Do Sacramento Agents Discount Real Estate Commissions?

Just because a real estate commission is negotiable doesn’t mean I am willing to cut a deal for a stranger. Heck, I don’t even make deals for friends because I don’t have any friends selling real estate in Sacramento. But even if I did, they would still pay me for my services. Real estate commissions must be negotiable in order to comply with the Sherman Act, but it doesn’t mean a real estate agent needs to offer a discounted commission. Yes, you can negotiate with this Sacramento real estate agent, and I’ll cut right to the chase here, my answer is no.

Not only do I charge the same percentage that I have charged since I started in this business way back in the days of bellbottoms and Beatles, but I am doing a bazillion times the work since then. I have two rules that I work by that are completely inflexible:

No discounts and

No assholes.

See, I can’t always choose the agents on the other side with whom I work nor their clients, and some of those people might be assholes, but I can choose my own clients, which is why I don’t work with the assholes. If you’re an asshole, you can go work with some other agent.

I have to save my asshole interrogating energy to work with the other side.

Would you want an agent who eagerly said Sure, I’ll give you a big fat discount? Because that kind of agent might do the same thing when you get an offer. Put pressure on you to accept a lowball offer. When I receive a purchase offer, the first thing I often think is: how is the other side putting the screws to the seller? Is the offer on the level and clean? I’m not eager to jump into escrow unless the seller is excited and the offer warrants it. Because I don’t really care about me. I care solely about what the seller wants.

Sometimes clients ask me if I will reduce my commission when they are faced with a price reduction. Although I can vaguely see how they might come up with that idea — for example, they are reducing the price so I should come down — they are not looking at the fact that by the mere percentage calculation, I am already hit by a reduced compensation. Lower sales price X percentage rate = lower fee. I share the loss with them already. I know they don’t mean to say that they want to penalize me nor do they want me to work less. They want me to work even harder. And I do. That’s my job. To sell their home.

But don’t ask an agent to give you top-notch performance and then work for less because it doesn’t work that way. Most of us earn our commission, one closing at at time. If 1% separates you from the best in the business, you’ll probably lose a lot more than THAT down the road because it means you think we are all the same. We are not all the same. All agents are not created equal.