I happen to do a lot of volenteer work at my local homeless shelter, and they do not have access to the internet this freely. I talk to the men and women there and I help them look for jobs and develop computer skills. Resources are limited, so please get off the computer and allow sombeody to us it for development then instead of complaining.

Sorry all, I see though, that homeless is walking the streets in 12 degree weather with no place to go.

So do I.

I built and donated an entire computer system to a non-profit, and have already given the equivalent of 4 month's current pay to a local shelter, and have been working on a system for them, as well as hoping to coerce the local cable co into some free broadband.

The main thing to focus on is full disclosure to your client.

Maine doesn't have many laws to protect people, and it ranks #50 in the nation for enforcement of the laws that do exist.

Disclosure would have been awesome. An ounce of honesty could have prevented a ton of suffering.

But this small town newly certified agent was all full of the fact that he had just started working for the state's (self professed) "Biggest taxpayer" - he was all giddy about it.

I must have seemed like a very insignificant little gnat to him.

I'm hoping at least to use my situation to help prevent it from happening to others.

so then....why didn't you offer to pay your buyer's agent an up front fee for their services? There's nothing stopping you from doing that...

I know if I had a buyer come up to me and say "I'd like to buy a house for $200,000 and I'd like to pay you $6,000 (3%) up front to help me find it (by the way, that's non-refundable, and not contingent upon your purchase of a home)"

I'd be pretty excited about the proposition.

That seems to be what you're saying you'd like to do...right?


Personally when I work as a Buyer's Agent, I have a Buyer Broker Agreement that says the buyer is to pay me X% that has been earned when a contract for Purchase & Sale has been written within the terms of the agreement. Any co-broke commission paid by the selling office shall be rebated to the buyer at closing...but flat fees paid up front wouldn't be bad, either...