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From: andrew@orca.UUCP (Andrew Klossner)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Re: Need advice on bidding on a house
Message-ID: <1795@orca.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 3-Oct-85 10:50:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: orca.1795
Posted: Thu Oct  3 10:50:41 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Oct-85 06:35:09 EDT
References: <713@whuxl.UUCP> <1185@ihuxn.UUCP> <1909@bmcg.UUCP>
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 33

>> I'm no fan of realtors, but I think your analysis is wrong.  They
>> make 7% of the sale price, which amounts to only $700 per $10K,
>                                             
> If a house sells for $95,000, that ='s $700*9 or $6,300 commission.
> I don't know about your financial setup but I could live on selling
> five or four houses a year. Remember that all the expenses incurred
> running around trying to sell houses is written off (God I love that
> term).

But there's more than one real estate professional involved in the
transaction.

First of all, the commission is split evenly between the seller and the
person who holds the listing.  When the two are identical, of course,
there's no split, but more often the two are different people.

Then the broker takes his/her cut.  In the first real estate company at
which my mother worked, the broker took 70% of all commissions and the
salesperson took 30%.  Out of that 70%, the broker is paying for the
office, telephones, desks, advertising ... and his/her Mercedes.  This
is a company that will hire any warm body with a license.  More
selective companies will go as high as a 50/50 split.  To get more than
that, you must get a broker's license, which is much more difficult to
acquire than a salesperson's license (at least in California).

For the hypothetical $95,000 house, then, my mother the novice
salesperson would have brought in $95,000 * .07 * .5 * .3 = $997.50.
Selling four or five hours a year would bring maybe $5,000 before taxes
and expenses.  I sure couldn't live on that ... and neither could she;
she got out of the business.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew)       [UUCP]
                        (tekecs!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay)  [ARPA]