(or how to get cash back at the closing table)
Real estate agents used to be the only way you could learn what properties were for sale in an area, what their market value might be, and up-to-date information on public records, zoning, and other considerations.
Now you go online, pick out the homes you want to look at, do your own research in near-real time, and have a pretty good idea of what offer you want to make on what property without even seeing it.
If you go to see properties, a Realtor® accompanies you as a formality. Sure, they should be able to provide valuable
So what are buyer agents good for these days?
Glad you asked. You’re making
But you don’t need them for the researching homes part. So we’ve designed our buyer rebate program to be optimally structured for you and your agent.
The 1% Buyer Rebate Program
Buy a home with a 2 Percent Commission participating agent and get a guaranteed 1% of the commission back at closing. If the seller is offering a 3% buyer agency commission, that entitles you to 33% of their commission at closing, in cash.
We’ve created a rebate program where quality buyers and quality agents access their respective strengths and abilities to work together and maximize your home buying potential. So the commission is earned by an agent or saved by you based on performance, so you only pay for services rendered.
Home Buyers receive a rebate (in applicable states) when they close on a home in a reasonable amount of time with one of our participating agents. What we offer the more motivated home buyer is money back in proportion to their efforts. The faster the closing, the bigger the rebate. Specifically, we offer different size rebates based upon how quickly buyers settle on a home from the date they sign a written buyer agency agreement* with one of our participating agents.
Why is the rebate dependent upon buying a home in a reasonable amount of time?
Our whole rebate program is based on fairness. The amount and quality of work a buyer agent does should be proportional to the commission they earn.
You shouldn’t pay a buyer agent to do the work you did to find the home you want. And a buyer agent shouldn’t have to work for 6 months or more and have to offer a discount for their services.
Our agents are able to provide rebates based on a mutually agreed upon buyer efficiency. So if it takes you 180 days to find a home you want from the time you sign a buyer agency agreement, that’s okay, but we cannot offer a buyer rebate.
What’s in a Buyer’s Best Interest?
We have learned that your best chance at finding your dream home, at a price you can afford, with favorable contract terms, is dependent on how strong of an offer you can make. The more prepared and educated you are, the better your odds of having an offer accepted.
Too many offers are rejected and too many contracts fall through because buyers aren’t prepared. Our program is designed to avoid those risks.
You and Your Buyer Agent
On the agent end, our participating Realtors are screened based on performance quality indicators such as sales record, past client satisfaction, professional recommendations, or other more proprietary factors measured in our agent interviews.
On the buyer end, we look for prospects that are willing to get pre-qualified for a mortgage, have an accurate understanding of their purchasing power, do the research online to find homes they would like to be shown, and communicate their needs to a participating agent so they can provide the best service possible and focus on what they do best.
Today’s Buyer
The Problem with Today’s Realtor®
Real estate agencies and their agents are spending more and more time, money, and resources competing for your attention online. And for many agents, this shift in focus is somewhat of a trade-off.
Something simply has to give and we see it happening in a number of ways: no-service flat-fee MLS listings, semi-automated contract services, less open houses, discount-commission discount-service agreements and we believe, an average agent’s inability to adapt and specialize to create an even better agent-client relationship.
2 Percent Agents: Tomorrow’s Realtor®
An agent’s power is in their ability to help you navigate the process of buying a home by avoiding potentially damaging pitfalls or decisions, negotiating the best price and most advantageous contracts possible for the home you want, and protecting your interests in ways you might not be able to.
We find forward-looking agents that are excited about the positive changes happening in the industry and the opportunity to work with buyers that feel the same way. If you’d like to learn more:
The Breakdown
The way you can calculate the savings you could have by using our buyer rebate program is simple:
Sale’s Price x Buyer Commission x Rebate Amount
For example, if you buy a house within 180 days of signing an exclusive buyer agreement with one of our participating agents for $300,000 with an offered 3% commission to the buyer agent, you would get $3,000 back at closing simply by accessing our buyer rebate program.
*Rebates for buyers are not available in all fifty states.
**An exclusive buyer agent is the real estate agent you sign an agreement to work with exclusively. This written agreement is often referred to as a buyer agency agreement.
