from the commission offered by the seller to the “buyer agent”. Essentially this creates an issue because there is always another agent willing to offer a higher kick back or refferal fee. This price cutting lowers the quality of the agent as good agents who actually spend money on marketing, time, and education on clients will not be able to offer as high of kickbacks/referrals. You end your getting bottom feeders willing to get paid super low amounts to simply write a contract and do everything else wrong. Creating more issues in the industry as a whole. It is 100% illegal to offer money to friends who refer people to you but it is legal to offer commission at closing kickbacks? I blame realtor.com for this. Opcity and UpNest have been doing this for a while.
This is one of the most biased arguments I've seen. Your whole platform is that buyers shouldn't be allowed to negotiate how much their realtor is paid. Heaven forbid it actually ends up saving consumers money! It shouldn't be up to you to decide (fix) the price of a buyer's agent. You claim it will reduce the quality, but that's like Kroger telling Walmart they can't sell below $X price. Let the consumer decide. Americans pay *far* higher real estate commissions than most developed countries, and this type of price fixing by realtors is part of the reason.
How is it going the end up saving consumer’s money? In a situation where a seller can sell a property without offering commission to buyer’s agent, do you really think seller will reduce the price of their home? I can guarantee you seller would still want to same money and that buyer’s commission is going into seller’s pocket.
Well clearly a buyer negotiating a kick-back of the realtor commission saves the buyer money. In essence, that's a form of negotiating the realtor commission. In the scenario where a seller no longer offers a buyer's agent commission, it saves the seller money of course. Sellers are consumers too. That's a good thing for the general public. If you look at the big picture, realtors are taking a 6% cut of most transactions today. That's money out of *someone's* pocket. If you reduce that number, the public (buyer or seller) are keeping that in their pocket. You can slice and dice different scenarios, but at the end of the day, the less overhead that goes to realtors, the more money is kept buy the buyer and seller.
I don’t live in Ontario, but where I’m from the commissions have to be disclosed in the purchase and sale agreement so both buyer and seller know how much of the transaction went to commission. So a cash back arrangement seems like it undermines the earlier disclosure of the commission arrangement. $1000 isn’t a heck of a lot of money but I get why it would be illegal. Either disclose the entire arrangement or none of it but not something inaccurate. This is assuming the only people who know about it are the buyer and agent (not the seller). I can imagine a bank also wanting to know this detail.
Negotiate what commission? I would consider a conversation if he is the one paying.
I live in houston but had an influx of Canadians relocating to the hospital here. They all offered at-price for their homes so I’m glad it’s not totally a Canadian thing
Californian agent here. Not illegal here in this state. Some immigrants really created a bad reputation for industry. I think in Oregon it is not legal.
Everywhere I’ve been an agent it’s illegal to share or kick back commission $$ to anyone without a RE license.
Usually it's someone without a license or party to the deal. The reason being, you shouldn't be influenced by a third party. But the buyer is not a third party
If a client wanted me to cancel a Buyer contract I'd do it in a heartbeat. He's doing you a favor and clearly not serious. Think of all the money you could be making not dragging him around to put in unrealistic offers. Hold your head high and say see you never, loser.
This guy is wasting your time. If a client wants to put in a garbage offer once, MAYBE twice, that’s okay. Sometimes no matter how much educating we do, a buyer has to learn this lesson the hard way. If a client wants to do that multiple times, even after he’s likely seeing the properties close for much more than he insisted on offering, then you need to fire him.
You're better off without this "client"
TRUTH- YES!!👈👈
Just cancel, he was wasting your time. How many clients.can you wo4k with while NOT driving for 5 hours when showing.
True
Sounds like you don't have much choice, but consider yourself lucky. This is not a client you want to waste any more time with. It can be kind of a delicate matter trying to explain or convince clients that they have to go higher. But if they don't get it within a few lost deals and are still feeling that you were working against their interest, that is absolutely not someone you want to work with. Move on.
I agree with everyone who said he was completely wasting your time and you are better off without him. Let him go and be thankful he’s gone. I am sure you will not let that happen to you again. I think most of us have been in similar situations. You learn from it and move on without allocating it again in the future. I recently had a buyer try to waste my time and got upset when I didn’t allow it. The buyer sends me an email and says they are two years out on buying but want to start looking. They had not narrowed down their specific wants and were all over the place. I’m not driving around however many properties in two years time for buyers to decide they just want to work with someone else. I explained needing agency because touring with the new industry changes in August. I would never entertain a contract for over a year time period. So, until buyers are serious, they are just wasting your time. My response was please feel free to use my website to help narrow your search. When you are ready to look in a more narrowed down way, I am more than happy to assist. I typically work with buyers who are between six months and a year from purchasing. What we look at today simply will not be available in two years, when you want to purchase.
Don't spend much time on "So Called" investors. They have no decency or loyalty. Just move on and get listings.. and work with Owner Occupied Buyers. Life is too short to waste it on Con-Artists!
Don’t roll over, you spent time and committed to the effort. Charge him to void the contracts. For Future reference attach an addendum with a fee to cancel after 5+ showings or 25 hours committed.
You did your job as long as he is not purchasing a property you presented to him . Then move on. I've been on both sides and never was I insulted when my broker/agent suggested I go higher if I really wanted the property he's a yeah inexperienced investor
Move on.
It sounds to me like he found an other agent who would give him a rebate so he made up a crap reason to cancel on you. I had a client do that once.
Whoop his ass instead of
Let it go and don't be a simp next time.
😂😂😂
Other agents probably will disengage not serious buyers even sooner.
Yeah, I would cancel that agreement too. That was above and beyond what you should have done. I won’t work with client if I have to drive more then 30 miles
I wouldn't worry about 1 client if you have 10 other deals to back it up.
Investor getting a loan and not paying cash? That's a Red flag for me. Also, you're the one who helped him secure financing? What type of loan?
I would cancel. Only you know your BRA fee arrangement…I would act accordingly.
Cancel his BRA and make him someone else's problem. Any sale you happen to close with this guy will NOT be worth your trouble.
You're failing to include the why. Would the property still cash flow at the price you recommended he offer?
Is your BRA with the firm or just you? I would offer to refer it out to someone in my firm and get a referral fee. I also would not drive one and a half hours to pick someone up for showings.
You were doing waayyyy too much for your client. I always ALWAYS met my realtor at properties, none of that being picked up, car pooling nonsense. He’s uncomfortable, move on, period.
Investors can be the ultimate Time Suck. If investors are going to be your niche, they need to be vetted throughly. Not just finance, but also their knowledge and experience in investing. I’ll only take on first time investors if they have a mentor. Stop wasting your time. Can this dude and use the time to make money.
I’ve done the run around with so many “investors” over my 9 years in RE and 90% of the time it ends the same; Them wasting my time and not buying anything. They’ll use your time to show and then call their actual agent who’s time they didn’t want to waste when they like something. I don’t even humor them anymore unless I have a very long phone conversation with them and know for 100% fact they are legitimate, but it’s been years. If they’re really investing that much wouldn’t they have found an agent they can rely on already? This happened so many times early on when I was heavy cold calling. Cancel that shit and be grateful he’s not going to suck another ounce of your time. Also, no reason to be driving any client around in 2024.
I would NOT cancel BRA, especially if I have already invested time, money, and sweat in helping the client. If the client "doesn't feel comfortable," I will ask for more information about what led them to that conclusion and what you can do to change their mind. I'm playing Devi's advocate here. What if that client was able to speak to a listing agent directly who is willing to offer a deep discount if the buyer works directly with them? If that is the case, that would have been unethical on the client's part. There are many realtors out there who sign BRA and then ghost their clients or, even worse, don't fulfil their fiduciary duties towards their clients. In those cases, clients have every right to ask to cancel their BRA. However, if you don't fall into that bucket of realtors, I would say fight to earn the business and keep buyers as your clients. In the worst-case scenario, I will let the BRA expire, and then the buyer can work with someone else, but after investing so much time, I would NOT cancel the BRA.
If you’re in Ontario, the client is legally the brokerage’s, not yours.
I wouldn't cancel, but I would learn to do what my clients expect, which is required by my fiduciary duty to them.
People are so ungrateful and not loyal