When to confirm seller side buyer agent compensation, before the tour or inside the offer

Question

Since offers of compensation came off the MLS, the information didn't disappear, it moved. Listing agents post it on brokerage sites, some MLSs run a separate non-public field, and plenty of it moves by phone call between agents. As a buyer's agent, the question isn't whether the information exists, it's when to spend the effort finding it. One approach is confirming before booking a showing. If the seller is offering nothing and a buyer has signed for 2.5 percent, that's a gap the buyer has to fund in cash, and cash at closing is the one thing most buyers don't have spare. Knowing before a buyer falls for the house avoids that surprise. The other approach treats early confirmation as a filter that screens out houses that would have paid once an offer was on the table, since seller flexibility on the fee often tracks how long the place has been sitting. Putting it in the offer as a term and negotiating it alongside price treats it as one more concession line. Concession caps set by the loan program can constrain that negotiation, and those terms change, so confirming the current cap in writing with the lender rather than assuming last year's number matters either way. Most experienced buyer's agents land somewhere between the two: a quick check of public sources before booking a showing, with the harder negotiation saved for the offer itself once a buyer is serious about a specific house.

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 to confirm seller side buyer agent compensation, before the tour or inside the offer

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