I don't hold what people make against them, as long as the there's a competitive market and I can choose what I want to do or purchase.

Health care, real estate, law, etc are obviously debatable as to how much of a free, competitive market there is. But there are still plenty of choices. Especially in the case of real estate, where there's an industry that works for free a lot, there are reasons why things have evolved the way they have.

I think the hustle is important for humanity. Long live the hustle! The potential to make some real coin makes people hustle. The lack of potential routinely fails to produce productive societies.

Then the debate shifts to what is a productive society. I'm probably far to the left of many of you in that debate. But I still love the hustle!

-jeff

Good point here.

Wondering: Why have many Realtors conditioned themselves they must work for "free?"

Is this a self-confidence issue, at heart?

Well.... it's just sort of "how it is", right? I mean, I could hardly charge people to drive them around or to do a CMA when there are experienced agents falling all over each other to do it for free...

-jeff

Remembering: I can remember a unpleasant time in Canada when the real estate industry was under investigation by Federal authorities with respect to allegations of "Price Fixing" ”.

This was also a time when the news media took the opportunity in numerous articles, to "jump on the bandwagon" and cast doubts upon the integrity of all real estate agents in the country.

A time when federal police armed with search warrants entered the office’s of real estate brokers and real estate boards and seized records in search of evidence.

The legal costs borne by the industry and its members ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and resulted in a Federal Court Order governing the real estate industry nationwide.

It also clearly established that it was an “offence” ( and still is ) for anyone to conspire to fix or set prices on anything and in particular real estate fees and that all fees are negotiable in a free and democratic society.

I remember it well.

Right. But the point here, as has been made earlier in this thread and in several other similar theads I've run across on this forum, is that our "high commissions" should be viewed within the context of the fact that we, industry-wide, do a LOT of work for free.

That's not price fixing...

-jeff

Quoted by Jeff Olson... " Right. But the point here, as has been made earlier in this thread and in several other similar theads I've run across on this forum, is that our "high commissions" should be viewed within the context of the fact that we, industry-wide, do a LOT of work for free."

The following is an excerpt from Sell with Soul (it's easier for me to copy & paste than re-type! Call me lazy...)

"Successful real estate agents can make big bucks. For a career that requires only a month or two of education, the rewards can be tremendous. But be aware of the reasons the economy supports paying real estate agents such high fees.

You agree to be paid on contingency. You take the risk every day that the work you do will not be compensated. More Risk = More $Reward$. Less Risk = Less $Reward$. Not too many professions work with no guarantee of payment. Therefore, you can justify higher fees upon success. If you could convince your clients to pay you hourly (good luck), you could charge a reasonable hourly fee and would probably make much less money per transaction. Overall, you might come out ahead though.

So remember that the next time you get a $10,000 paycheck for, say, ten hours of work–that $10,000 is also paying for those flaky buyer clients who run you around and mysteriously disappear. It doesn’t mean that you and your services are worth $1,000/hour.

We real estate agents get spoiled by our big paychecks. We actually think we earned that $10,000 check during that specific transaction. Even if a client put you through the wringer for a year, it’s not likely you spent more than 50 hours on his transaction. And, $200 an hour is pretty good pay for anyone."

Great way to put things into light Jennifer.

That's not how it is! My previous life experience caused me to do 50 transactions in my 3rd year in the RE business. My education started 44 years before real estate.

I have not found success yet, so I'm not coming at it from that angle, but I agree with Mr. Peak in that several of the major lines of my life had to converge for me to feel like I WILL be a success at this.

But, Jennifer has a point- there are plenty of 22-year-old agents out there who are essentially doing it on a month's training. And I'm sure there are some very good ones like that.

I do know, even just a few months into this, that I can call another (opposing) agent and my "social engineering" skills do wonders for me... I've just been in a LOT, like thousands, of (much smaller) negotiations in my life, and I've had a lot of intense, ongoing relationships with clients at my business, so I do feel that there's a skill set there aside from the 5 weeks of schoolin' for my RE license... and I also know that I made mistakes in my past client relations that I don't want to repeat.

-jeff

www.HomesByOlsen.com

Life experiences which create wisdowm in business are everything, though.

This is what I tell people who question my commission. DO NOT GET MAD!!!! . Defend your commission. Let them know that you are providing a service to them. explaine to them that your commission is what pays' for the marketing of their home. It is what pays for the time you spend doing the CMA on their home it pays for the time you spend showing their home to buyers. If they don't feel that you are worth your commission then there are 2 ways to fix it. #1 You and your broker need to sit down and come up with a list of reasons why you are worth every penny of that commission and provide that to the seller/buyer who ever is paying you. Or #2 You need to work harder to prove that you are worth that amount and no one will question it once word get's out about how good of an agent you are. You will always have some cheep @$$ who thinks you should sell there house for 1% and there is nothing you can do about that, but either walk away or smile and take it...

It's never about the commission or money. People may try to justify that indeed it IS about the commission or money, but it is NOT. This is a convenient excuse.

It IS all about the prospect/client recognizing your value as a professional. Not value, as in the superficial term -- but in the true difference your representation makes to the entire transaction.

The problem is we do a terrible job of projecting and proving our value and core professional competencies, and we are surrounded by other agents. Therefore the public views us as a commodity that caves to price concesssions.

I would suggest that those clients that are REFERRED to us by friends, family and colleagues, typically haggle LESS over commissions because they already have a window into our experience already -- via the person who introduced us to them.

On the other side, I would also suggest that those clients/prospects that were NOT referred to us, are the ones that typically balk over commissions.

ON POINT: For what it's worth,the following and well written article was originally published March 10, 2005 and again published January 19, 2007 and related to the current topic.

How To Negotiate a Commission Cut Request
by Blanche Evans - Realty Times - March 10, 2005 and can be viewed at
http://realtytimes.com/rtapages/20050310_negotiate.htm

And ours too. As a full-service agent, I could not sell a referral of mine to a discount-agent. I can't sell what I don't believe.

I wonder, could a discount agent be able to refer one of her clients to me and sell her on the idea of paying 6% to me? Somehow, I don't think so. I think this works both ways.

Competitive issues aside for a moment, if that discount agent's client had a need for a more specialized skillset with the transcation that their current agent didn't possess, the agent would likely try to refer the business. It happens all the time.

People in this biz are so hung-up on the fees and percentages, they let it get in the way. Yet in most markets, full service realtors often outperform discount agents, on transactions and earnings. So someone is surely seeing -- and paying for -- their value.