Do you owe a broker a commission if they email you a listing?

This is one of the brokers tools for making you feel obligated to use them and/or pay them a commission.

What I do is to say that I am conducting my own search and speak to other brokers and use sites like Steeteasy. You explain that if they show you a listing for something that you have not seen before and if you are interested then you will have the broker show you the apartment. Put this in a reply email.

They will either shut down and you will not hear from them again or they will accept your terms.

i am curious what these brokers are showing you that you cannot find yourself on SE

IF you have decided that you are definitely working with one broker, then I do think it's a bit unethical to have other brokers send you listings - if you know that even if they send you the perfect listing which your own broker didn't, you're still going to go buy it through your broker rather than the one who found it for you.

I'm sorry, 39yrs, you're brilliant but I respectfully disagree with you on this one.

UWSfan, this is not your problem. Getting paid is the broker's problem. Your problem is finding an apartment you like at a price you can afford.

What I would do is turn that broker you kinda like and are kinda working with into a buyer's broker. Right now, shock shock shock, she is not working for you at all, she is working for the seller--unless she has disclosed otherwise. I'll bet she hasn't even discussed exactly who she is working for. Please tell me I'm wrong.....

SO get that broker you like to sign a buyer agency agreement with you, she works for you, she is to get the best deal she possibly can for you, she owes you confidentiality and putting your interests above her own, her legal responsibility is to YOU.

Then tell the brokers with listings you want to see you do have a buyer's broker working for you, now let's see those apartments.

Everybody should be cooperative. End of ethical guilt trip.

PS to glamma: I can show you apartments not on Speak Easy. SE is fantastic but it does not catch everything.

PS to ieb: that's a good plan also.

If I'm missing something here somebody set me straight.

{Manhattan real estate agent. 917-365-0876}

i only speak to brokers about their listings--correct me if im wrong, but this means i may use a buyer's broker of my choice when the time comes--i reject attermpts by brokers to show me listings that aren't theirs

Of course you could say: "I would be happy to see any listings you, and your firm, represent". At which point he is the sellers agent and there is no issue. If he sends you listings he does not own, then you owe him nothing.

Fluter, the buyer's broker still gets paid through a share of the selling broker's commission, no? If not, how does the buyer's broker get compensated?

From what I understand, if they don't physically show you the apartment, then they are not entitled to a fee. I believe you can even have a phone call about the place to learn more information on it without the broker being entitled to a fee. If however they step one foot into the apartment with you then they are entitled a fee.

I think this situation also comes into play when the broker asks you to write their name down on the open house sheet, but doesn't take the time to see the place with you. Do they deserve a commission in that case? Only if you want to engage them to place an offer for you, otherwise, no.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

fluter: I think you misinterpreted what I was saying, because I don't think it's much different than what you are saying. Think about it: if the buyer tells someone they have an exclusive buyer's broker, are these brokers going to be sending them, or their broker, other people's listings?

Riley: Yup you're right.

Here's the amazing thing: The person who writes the check, and the person the broker owes allegiance to, do not have to be the same person.

Put another way: Agency is independent of who pays you.

The only way this can work in an ethical world is to disclose, disclose, disclose. But it's still kinda nuts.

UBottom, the only good reason I can think of right now for your strategy is that you want to deal directly with the listing broker (which is mostly all I have ever done in my own real estate transactions). I totally get that. But to then say you'll bring in a buyer's broker when the time comes, I dunno why you'd bother to do that, unless you have a chum or a DNA connection with somebody licensed?

30yrs: Does the buyer have money? If so the answer to your question in the current market, near as I can tell, is damn right they are!

PS: This is one crazy business. You gotta be crazy to love it. But we all already know that.

{Manhattan real estate agent.}