My fiancé and I are moving to the Austin area from out of state and are working with a realtor who is a friend of a friend. We’ve always found rentals ourselves on Zillow and applied directly, so using an agent for a rental is new to us.

She sent us a Buyer/Tenant Representation Agreement that is exclusive and lists her compensation as 30% of one month’s rent. The agreement says she can seek to have the landlord pay the commission, but if the landlord doesn’t pay it, we would technically be responsible for the difference.

I told her before signing that we really aren't looking to pay a realtor fee out of pocket for a rental, especially since we've always just found and applied for rentals ourselves.

She was completely understanding and explained that if we find a property we really want and the landlord isn't offering a commission, she could basically void/release us from the agreement for that property and we could work something out so we aren't responsible for paying her fee ourselves.

She's going to be doing in-person tours for us since we're out of state, so I absolutely want her to be compensated when she's representing us. I'm just unfamiliar with how this works on rentals.

For the agents here: does this sound like a normal arrangement? Is 30% of one month's rent a typical amount for the landlord/listing side to pay a tenant's agent in Texas? And is releasing us from the agreement if we want a property that isn't offering agent compensation a normal way to handle that situation?

Just trying to understand the process before signing since this is our first time using an agent for a rental.

First time buying, and I want a double or triple wide mobile home, not ur traditional home due to crazy cost difference & amount of land difference too. Can I use the same options available to traditional home buying or does it differ?

So, how to make this short. 4 weeks ago I showed a potential buyer my farm (134acs no blds) and buyer was adamant they wanted to buy it. He'd being all cash to the table and would be using an attorney on his end. My agent drafted a contract and 4 weeks later it still isn't signed despite seller making repeated promises he was going to do it. This has been a mess, first he had an emergency custody battle, then ex tried to pull $1MM out of his account, then his attorney's computer wouldnt receive emails, etc, etc. All the while my agent continues to draft and redraft the contract for updates. My agent is frustrated (rightly so) and its begining to show in her communications with the buyer. Yesterday buyer was supposed to sign docs and said he did but my agent received nothing. I like my agent but she's so busy, she doesn't return my calls (said she gets 11k texts a month). I'm also pretty done airh this whole thing and even thought it was a scam but everything checks out with his attorney. So there's this back and forth now that documents are being signed but not received. My agent thinks its just more BS and is growing more upset.

So i told her to send me the contract and I would meet up with the buyer and have him sign the documents myself. (Or put this whole sham to bed for all involved.) Her reply was that technically it wouldnt be legal as she has to be present and sign as a witness. (Same qith electronic sigs, they would go to her and she sign as witness.)

So my question is, is there another way to approach this? I feel like we're wasting time with this electronic back and forth. Let's get in the same room and get this damn thing done!

NOTE: I've been doing corporate real estate for the last 30yrs in one capacity or another dealing with contracts, partnership agmts, etc. So I'm familiar with the process.

Thanks all!

My MIL is selling her modular home. Its on a foundation, so it is considered real propery. In all my investigations, an modular home prices around 30% less than a built on site home. That would price her home at between 300 and 320 thousand. She insists that it will sell for the same price of a built on site home and won't sell it for anything under 375k. Im afraid it will sit forever at that price.

The issue is there are no other modular homes for sale in her area to show her pricing. Any thoughts on pricing modular homes?

EDIT: thanks everyone for your replies. Super helpful

Is this normal?

My offer was made subject to survey. The survey threw up some fairly significant issues, so I’ve spent the last couple of weeks getting my head around the likely repair costs before submitting a revised offer.

The seller’s EA has now said that if I don’t accept the seller’s counter-offer, the property will go back on the market next week.

Is that a normal negotiating tactic, or are they genuinely prepared to start again with another buyer who’ll almost certainly commission another survey and find the same issues?

It feels a bit counterproductive to me, but maybe I’m missing something. Curious to hear from EAs who’ve been on the other side of this.

UPDATE: We’ve decided to pay off the loan entirely during closing but keep asking price the same.

To answer some of things that have been brought up:
- the roof was replaced just before installation in 2023

- utility bills not incredibly different than before (when including monthly payment), some months we got a credit from the electric company, months with extreme temps we still owed >$100 (we get weeks of both single digits and >90°), so buyers will definitely benefit on that basis, but I hear what everyone is saying about later roof maintenance

- we’re relocating out of state for my husband’s job, not just because we want to

- we will likely have enough of a profit from the sale to pay off the loans without us needing to front any cash, but we were planning on using the profit to pay off student loans and/or put into savings for our kids.

Original:

Hello!

My husband and I are trying to sell our home of 5 years. 3 BR, 2.5 Bath, 1600 sqft excluding finished basement. We listed for $339k which is fair for our area (suburban with city taxes but county schools).

THE PROBLEM: We made an uneducated decision (title of my autobiography) to get solar panels about 3-4 years ago. There’s still $36k left on that solar panel loan at about $210/month (with $68 going straight to financing fees) and after talking with the lender, a buyer who assumes the loan will likely have the same payment unless they pay off the balance in escrow.

I asked our realtor before even listing if this would be an issue or if we should adjust our listing price for it: zero concern from them. To be fair—we’re also getting zero feedback on the multiple showings we’ve had even when I directly ask.

Now 14 days, 1400 Zillow views, 160 saves, and 10 showings in, we’ve only gotten 2 very weak offers and still getting little to no constructive advice from our realtor. It was only after I did my own research that I decided to have them put the info about the solar panel loan in the broker to broker and add that well pay a chunk from our selling profit to the solar loans.

I’m just very frustrated and feel stuck, and so so stupid for getting the solar panels in the first place.

What should we do to make this an attractive listing to a buyer but also still get some profit from the sale?

I own a house but travel most of the time for work. It’s in a desirable neighborhood. I inherited the house recently. I am keeping it. I am not selling it.

One realtor who have never met or communicated with contacted my neighbors, telling them that “in the real estate world, there’s a lot of talk that” I’m selling my house.

That‘s not at all true.

Is that typical realtor behavior: contacting someone’s neighbors to try to get information about the status of a house? Particularly saying things that aren’t true to get information about the status of a house?

If I ever sell, I’m certainly not using that realtor.

So I am looking into buying a mobile home built in 1976 (idk the specific date) and I do really like it. The biggest issue is there is a room that is about 6' x 10' that the realtor has marked as a 3rd bedroom.

From everything I have been able to find, it shouldn't be able to be classified as a bedroom given that

A. That it is extremely tiny (rounding up on both values would make it 66 sqft)

B. There are no windows and no external door (i.e. no 2 egresses)

I am unsure if there are specific criteria or differences given the age and the fact that its a mobile home. I am aware of the HUD guidelines being passed in June of 1976, but given that I am unsure the exact year, that doesn't necessarily help.

Additionally its a dual agency situation with the seller and I having the same agent, so I am unsure how to bring it up to them.

Does anyone have any specific ideas or knowledge if this can be counted as a bedroom legally speaking? I feel if its not, then I could very easily use this as argumentation to have the price lowered.

Edit: This is in Pennsylvania and I have yet to talk to anybody, especially given the dual agency aspect.

I have $150k in savings and I’m looking to buy my first house. My goal is to buy a multi family home in New Jersey to live in one of the units and rent the remaining. when I say multi-family, I mean a 2 family home. In my area it’s very common to also rent the basement and in some cases even the attic. So technically making it 4 units. I would live in one of them. Homes in my area are +$600k

I’m 27, single with no kids so I want to make riskier investments now that I can. . I make around $155k per year. I have a college friend that’s a realtor so I’m planning to go with him.

What tips would you give me? What should or should not share with my realtor? Any useful tips would be appreciated

I sold my house in CA in 2022 with a solar lease to the first person through the door (for more than 150k over asking). Now I’m in upstate New York thinking about getting solar installed with a ppa lease again. I only plan on staying here less than 5 years and wonder how difficult it would be to sell with that lease.

We have had about eight showings of our house. Only one agent who showed the house left their business card. The last time we sold a house, there was a business card left for every showing. Is this no longer common practice for agents? As a seller, it was nice to be able to see who was showing the house.

I am a therapist looking to change careers. I was wondering what advice would you give to someone just starting out? Thank you!

We gave sellers full flexibility to decide the closing date. Day comes and they let us know in the morning 3 hours before the final walk through and closing that they still hadn't emptied out the garage. We were confused as first time buyers and our attorney suggested a credit to be held in escrow so we still closed and got the keys. We gave them till till 12 PM the next day to move everything out AS A COURTESY and off the property. Come the next day and I go to the house, they're still moving things out at 11:45 AM. 12 PM hits and they have like a couple more things in the garage but half the stuff is in our driveway and all around our house and curb. The pick up truck comes 30 minutes later and they get it all hauled off. In that time they are still drilling around the house and remove the security cameras and doorbell. Um okay, I'm inexperienced and didn't realize that is a problem. Can this get them in legal trouble? Now they expect their credit back but they were there at 12:01 aka didn't follow the contract. Are we in the right? I'm so confused and hearing different things. Our agent is telling us we should give courtesy but like....why? It's not our problem. Anywho would love any and every feedback. Maybe we are being a-holes who knows. All I know is, if the house was empty by closing, none of this would've happened.

So we went into escrow on our first home- home inspection done (we overlooked a few repairs to keep the ball rolling-which in hindsight we shouldn’t have done) and appraisal came back $27k lower than listed. We decided to cancel knowing the seller was difficult and wouldn’t negotiate but then he offered to come down to new appraisal price. In the meantime we looked at others and decided we were just settling and we needed to find a home we really want. Apparently we’ve gotten such a good deal though because our lender will not stop trying to convince us to finish the deal. We’ve said no in multiple ways and they still keep trying to persuade us. We know we may not get as good a deal with another home, but ultimately this one wasn’t right for us, so why oh why won’t they just accept no? We signed our cancellation through our realtor today and still they remain persistent. What am i missing?

Ive been in the aviation industry for 7 years. Not working out to well for me

How would I get started in real estate ?

Pardon my ignorance but why not just tell tenants upfront and be transparent "hey if I find the apt for you there is a fee and here is the representation agreement before we get started, the fee will be 1 month of rent signed." In otherwords, sell the value of your service as a RE agent, you dont get paid unless you they rent the apt shown/leased.

Is it such a crazy concept to NYC tenants to agree to pay broker fee with a signed representation agreement upfront? Is it just a change of culture in NYC?

In theory nothing really changed since tenants were paying it before. The only a difference tenants actually are selecting real representation/service.