A buyer representation agreement with an exclusivity and fee-shortfall clause that needs a closer look before signing

Read the property type definition. Many of these forms cover real property with no limit, which matters if any of your search drifts toward raw acreage, where an agent typically has no useful data and no intention of doing the work. The clean fix is to carve land out entirely and write a separate flat fee for parcels. Different rate for different work, which is how it should read anyway.

The shortfall clause is the one that cost me money, not the term length. I signed something with the same language, found a house where the seller's side offered 1%, and owed the other 1.5% in cash nine days before closing. Nobody would finance it.

What I'd do now is cap that. Language along the lines of: buyer's obligation limited to whatever the seller or listing broker pays, with any shortfall subject to written agreement at the time of offer. Then you find out per house, before you're emotionally in.

Harrow, a hard cap at whatever the seller happens to offer means your agent has a financial reason to steer you away from the listings paying less, and you will never see the ones paying zero. That is the trade being made. Kestrel, cap it as a dollar figure instead. Say 2.5% with your out of pocket exposure capped at 2,500 total, whatever the seller does. Then your agent still gets paid on a low comp house and you know the worst case in cash. Neither of you is pretending the problem does not exist.

Ask her to write down three things she'll do that you can't do yourself. If the list is real, 2.5% is fine.

Your math is the whole thread. 14,250 down plus 6k costs plus 7,125 fee is 27,375 against 24,000 cash. You are already short by three thousand at your stated budget with zero seller contribution, before a single inspection item.

So it isn't really a question about the form. Either the fee gets covered by the seller's side on the specific house, or your budget is 265k, or you close with no reserves at all. I'd figure out which of those three you're actually doing before Saturday, because that changes what you ask her for.

The forms I've been studying in my licensing course have blanks in all these spots. Term, area, rate, shortfall handling. They're printed as blanks because they're meant to be filled in per client, so sending it back with different numbers isn't rude, it's the form working as designed. State association forms differ quite a bit though, so what's negotiable on yours depends on which form your state uses.

There's usually a non-exclusive version too, and a single-property version. The single-property one might be exactly what you want for Saturday.

Here's what I'd send back, and I'd send it tonight so Saturday still happens.

Term 45 days. Area narrowed to the two or three towns you're actually shopping, or single property if she has a single-property form. Rate stays at 2.5% because arguing rate on a first agreement mostly buys you an agent who resents you. Shortfall handled the way quarry said, a dollar cap you can actually write a check for, and I'd put it at something like 2,000 rather than 2,500 given tally's math.

One more line worth adding: she asks the listing side what they're paying a buyer broker before you tour, and tells you the answer. Since the change last year those offers aren't published on the MLS anymore, so somebody has to make a phone call, and the person making it should be her. That's the single thing that would have saved harrow's 1.5%.

Refusing to sign anything isn't an option, by the way. A written agreement before touring is required now, so "let's just look at a few houses first" is off the table, which is why everyone is suddenly discovering how these forms read. What's negotiable inside the form depends on your state's version, and if the shortfall language is confusing you it's worth twenty minutes with a real estate attorney before you sign a six month version of it.

Short term, narrow area, capped exposure, and she makes the compensation call. That's four edits and none of them insult her.

Buyers spend weeks on this exact question and the answer tends to come out the same way: sign a short one and see how the first month goes, then re-sign or don't. The agreement is not the deal. The mistake is turning it into the deal.