For years the general public has been ridiculed by the real estate industry in this country. Using many tactics, mostly fear, this industry has been struggling to convince the public into believing that buying or selling a home without their involvement is not only impossible but also potentially threatening to your life. They claim that a typical homeowner is not smart enough to figure out the so-called paper work, also known as the “Agreement of Purchase and Sale”. Calling themselves so called professionals, this industry has the lowest educational requirements of any profession in the world, many of which have not completed a single day of post secondary education, yet they claim to be smarter than you and your attorney. Every year they spend tens of millions of dollars into advertising that is essentially trying to convince us that we are stupid! In desperation their recent ads have hit an all time low. As silly as they are, in one ad they depict a homeowner waxing his chest during a home showing. People let’s wake up, this is where your commission money is going. You are handing over thousands of dollars in commission money to an industry that takes your hard earned equity and spends it on advertising that makes the general public look like idiots.

In their very recent campaign they focus their attention on the homebuyer. In a complete and total lie they claim that a buyers agent, the agent that helps you to find a home, costs you the buyer absolutely nothing. The fact is that this so called buyers agent typically takes one half of the total commission that the vendor pays on the sale of their home, and in some cases that cut may be even greater in favour of the buyers agent. This money equally comes out of you the buyer’s pocket as the vendor has little or no flexibility on their bottom line.

In many cases a portion of that commission becomes incorporated into the price of the home. Here is some proof. On occasion people looking for a home whom are working with a real estate agent approach our clients. They fall in love with the property and would like to purchase it. In many such cases they find the home all on their own, without the assistance of their agent. Since the vendor, our client did not sign anything with their agent they are not obligated to pay them a dime in commission. The buyers on the other hand had signed a buyer’s agency agreement, committing to pay their agent commission on any home that they buy. In the end the buyers are forced to pay 100% of the asking price to our client, so that their agent who did absolutely nothing can walk away with at least 2.5% in commission.

So who paid this agent you ask? Although the commission money comes out of the vendor’s pocket from the proceeds of the final sale, these proceeds would have been lower by 2.5% if the buyer did not involve their agent. Essentially the buyers overpaid for the property, as they were not able to negotiate a discount on the selling price of the home. If they did not involve an agent in the first place they would have been able to negotiate a lower price based on the 2.5% commission that their agent walked away with. On a typical home of $300,000 that translates into $7,500, which will take the new home owner almost 2 years to pay off their new mortgage. What a waste, and another great reason to say no agents please!