Which fee structure keeps an agent grinding for the last $200k?

The bonus structure is the only one where the marginal math points the right way, and it fails on the same thing every time, which is who sets the target. At $3M to $4M you have almost no comparable sales to anchor it, so the target is a negotiated opinion. If the agent talks you into $3.1M and the house was always a $3.6M house, you just paid 1.5% plus a bonus for something a flat fee would have bought cheaper.

What I'd want before choosing is the agent's own price opinion in writing with the specific closed sales behind it, dated before we discuss fee at all. Then the target conversation happens against a number they already committed to. Without that sequencing the bonus is just a percentage with extra steps.

Voted percentage, mostly because I'd rather overpay a little than spend the sale second-guessing whose clock is running.

One thing that gets lost in the flat fee case is where the marketing money actually sits. At the top of the market the lister is often carrying the photography, the print, the broker events, the whole package out of their own fee, and a flat number turns every one of those line items into a decision about their own pay.

I've been on the vendor side of that. The listings where the agent was on a fixed fee were the ones where the shoot got trimmed to a half day. If you go flat, I'd carve the marketing budget out as a separate agreed spend rather than leaving it inside the fee, or you end up buying less presentation than you think you did.

If the buyer pool really is a dozen people, does the fee structure change anything at all about who shows up? I've gone over this part a couple of times and I still don't follow it. It sounds like the agent's network either has those twelve names or it doesn't, and the split of the fee doesn't add a thirteenth. Or does the structure change how hard they work the ones they have.

juniper, the way I understand it the structure changes how long the agent is willing to hold out for the right one of the twelve rather than the first. That's the whole marginal question.

orchard, before you pick, I'd read the actual listing agreement your candidates use. Most brokerages hand out a house form with a percentage already printed in, and what a broker will let their agent sign, plus what the agreement has to say about how the buyer side gets paid, varies by state and by brokerage. Confirm the terms in writing with the broker, not just the agent. I've also seen a protection period clause bite people who switched agents, so ask what happens if you list, pull it, and relist a year later with someone else.