Alright, looking for some feedback on the way the world works, because I had an atypical experience on buying my house.
When we bought our house, our realtor was my wife"s uncle Jack. We never signed anything with him, he set up all the showings and took us out to whatever we wanted to see. We never signed anything with him (just bids), and I know for a fact that he got paid when we bought our house, but we never gave him a cent. It was my understanding of this process that the realtor share comes out of the seller"s cut of the house, and then is split between the 2 realtors (listing and buyer) in some manner that they decided was equitable.
So my 23 year old sister is living with me right now and is starting the process of buying a house so she can get outta here. She"s pre-approved, knows her budget, blah blah blah. She ended up going with this realtor that one of her friends is going with (instead of going with my recommendation -- the listing agent for my house, because she went out of her way to help us out with a couple things when she had no obligation to after the house was already sold). He pressured her into signing something in the middle of the street before they even got to the first house that he claims wasn"t a contract. In his defense, it did in fact say that on the first page. The second page, however, was definitely a contract. I know, I know, I already drilled the point into her head that anything anyone wants you to sign and won"t let you take it or look at it is obviously bullshit and she should walk away. She"s 23, it"s one of those life lessons. That"s not the point. The point is that what she signed clearly stated a couple of things -- first is that this guy is going to make 3% of the sale price of the home, plus $400, which doesn"t sound like it"s coming out of the seller"s cut at all. It honestly sounds to me like she"s on the hook for this, because I figure all this kinda shit should come out of the back end, and the buyer shouldn"t see any of it. Second was that she"s not even allowed to look at open houses without this guy present, which seems fucking retarded. Like this guy"s gonna be available 24/7 to go take her to look at whatever she wants, whenever she wants.
So the question to other homebuyers is...is this complete bullshit, or is this the way all or part of the industry works? Are buyers physically paying agents? I sure as fuck didn"t, but we used family, and I don"t know enough people who have bought houses recently to know if this is actually a real thing, not just a scam. Did any of you guys see anything like this? Did you end up paying the agent at closing or did it come out of the seller"s cut, like I think it should have?
I just need to know what direction I gotta send her in. The world certainly isn"t kind to 23 year old females. If they can take advantage of you, they will.
