1.25 percent on the ones I find, 2.5 on his. The tier got used.

I proposed this in March expecting to be laughed at. The agent I liked was pricing at 2.5 flat, and about half of what I was looking at was coming out of my own scraping of assessor records and driving around, not off the MLS. Paying full freight for a house I found and he wrote up didn't sit right.

What we signed: 2.5 percent if he sourced it, 1.25 percent if I brought him the address first in writing, with a floor of 4,000 either way. The floor is what made him agree. He said the low tier still has to cover a contract, an inspection cycle, and about 20 hours, and under 4,000 it stops being worth answering the phone.

Closed on a tired 3-unit at 412,000 that I found through a code violation list, so the low tier applied. 1.25 percent is 5,150, above the floor, fine. Listing side had 2.5 available on request, 10,300. The difference came back through a lower contract price after we asked the seller to fund only what my agreement required. Seller's agent was annoyed and said their client had already budgeted 2.5, which is exactly the sentence I wanted to hear.

Nearly broke it: proving I sourced it. My email to him with the parcel number was timestamped four days before he ever pulled the listing history, and that email is the only reason the tier held. Without it we'd have argued.

What I'd keep: the written-first-contact rule and the floor. What I'd change: I'd define what happens if he improves a deal I sourced, because he did, and 1.25 undercounted him on this one.