New real estate rules to roll out

Buying a home is a serious business, and soon, touring a home will be, too.

On Saturday, new real estate rules are kicking in nationwide with the aim of transparency.

“It’s all about making the consumer very aware of who’s paying for what and that everything is negotiable,” said Sue Pinky Benson, a real estate agent.

Real estate agents don’t work for free, and these changes aim to make that clear.

“This isn’t just buying a pair of shoes and returning them the next day. This is a committed relationship, and when you are in a committed relationship, you want to know that there is value there,” Benson said.

So, before touring a home, you’ll need to sign an agreement with the agent. The agreement will be negotiable, as it always has been.

That means commission and compensation are negotiable for all parties, and so is the time frame of that commitment.

“It’s going to stop buyers from jumping around from one real estate agent to another,” Benson said.

As for open houses, you can walk around the house and look at it all you want, but when you start to get into the negotiation part of it …

“You will have to sign an agreement with either the listing agent, who then becomes a buyer’s agent, or you will have to have your own representation. Or if you decide that you’re going to take it on your own, then you will have to say, ‘I’m doing this on my own, unrepresented,'” Benson said.

In addition, real estate agents will no longer be allowed to offer commissions through online property listing services or MIS, something which local real estate broker Dirk Fischer thinks only has the seller in mind, not the buyer, and some think the change could lower earnings for agents and cause some to get out of the business.

“It was a decision made by the National Association of Realtors to protect sellers because sellers were taken advantage of, but in the end, to be honest, who’s actually paying for the commission? Is it really the seller? I don’t think so because the buyer is the one who brings the money, not the seller,” Fischer said.

And Fischer disagrees with not having that information readily available in MlS, especially because it means he and other buyer’s agents will need to call each and every listing agent to ask if compensation is involved.

Ultimately, he worries buyers will choose to not work with a buyer’s agents due to the cost and negotiate with the listing agent directly.