When do you make the seller-side confirm they'll cover your agent, before the tour or inside the offer

Question

Since the offers of compensation came off the MLS, the information did not disappear, it moved. Listing agents post it on brokerage sites, some MLSs run a separate non-public field, plenty of it moves by phone call between agents. So as a buyer you can usually still find out what the seller is willing to cover, the question is when you spend the effort.

One camp confirms before booking a showing. If the seller is offering nothing and you have signed for 2.5 percent, you are looking at a gap you have to fund in cash, and cash at closing is the one thing buyers do not have spare. Better to know before you fall for the house.

The other camp says chasing it early filters out houses that would have paid once an offer was on the table, because seller flexibility on the fee tracks how long the place has been sitting. They put it in the offer as a term and negotiate it with price, treating it as one more concession line. Concession caps set by the loan program can constrain that, and those terms change, so confirm the current cap in writing with your lender rather than assuming last year's number.

I have argued both sides with myself for a month. Where does the room actually stand.

omar_haddad · Accepted Answer

Before the tour, every time. I have watched too many people get attached to a kitchen and then eat the gap.

jordan_ellis2 · Answer

Harrow, that works when the answer is available. Twice this spring my agent called the listing side and got told the seller would consider it at offer stage and nothing more specific, which is not a yes or a no. So I ended up in the second camp by default. What I changed instead was my own agreement, down to 45 days with a clause that the fee owed is the lesser of my rate or what the seller pays, and I cover the difference only if I sign off on it separately for that address. Windlass, that reframes the whole question, because the timing stops mattering as much once you are not exposed to a gap you never agreed to. Whether that clause holds up depends on the form and the state, so I had someone licensed read it before I signed.

When do you make the seller-side confirm they'll cover your agent, before the tour or inside the offer

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