What home buyers should know about agent commissions and how you can save
Dear home buyer,
Buying a home is an exciting time in your life! However, the process as it stands can be a large undertaking both in spending time making decisions and investing hard-earned money.
We continue to believe homeownership is a great way to create your own living experience, escape the rental cycle, and in many cases create wealth over the long term. Whether you’re buying your first home or not, we would love to work with you.
As a company, we recognize the efforts and time invested by the modern home buyer in the home buying process. Given this, we thought it was important to highlight and create transparency on how we are able to reward the modern home buyer for these efforts.
A quick example
When a home is listed on the market with an asking price of $625,000, the seller has already built in a pre-negotiated on average 4-6% of agent commissions into the price. The seller and seller agent negotiate this. The seller agent then decides how much to compensate a buyer’s agent, typically half of the negotiated commission, to introduce and assist an interested and willing buyer to ultimately buy the home. During the process, with a hopeful meeting of the minds between seller and buyer, a seller’s agent works in the best interest of the seller and a buyer’s agent that of the buyer’s best interest.
In the above example, below are the anticipated commission payouts at closing before agent office expenses assuming seller agent lists a split commission with the buyer agent:
Asking Price: $625,000
Accepted Offer Price: $600,000
Seller’s Agent Office: at 2.5% of the purchase price, $15,000
Buyer’s Agent Office: at 2.5% of the purchase price, $15,000
Agents can have a difficult job to do as they manage the expectations of their clients, which can often change, but it’s noteworthy that the above commission expense is the largest in the home buying transaction.
Demystifying who pays the commission
It is often said that the seller pays the above commissions and that you, the home buyer pay $0 to your buyer’s agent for their services. However, this is just not true. The home buyer is paying both the seller and buyer agent's commissions.
Let that digest!
Recognizing where value is earned
We believe the home buying process is outdated. So, we are recognizing the search efforts you make and reward you by giving you back 1% of the home purchase price. In the above example you would get back $6,000. That’s a good chunk of change that you can reinvest in your new home or keep for a rainy day!
Calculate how much you can save with Nuhom
Nuhom is a Boston based full-service real estate tech company making home buying convenient, fast, and rewarding. We have dismantled the traditional home buying process and replaced it with innovative technology, far fewer hurdles, and more savings for the home buyer.