Keeping Broker Commissions Low

Yes. Although I doubt you are for real, more likely just promoting "sharpbuyers", we do the same. For someone that does "all" the leg work I rebate 67% of the commission at closing.
http://theburkhardtgroup.com/services-and-fees-c14358.html

The buyers I am working with seem quite happy.

BURKARDTGROUP- sorry, i am NOT promoting anything. had you just come on and promoted yourself, i may have paid attention to you. you just lost yourself some credibility. i never heard of burkardgroup. you've chosen to take the low road - sorry dude - can't deal w that crud. i was really just asking the buyer community a question.

Martin, you asked for an alternative, and Keith Burkhardt, who has been a broker in Manhattan for years, gave you one. Don't jump down his throat for answering yr. question.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

i posted my question to those who would answer it civilly. burkhardgroup chose not to. i welcome constructive thoughts. i'm not interested in a pitch battle

Why are you talking about a commission anyway? The seller pays the commission -- not the buyer. You choose if you want a broker -- it is not required. So, if you do not want a buyer's broker to receive a commission, don't use one! The seller's brokerr gets both commissions if you don't use one. So Keith's offer for a 67% rebate seems like a great idea for you to get your "price reduced". Your nasty response is unwarranted. I agree with Ali -- a "thank you" would suffice.

Thanks Ali and Fox! Didn't think I was that rude. Lol.

Why can't any of you answer the OP question without pushing your own agendas. This site is over poulated by narcissistic, self policing know it alls.

"likely just promoting "sharpbuyers" - theburkhardtgroup

Thanks for your opinion Keith, real helpful! Why can't you just help the guy, I am sure you have knowledge of the site he asks about. If not, then stay away from the discussion. Your opinion on the OP only advances the thread towards the 'personal bashing' and 'ganging up on a new poster' that so many of you engage in. Your minions quickly jump to defend you and in my opinion you were wrong to assume anything about the OP in the first place.

When someone approacehs you in business do you always jump to an assumption? I always thought discussion led to understanding.

Martin- your questions does not make sense. I read it several time and did not understand why you needed a broker at all after you completed all the work. Thus attaching sharpbuyer home page would lead any person to conclude that you work for them. Mr burkhard just gave you an option and hedge himself since you did not come across as credible. Your aggressive and angry response to him confirmed his first impression. Go find another blog to promote yourself and hopefully you can learn some manners.

Martint I apolagize, I should not have made that assumption.

Keith

To clarify my question: in my case, i did not need a broker to find the apartment. i did it myself by using streeteasy + natefind and contacting seller brokers for showings directly. i have basically whittled it down to 2 apartments, with one being the leading candidate.

my assumption is that if i buy a place with no broker, then the seller's broker keeps the full 6pct commission and therefore does not share 1/2 with buyer's broker.

i think that since i've done all the legwork myself, then it would be fair if a good portion of it comes back to me.

i did some very quick research and found the sharpbuyer's site.

if it is common for brokerless buyers to receive the 3pct on their own, then of course i can do it without sharpbuyers or someone else - i just don't know what the practice is.

i'm done with arguing over who is credible and who is not, and who is rude and who is not.

i welcome feedback on this if that is possible from the non-broker community.

Martin - it seems like you are looking to transfer a portion of the brokers fee to yourself, as you are not the one paying for it out of pocket, unless you look at the purchase price as such - including your payout to the brokers!

Not using a broker may, and I stress very heavily MAY, get you a better deal in the transaction, but that is even more so in booming markets when bidding wars are prevalent. These days, brokers are mass blasting each other in the hopes of moving property and welcome any qualified/aggressive buyer to step up to the plate to do a deal.

The rebate model has not yet 'hit' Manhattan, although Keith is one of the few offering change in this softening market. He will have supporters here because he is known, I personally know him, and his ethical and knowledgable. I must admit, I got same impression that you were sprucing that company too when I first read the OP.

Anyway, I have no clue about that company but if your agenda is to transfer some of brokers fee to yourself, seeking out a simple rebate broker, if they are here these days, may be your best bet. I think that is something that is still yet to get mainstream here in Manhattan.

Sounds like a great concept to me.

I'd definitely use a broker if I were selling.

But when it comes to buying, I'm a do-it-yourselfer for the most part. That said, I might like a little handholding at the closing.

Martin - it seems like you are looking to transfer a portion of the brokers fee to yourself, as you are not the one paying for it out of pocket, unless you look at the purchase price as such - including your payout to the brokers!

All of the funds involved in the transaction come from the buyer. The buyer is paying for everything, the apartment, the broker, the lawyers, the taxes, blah blah. Without the check from the buyer, no one is getting anything.

ud and keith
I appreciate that both of you seem to understand the psychology on the buy and the sell side and the fact that some buyers/sellers expect service and possibly hand holding and others do not, and that this should be priced.
Excellent.
I appreciate the service a good broker can provide and the flexi pricing model is very appealing. On the flip side, the behavior of many of the brokers in the current market is very strange indeed.
I have been to three open houses in the last 2 weekends where the broker was a no show and neither calls nor emails resulted in a response. These were open houses with set times, and not by appt.
Very odd -- the seller does not deserve this -- a considerable effort goes into preparing the place.

There have been at least 5 to 10 cases where brokers from Prudential or Corcoran representing different properties on the UWS or in S Harlem have not responded to inquiries or requests for showing on the properties submitted through SE or through their own websited. Submitting the "feedback" to Prudential Elliman -- an automatic thing they send after a few days has had no effect. In a few cases I have left phone messages also -- to no avail.
In a few cases I have made written offers that have been 15-20% below ask and there has been no response -- at all. In one case, on being called the broker's response was that he was not going to present such an offer -- 800k on a 1 million ask. This is last month.I am willing to bet that his final selling price will be below what I would have paid on negotiation.
When I was on the sell side, I fired the broker I was working with when I overheard her tell a prospective buyer (at the end of an open house) that she would not present his offer. We did an FSBO and sold in a week to a different individual for a price a bit higher than what the person was offering at the open house. Net return was higher than what we would have had paying the commission.

But, I digress. My goal was not to complain about brokers. We really need a more open information source and knowledgeable + motivated brokers offer the seller/buyer an advantage. I voice the frustration that as the market tightens the better brokers would be expected to survive and the others to vanish. SO far I am not quite seeing that trend. Hmmm

@theburkhardtgroup,

I think this is a very appealing concept actually. My wife and I have been looking to purchase our first apartment for the past 18-months - basically just waiting until we felt the market made some sense to us. We have considered going at it alone simply because we have no set time horizon and can be as patient as we need until we find the right place at the right price. It just didn't make sense to bring in a broker if they weren't going to be participating in the legwork although we could certainly use some guidance for the offer-through-close process.

At what point in our search/seriousness level should we contact your firm and do you guys handle prime Brooklyn?

joedavis: In a few cases I have made written offers that have been 15-20% below ask and there has been no response -- at all.

How can you expect to be taken seriously? If the owner wanted to take a price 15% below, they'd probably knock their price down by 10% first and see if there were any takers.

And NO, don't call me a broker all you trigger happies out there, I'm a renter, looking to buy when prices get to the right point which isn't quite now. But I won't waste my time offering 15% below ask, it's just plain stupid. And to assume you should get a reply, crazy.

huh? what's the magic number then? 12% below asking --- 7%? if you are for real, just keep making your offers as you see fit.

plavtery -- I am appalled by your response. Are you suggesting that you will pay full asking price on a property when you feel it is right, and that the seller will no longer offer their trial balloon of a price. With perfect clarivoyance the seller understands what someone is willing to pay for their property and then waits for offers. Get real!
In a market, every price is subject to offers. A property priced too low relative to the market will see a bidding war. A property priced too high will only see lower offers. This is the law of the market.
I have seen several properties now well well below the price I offered to the seller originally - matter of weeks or months. I am not delusional but I do think the pressure of lower bids finally gets the property repriced and at the right time someone will strike will their offer.
I would like the brokers to offer the efficiency of the market -- enter the offers and see what happens.

Recall I told you that we fired the broker and sold -- I had no intention of selling at the lowe price but in that 1980s downtrending market getting an offer for purchase was a serious issue, and a calibration point to work from. The same is true today. The broker deserved to be fired, and she admitted as much once I sold the property in a week at a price in between the offer an the asking price the broker had recommended to me.

Regardless of all this, it is unprofessional and illegal for a broker not to present your offer and not to get back to you.
Indeed, your response is illuminating, in that if there are indeed people out there like you markets will not work. BTW check the ratio of average closing price to asking price. I think 10% below ask is not likley to be a surprise. so if you go to the compromise point an offer of 20% below ask is precisely where you need to be to get to that point.
On the other hand, someone like you will offer the asking price -- or may be not, since you said you have made offers 15-20% below and got no response. But then you say " But I won't waste my time offering 15% below ask, it's just plain stupid. And to assume you should get a reply, crazy. " I guess you just established that you are crazy via your own post. Sigh!

Who pays the brokerage fee?

We all do. Buyers and sellers. Sure the seller writes out the check. But the brokerage "costs" get reflected in the price as well.

When I bought my condo in 1992 the seller was having trouble selling in a bad market. Finally, he cut the price and went FSBO. I liked the new price which no longer included brokerage costs and I bought.

We all do.

True, built into the system are transaction costs that affect all.

In any given transaction, it is the buyer who is paying all of the transaction costs.

Thanks for all comments above, Keith I appreciate the apology. Some have stated that I shouldn't be concerned by brokers fees as they are all borne by the seller. This I understand perfectly.

Some posters are correct in stating that I'm looking to get some of the brokers fee and that is correct. I'm not sure whether that would be in the form of a rebate or in the form of assisting in a downward negotiation of the price. On the purchase of a 1MM appartment we're not talking chump change here. 1% = 10k - I'd rather have that then not

Martin

Keith Burkhardt is one of the biggest frauds in the brokerage industry. Some of the rebates he gives are ok, but he's posted here initially on some illegal kickbacks in the rental market. Also, as for promotion, this guy was more self promoting than anyone. Just because he's now "established" himself and doesn't need to be as shameless doesn't mean he can criticize others and act like he's in the right.

i went to the burkhardt group website
under sales it shows 1 listing for 399k
not exactly a testimonial of success or being established...........

Just to clarify. For the last year and a 3/4 I have focused on rentals-I felt the sales market was set to adjust(down) big-time, lucky or smart...who knows? Was my timing spot on, no...but better than many. So I left a large firm (Citi-habitats)and set up my own shop where I could do things my way. I continue to focus on the rental side of things with a very limited (1 listing/accepted offer) exposure to sales. I am currently working with 3 buyers who are selectively/cautiously looking for a home. Offers have been made, so far 0 accepted.

Regarding the accusation of "fraud". Yes, if you rent an apartment from me, in some cases you will get a gift-card as a "closing" gift. The 20 or so whom have are quite happy, some brokers at conventional firms...not quite happy. I feel there is room for all the models, but think giving the consumer choices is always a good thing.

JoeDavis, I am not a big player, though I would say I am "established" after almost 20 years in this business.

unbiased here, just chiming in that it did sound like you were self-promoting without identifying yourself

Martin514,
This topic has been discussed several times recently under the "Brokers" category. See, for example, "To broker or not to broker" and "Buying without a broker - what are the risks?" Good luck!

Back during the last post crash, buyers were out scouring for "great deals". On almost a daily basis, I would see some buyer thinking they were getting a great deal because they were buying some real POS which they had convinced themselves was a steal and they were talking advantage of some poor unfortunate owner. In an amazingly high percentage of those cases, the purchasers were not using a broker, nor was the seller, and as is the case with almost all cons games, the mark gets taken because their own greed is what gets them into trouble. I can not even count the number of calls I got from people looking to sell at buildings like 77 Bleecker , 250 Mercer, 85 8th Ave, etc. when it came time to sell, and when I told them what I thought their unit was worth heard "OH, NO, when we bought this unit, we got a STEAL, and we paid (insert 25% over current market value here).

Great example: 1989, makret has already cracked and started South. In a weekly review I ask one of my salespeople "What about Buyer X?" (who she had been working with for months). the answr was "Oh, I just called her and she said they found something on their own which wasn't listed with brokers". I told her to call the buyer back and even if she didn't want to tell her what unit, find out which building, because perhaps we had something else in the same building which the buyer would like batter.

She comes back to me a few minutes later, and not only was the unit listed with brokers, it was listed with us at a LOWER PRICE than the owner was advertising on their own at. The owner had shifted price upwards and told buyers they couldn't get it through brokers so that potential buyers wouldn't discuss the sale with brokers they might be working with. We ended up selling the buyer a similar unit on a higher floor in the same building for about 15% less money.

"

Thanks for all comments above, Keith I appreciate the apology. Some have stated that I shouldn't be concerned by brokers fees as they are all borne by the seller. This I understand perfectly.

Some posters are correct in stating that I'm looking to get some of the brokers fee and that is correct. I'm not sure whether that would be in the form of a rebate or in the form of assisting in a downward negotiation of the price. On the purchase of a 1MM appartment we're not talking chump change here. 1% = 10k - I'd rather have that then not

Martin"

And just to throw in the other side of the equation: I'd rather get it for %975,000 and have 2 brokers get a full commission than get it for $1MM - $10k = $990,000 because I was more concerned with what $ were going into other peoples pockets than getting the best deal I could get for myself.

Great example: 1989, ...

It's the psychology of the bargain.

Like the Barney's annual warehouse sale. It seems like a cheap environment, no returns, no dressing rooms, security guards, etc.

Except the same clothing was available at regular Barneys when they were running their normal sale. But until it was in the "warehouse" ...

Or the Outlets. I remember when outlets were new. They had bargains. Now they have stuff made for outlets, or stuff no one wanted, or stuff that is actually lower quality and relatively expensive, or stuff that is otherwise available at the store when they have sale. But it seems like a bargain.

Anyway, ranting about retail.

The point is, never buy a FSBO. The seller is not looking to split it with the buyer. He's looking to keep it all, he's a cheapo which is why he won't work with a broker. And the buyer thinks he's getting a bargain because he doesn't think a couple steps forward in the equation.

"Why can't any of you answer the OP question without pushing your own agendas."

I agree. It's disgusting the way people use StreetEasy for their own, self-serving purposes.

For real estate transaction support without self-serving agendas, call 1-800-Dwayne-Pipe! That's 1-800-Dwayne-Pipe!

But that's not all! If you call in the next 20 minutes we'll also throw in a FREE George Foreman grill! That's a $249 value, ABSOLUTELY FREE! Call now! Operators are standing by! That's 1-800-Dwayne-Pipe. 1-800-D-W-A-Y-N-E-P-I-PE!

you forgot the dash between the last P and the last E

Is that why you haven't called, splaken?

No, I don't need a George Foreman grill.

Yes, you do. You just don't know it yet.

Are you Alpine/President?

Sir, you have offended my honor!

Pistols at 10 paces.

I'll take that as a yes.

Hey Alpo, this guy thinks i'm you. Got that, dog breath? He thinks a reputable broker-basher like me, who's stood for nothing but decency and integrity his entire time at SE, is actually a low-life psychopath like...you.

You know what, splaken? I take that back. I am Alpine/President. Absolutely. I escaped from a mental institution where i was locked up for lewd behavior toward my sister. Now I'm here on SE. The Dwayne Pipe character posts whenever I take my meds. When I don't, and slip deeper and deeper into delirium, I post as President, Alpine, and a half dozen others.

Truth. Hallelujah!

Yep. I confess. The burden of this was too much. Of all the characters I've ever created, only the Dwayne Pipe character is worth a bucket of warm spit.

Streeteasy Admin, I hereby authorize you to delete my "President" and "Alpine" ID's forthwith; they were a colossal waste of time and I apologize to every poster who ever had the misfortune of having to cope with Alpine or President. Delete them NOW, I say! I can't control myself! Stop me before I post as Alpine again! But when I'm Dwayne, I'm on my meds, so pls remember to leave the Dwayne ID and ONLY delete the "Alpine" and "President" ID.s M'kay? Thanks.

Oh, ok, now I believe you.

Don't patronize me. This is very difficult. Do you know how bad I feel about this? The PResident ID was the worst ID ever, even worse than Alpine.

As a means of catharsis, I'd like everyone to get on this thread and tell the world how annoying they find Alpine and President. I won't protest; i'll just sit here and take it. Go on. Say things like "Alpine is so dense that light bends around him", or "Single-celled organisms outscore The President on IQ tests". I need to hear things like this. Oh, I TRULY need to hear things like that!

Oh, ok, I was just testing you one post ago. Now I really believe you.

You should. I'm telling you the truth. And if I'm not, may God strike Alpine dead! So there.

wait, ok, I didn't believe you the last few times and I still don't, but I'm getting there, I'm getting pretty close. If we do this maybe 3 or 4 more times, I think you'll put me over the edge. No guarantees though.

You shouldn't believe me. If there's one thing even I can agree on, its that the President/Alpine is an incorrigible liar. Most people rue the day they first crossed paths with him. There's nothing I can do about that now, except to say, along with all of you, that Alpine/President needs to be put out of his misery. You'd be better off, and so would I!

Getting there. Lesser people than you and me are already convinced you and Alpine are different people. But I'm still not there. I'm not saying you can't convince me, but a few more denials, pretend non-denials, etc. still might get me over the edge. Try coming on early tomorrow morning (tonight is too obvious) as Alpine and saying something nasty about Dwayne-Pipe.

Eventually, $7.99 per trade, just like Schwab for stocks.