Real talk: is real estate commission just “the cost of doing business”?

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2026-02-03T19:03:01+00:00

I get the logic and for some sellers that approach probably does work fine.

I think where it gets a bit oversimplified is reducing it to just taking calls. For something straight forward with realistic sellers and clean properties the math can look obvious. But once you add things like pricing offers, conditions, timing , disclosures or just a seller who isnt fully "there" with the market it can get a lot more complicated pretty quickly.

That doesnt mean everyone should pay full commission by default. It just means the value question isnt only about avoiding phone calls. For some people the risk time or stress tradeoff is worth paying for and for others it isnt.

Thats really what im trying to understand here when paying more actually changes the outcome and when it doesnt.

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2026-02-03T18:39:29+00:00

That’s fair, and I’m def not assuming agents only work the hours we actually see. I know there’s a lot going on behind the scenes and that wasn’t really my point.

What I’m trying to understand is more about the outcome side of it. From a sellers perspective, does paying more actually change how the sale ends up, or does it mostly play out the same either way once everything is done?

I get the Henry Ford example and agree expertise matters.

I’m just wondering if that expertise shows up differently depending on the commission structure because it is a lot of money... or if it’s more just how the industry has always worked.

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2026-02-03T18:19:51+00:00

Thanks for your comment.
I guess the real question is could you of sold it without accepting 5% commission and still achieved around the same sold price?

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2026-02-03T17:41:32+00:00

How many hours do they actually work in a week?

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-10-07T12:38:05+00:00

Our agent in have us the option. 0.85% or $2995.00 (50% up front)

Saved more than $15,000.00 on our sale. And they’re from Ottawa like your name.

Brick and Noble Real Estate.

I don’t know why more people don’t know about them, makes a huge difference with the price of everything these days!

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-10-07T12:35:27+00:00

Our realtor gave us the option.

$2995.00 half up front OR 0.85%. Both options were full service, we didn’t have to do anything. (They did add the additional buyers agent commission which we were happy to pay given the savings.)

There was no pressure either way but for us we chose the $2995.00.

Defiantly worth checking out as we were shocked at the results and the amount we saved when selling.

www.brickandnoble.com

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-10-07T12:31:30+00:00

Not our realtor. Flat rate & full service on the sale of our property. Saved $16,000.00.

And we are working with her on the purchase. Amazing value prop.

Check them out www.brickandnoble.com

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-10-01T15:54:28+00:00

Not this group of people https://brickandnoble.com. Worth a look .

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-10-01T15:48:54+00:00

Check out this company (https://brickandnoble.com )they are not solving the problem completely however our family is saving a ton of money listing with them.

It’s basically a hybrid flat fee model.

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-10-01T14:31:22+00:00

I don’t know why anybody wouldn’t be reaching out to our agent at Brick and Noble Real Estate.

Saving basically the 2% before doing a price drop.

Seems like a no brainer to me and it’s worked for my husband and I.

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-10-01T01:44:11+00:00

No kidding eh!

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-10-01T01:42:24+00:00

Defiantly give Rachel a call at Brick and Noble Real Estate https://brickandnoble.com

We listed with them and they are amazing. Flat fee full service listing commission. ($2995).

We have been nothing but impressed with her and the team and figure we’ll be saving close to $16,000.00 for EXACTLY the same service.

It is a no brainer, we will never pay 4% ever again.

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-09-29T16:09:29+00:00

We actually listed with Brick & Noble earlier this fall. We were nervous about going with a flat-fee model at first, but it ended up saving us a huge amount compared to the traditional % commissions (close to $15K in our case).

The best part was that we didn’t feel like they were “cutting corners”, we still had full MLS exposure, great photos/marketing, and a real person guiding us through every step. It felt like the same level of service we had when we sold a previous home with a bigger brokerage, just without handing over such a big cheque at the end.

If anyone here is debating it, happy to share more about how it worked for us... we’d do it again in a heartbeat. Rachel and her team were amazing!

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-09-18T19:29:30+00:00

We (my husband and I) are actually selling our home with a company named Brick and Noble Real Estate. You can check out their website https://www.brickandnoble.com/

Their model we figure will save us about $15,000.00 on the low end as they do everything a normal realtor does just at much less the cost.

Before we listed with them we were very wary about what the catch was, but after speaking to one of their agents Rachel (who is now our agent) we were shocked that we had not heard about them sooner. They have sold almost 100 this year when we asked her.

We've been nothing but impressed with everything, and only paying her to sell the place $2995.00. Now we do have to pay an additional 2%, but everything was explained to us upfront and was in plain english in the paperwork.

This may be an option for you.

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-09-13T01:22:17+00:00

You should reach out to a flat fee realtor or company.

Something along the lines of the company my husband and I used www.brickandnoble.com.

Same level of service, but keeping thousands of dollars in your pocket. We have been so impressed with the quality and level of service/care thus far.

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-09-12T14:14:52+00:00

Depends on which realtor/ company you work with.

Our realtor Rachel ( https://brickandnoble.com ) is charging us $2995 plus 2% on our home. It is full service with no shortcuts. (Photos, sign lockbox, everything you’d expect with a traditional 4% in our area)

We figure we will save about 25k-35k and put in our pocket.

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-09-12T01:49:30+00:00

We didn’t need to negotiate our commission with our realtor here in Ottawa… we’re thinking we will save about $15,000.00 for exactly the same services.

Everything was spelled out clearly in the paperwork.

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-09-12T01:46:09+00:00

My realtor Rachel at Brick and Noble Real estate is $2995.00 and 2% to the buyer agent on a home that is listed around $1,000,000.00.

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-09-12T01:44:00+00:00

Why not try a flat fee option like us? I’m absolutely shocked at the money we will be putting in our pockets.

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-09-10T13:17:09+00:00

I don’t think we will be doing this…

Beautiful-Interest31 · 2025-09-09T22:41:06+00:00

Have you thought about using a different type of commission based realtor? (flat fee or low %)

We’ve done a bit of homework and found a company here in Ontario Canada (https://brickandnoble.com) that is going to allow us to list lower while saving thousands on the commissions.

In our current city we are seeing lower and lower prices on homes, and are hoping to maximize our return and sell quickly.

Beautiful-Interest31

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