Listing agent worked both sides of a 9-unit for a flat dollar fee

The nine days is the part I'd have blown. If the managing broker had come back and said no amendment, does your offer die or do you sign the consent anyway and eat the percentage? I ask because I know myself and I'd have signed.

Worth saying out loud for anyone reading this in a state that bans dual agency outright, the whole structure here doesn't exist for you. Some states prohibit it, some allow it with written consent, and a few route everything through transaction brokerage instead. Meridian, did your attorney draft the consent language or just review the broker's form?

I want the actual sentence on "does not carry either side's motivation verbally." I've drafted around this and the honest problem is that you can write it, the client can sign it, and there is no mechanism inside the contract to detect a breach. What you get is a disclosure record and something to point at if you end up in front of the state commission. That's not nothing. It just isn't a control.

The flat fee is the part that actually does work, because it changes what she gets paid rather than what she promises. I'd copy that. I'd stop pretending the conduct clause does the same job.

The reason that took nine days is probably the split. Her firm probably takes a percentage of a percentage, and a flat dollar fee means somebody in accounting has to decide what the house cut is on a number that doesn't fit the formula. On a 62,750 gross at a 70/30 she's looking at roughly 44k before her desk fees. At 46k flat she's at maybe 32k. She gave up real money and I'd want to know what she thought she was buying with it, because agents don't do that for nothing. Was there a second listing in it for her?

The seller running both nets on a legal pad is the most realistic sentence in this post.

Which document did the amendment actually live in? If it was an addendum to the listing agreement, you're a third party to it and you have no standing if he later re-amended it back before closing. I've seen a fee number change between the offer and the settlement statement and nobody on the buy side noticed because nobody on the buy side gets a copy of the listing agreement. Did you get eyes on the final closing statement line, or did you take the amendment on faith?

Basic question because I'm still sorting the vocabulary. If her firm had given you a second agent from the same office instead, that's designated agency, right? Would the flat fee still have mattered then, or is the percentage conflict gone once two different people are on it?

@plumb designated means two agents, one broker, and the broker still sees both files and still banks both sides. Sharper than dual, not clean.

Meridian, my question is whether this scales down. On a 380k duplex the whole fee is maybe 19k and there is no room for a 16k concession to hide in. Everything you did here worked because the dollars were big enough that a percentage point was worth nine days of paperwork. Below some price the agent just says no and takes the next buyer.

Nobody in my market amends a listing agreement for a buyer. There are four agents, two of them are related, and the answer to "can we restructure your fee" is a long pause and then a showing that never gets scheduled. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying the leverage in this post is the 1.2M and the proof of funds, not the clause.

The 34 down to 21.5 is what I keep rereading. She's on both sides and she's the one carrying your repair number to a seller she also represents. Did you send the sewer report to the seller directly or did it go through her? I don't understand how you'd ever know what he actually saw.

@wren that's the right question and it's why the independent inspection matters more than the fee structure.

Meridian, what did you buy on your own account for diligence? You mention an inspector and an attorney. Did you order an appraisal you controlled, or a rent roll audit? On a 9-unit with two units under market by 120, the number that decides whether 1.255M was good is the T-12 against actual bank deposits, and a dual agent has no reason to help you find a gap there. If you took the seller's rent roll at face value the flat fee saved you 16k and the roll could have cost you more than that.