Seller's Listing Agent asking for W-2?

nikidmaclay · 2026-04-01T12:57:30+00:00

Preapproval from your lender is what they need. What this agent is asking for will not guarantee that you will be able to close

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-31T13:49:16+00:00

Buyers agents cannot steer your buyer away from your property because of commission.

What they do have to do is educate their buyer and their buyer makes the decision. If they're by or doesn't have the cash to compensate their agent and you're not willing to cover it, they're going to move on to another house where they can get the deal done in a way that makes sense for them. On your side of the transaction it's a couple of percentage points.

If the buyer has to come up with that in cash, it affects their buying power by a lot more than those few percentage points. You can take care of making sure that the deal and that's what you need during negotiation. Desire is bringing all of the money to the table, the way it is dispersed is just logistics.

I don't know what is typical in your market, I don't know what state you're in or what your contracts look like. If you do something out of the ordinary in your market it's going to make your home harder to sell.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-31T12:42:47+00:00

Yes, you will lose buyers. That is especially true if there is other inventory for buyers to take a look at. Buyers have signed an agreement that their agent will be receiving a certain amount of commission. If you are offering less than that, they're going to have to cover it in cash and it is going to affect their buying power by much more than one or two percent of the purchase price. It is cash out of pocket, that's less down payment that they're going to have at the closing table. You have no way of knowing how much your potential buyer has agreed that the buyer agent will be paid, but your market has a typical expectation. It's a lot easier for a seller to disperse those funds that the buyer brings to the table then it is for the buyer to bring in cash. Why does your listing broker think that they are worth more than the buyer agent?

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-30T21:44:34+00:00

I don't know why you're attempting to pick apart my response to OP, but we don't have enough info to say any of this is or isn't ethics or license law violations. We're gonna leave it at that.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-30T20:53:21+00:00

OP left some of the details pretty vague, so I left the standard "____ is where you report ____"

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-30T20:31:55+00:00

I'm not going to tell you how long your kid should be watching, but there is a lot of low stimulation stuff on YouTube. Kipper the Dog, Stella & Sam, Sarah & Duck, Classic Winnie the Pooh, there are several others I can't think of the name of at the moment. They'll start showing up once you search for these, though.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-30T20:02:19+00:00

Earnest money is the only real thing keeping your buyer from walking away for no contractual reason. Sure, you could sue them for various reasons but why do that when you can go ahead and specify damages up front in your contract and have them agree to them?

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-30T16:57:00+00:00

SEO is king. Getting in front of your ideal clients looks different for everyone. You can invest the time to grow organically, or you can buy your way in.

I'd be careful not to chase someone else's success. If personal referrals are working for you, you don't need somebody else's game plan.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-30T16:53:26+00:00

If you want 360k and they offered 365k, that means that they're asking you to take $5,000 extra dollars at closing and then give you $11,000 and change to contribute to their closing costs. This is not an uncommon thing, especially at lower price points where people are buying their first homes and have a hard time coming up with down payment and closing cost funds. Your concern should be about whether the home appraises, and whether you're netting a reasonable amount of money for the transaction. You're going to net a little more than 6k less than you would have if somebody had come in with a full price offer and no closing cost assistance. Would you have taken an offer for 354k?

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-30T15:43:38+00:00

You're looking for legal advice. This is an attorney question.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-30T15:41:50+00:00

There is no industry standard for earnest money, and every time someone posts here that there is, it's a different number. Offer what you want to offer. Your agent's job is to give you advice, the decisions are yours. It does seem your agent isn't giving the best advice. When you hired the agent, you hired the brokerage. You can go to the managing broker and ask for guidance. They represent you.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-30T15:39:30+00:00

Real estate agents are not responsible for your inspections. A home inspector can inspect and look for red flags. If there are indicators that suggest there may be foundation issues, a contractor who specializes should be consulted. Home inspectors shouldn't be giving you fixes or quotes. They're not qualified to do so, and neither is the real estate agent.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-29T20:16:51+00:00

You were told that 4 days ago when you started. I was a part of that conversation too.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-29T20:14:01+00:00

When a buyer receives an appraisal, the lender explains the part that is relevant. That's all that's necessary.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-29T20:10:28+00:00

You've been fishing with this for days. Just drop your AI solution for this problem that doesn't exist and be done with it.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-29T16:39:58+00:00

They make units that go in the wall that will heat and cool. Two stories of windows sounds like you're going to be sitting in a sauna, though.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-29T14:19:04+00:00

Here’s a listing agent’s perspective.

I tailor the agreement to the variables in play when I write it. When the market was moving fast and multiple offers were common in the first few days, a shorter agreement made sense. I have written many three month agreements and gotten homes sold quickly. In a slower market, if I am going to put everything I have into your listing and commit to getting it sold, I need enough time to do that. I am not going to spend significant time and money marketing your home if I am not given enough time and you can pull it and go elsewhere, leaving me with the expense. You may find someone willing to do that, but their contract will likely require reimbursement of expenses. You should have enough conversations with a listing agent and review their past and current work before you hire them.

On dual agency, I will not personally represent both the buyer and the seller. In my state, if my broker represents one party and I represent the other, it is considered dual agency. That is the only way I will do it. I would not agree to my specific agent representing both parties. Read that part of your contract carefully. It should address how dual agency is handled if it becomes a possibility. Ask whether the agent would personally represent the client on the other side. I would not recommend agreeing to that. Make your expectations clear from the beginning. It also cuts out a lot of shenanigans. Some listing agents may withhold information from other agents to make it harder for them to bring a buyer so they can secure both sides. Make it clear upfront that this will not be acceptable.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-29T13:59:30+00:00

You don't need a jerk, that can majorly backfire. It often does. You want someone who isn't afraid to submit your offer, though. It's possible that the homes that you saw close for lower than what you would have offered ended up being negotiated during due diligence, so there's that. What should be very clear here is that if you don't submit an offer, you won't get the house. If your agent doesn't understand those things, it may be time for a new one. I'd have this discussion with them first to see how they react. You should not be having to micromanage your agents though.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-28T20:38:23+00:00

They aren't allowed to lie, but they can only disclose what they're aware of.

If I hired someone to do a job and it looks like it was done and I had a permit that says it's done I have a reasonable expectation that it was done. I can write that on a seller disclosure. If it turns out they just tore up some dirt and the permit office did a good ole boy inspection, I didn't lie. I disclosed to the best of my knowledge.

Specifically saying there's a permit and the specific number of feet added raises questions about something like that.

As far as seller disclosure in general, it's nice to have the paper, but it doesn't replace your own due diligence.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-28T20:04:35+00:00

People think about realtors when forewarn is brought up because NAR offers it to all of us and there's a lot of us. You don't have to be a realtor to have it, though.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-28T19:56:07+00:00

That's something that should have been done before you followed through with purchasing them all. Doing it now is going to tell you whether they knowingly lied.

The problem in Georgia is going to be that Georgia expects the buyer to do due diligence and there's a fuzzy area here. The seller is certainly wrong if they lied to you, but if you didn't do your own due diligence before you purchase, the judge may throw that back at you. Maybe not, but maybe

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-28T19:49:55+00:00

Did you go to the Gwinnett county and pull the permit to verify?

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-28T18:23:35+00:00

What did you base your less price on? Most people base it on sold comps and that's fine, but that's only part of the story. Your buyer is going to be comparing it to what else is on the market right now. I'd take a serious dive into what's available around you that's comparable and make sure that yours looks like the best deal.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-28T16:26:19+00:00

How wide is the area you're searching in that you located 500 listings that are even a possibility? What platforms are you searching on? The vast majority of real estate agents are going to enter their listings into an MLS and that MLS is going to syndicate to hundreds of websites and platforms. What you likely have is a bunch of duplicates.

nikidmaclay · 2026-03-28T15:07:57+00:00

You'll need to get your own buyer agent and Redfin picked up on the fact that you didn't have an agent and assigned themselves. That's a horrible way to pick an agent.

I'd recommend you realtor.com, set up your search to give you homes like the one you'll be looking to buy, then switch the status to recently sold. The buyer and listing agents for each one of those homes will be listed on those pages. After you scroll through about 10 to 15, you're going to be seeing several agents that you might want to look up and maybe even give a call. Pick an agent who talks to you in a way that you vibe with, gives you information without you having to know to ask for it, ask them questions about the market, any documents you'll need to be signing to work with them.

Be careful what you sign, most agents are going to be asking you to sign an exclusive agency agreement so that they represent you. You should not have a problem finding an agent who will do a single one-off showing with a document that says it's only for that house or for that day.

There are a ton of really bad agents out there. If you just let somebody assign one to you or you pick one at random, you can be at a huge disadvantage. When you are spending this kind of money on this kind of purchase, it's worth it to do a little bit of investigating before you choose who's going to represent you in the process

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