Switched to transaction brokerage mid-deal. What did I lose?

19-year roof on a triplex is a real number, not a paperwork problem. Get a roofer out with the inspector so you have a bid, not an opinion, before anyone talks credits.

Can you post the paragraph headings from the consent? Mine had a confidentiality section on page two that was more specific than the front page, and it changed what I thought I'd agreed to.

The half point bothers me more than the neutrality clause. If your agreement says 2.5 and the seller's offering 2, someone decided you'd cover the difference at closing and didn't tell you. That's a conversation for today, not Thursday.

Transaction brokerage and dual agency are different duty sets under different statutes, and which one applies to you depends entirely on your state's real estate act. Ask the broker to cite the section in writing.

In a state that permits dual agency, the agent generally keeps fiduciary duties to both sides minus the ones that can't be performed for two opposed parties. That usually means no price advocacy and no disclosure of either party's motivation. In states that use a facilitator or transaction broker status instead, the statute typically drops the fiduciary relationship and leaves a shorter set of obligations, commonly honest dealing and accurate accounting for funds, along with disclosure of known material defects. The sentence you quoted reads like the second version. If it is, then on Thursday nobody at that brokerage is required to argue your number for you. They are required to pass the roof bid along accurately and to not misrepresent anything.

On the compensation gap: post-settlement, buyer broker compensation has to be agreed in writing before touring, and the number in your signed buyer agreement is the one that binds you. What the seller offers to cooperate is a separate figure. A $412k purchase at a 0.5% shortfall is $2,060, and it is payable by you unless someone negotiates it into the seller's side or the brokerage reduces its fee. Ask for that in writing before Thursday, because after an inspection credit is in play it gets folded into a single conversation and stops being visible.

Whether the neutrality language is enforceable against you the way it reads is a question for a real estate attorney in your state, and this is one worth an hour of one.

Inspection negotiation is exactly where you feel the absence. I've sat on both sides of that table. When there's an advocate, the roof bid becomes a starting number. When there's a neutral, the roof bid becomes a document that gets emailed to the seller and then everyone waits.

Get three bids if you can. A neutral will still forward the lowest one if it's the one you hand them.

Something like eight or nine states ban dual agency outright and several more restrict it hard, and the substitute language varies a lot. Some call it transaction brokerage, some call it a facilitator, one or two call it a limited service arrangement. The labels don't map cleanly onto each other so don't take anyone's summary from another state as your answer.

So a facilitator is basically a paperwork mover? Genuinely asking, I thought the agent always had to be on somebody's side.

@rigging pretty much, and I use it on purpose. Half my acquisitions I go straight to the listing agent with my own numbers and no agent of my own. I do my own comps, I write my own price, and I don't need anyone to advocate. It's faster and the listing agent has a reason to make my offer work.

@verity you already picked your price and you're happy with the deal. What advocacy are you actually missing?

@flint that works because you know what the building's worth. Verity's asking who fights the roof credit, and the answer in your model is that she fights it herself. Which is fine if she knows that going in.

The $2,060 is the piece I'd move on today. It's real money and it's already been decided by someone who isn't you.

@flint your version also assumes the listing agent's motivation is closing. On a slow listing that's true. On a triplex with three signed leases in a market where those move, it isn't, and the agent has a seller telling her to hold price.

Call the broker of record, not the agent. Ask two things in one email: confirm the total compensation payable by me at closing, and confirm in writing who handles repair negotiation under this status. Written answers change behavior. I've had a fee reduced by a phone call I only made because the email had gone out first.

$3,450 gross on $412k is 0.84% monthly. After taxes, insurance and a real vacancy assumption you're likely thin, and a $14k roof in year two moves it. That's the number I'd be sizing on Thursday rather than the form.

@sable that's the reframe. The consent form is annoying, the roof is the deal. @verity if the roofer says three to five years left you can probably escrow for it. If he says one, you're renegotiating $412k with nobody in your corner and you should know that before you hear it.

Add the $2,060 to your closing cash line right now so it isn't a surprise on the settlement statement. That's the part that gets people, the number nobody mentioned showing up on page two the day before funding.