For Those of You with Anxiety About the NAR Settlements

August 17th has come and gone, and the sky remains in the sky.

Good agents have made the pivot, great agents were already there, and the shall we say, less professionally developed have adopted poorly crafted workarounds.

In a recent training I did for some colleagues, I asked what objections they were getting from prospective clients since the settlement procedures were implemented. The two answers were as follows:

1. Competing brokers are cutting their fees

2. Listing agents are ambiguous about the seller offering buyer agent compensation. They will only offer compensation for offers that offer a satisfactory net.

Let's discuss number 1, with competing brokers competing on fees. This isn't new. There will always be discounters, rebates, and various other models whose value proposition is savings. They have always been around, and they always will be. I've never seen them last, because unsustainable numbers don't pencil long term. Are they a short term pain in the neck? Sure. The answer here is to convey that you are more than worth your rate, and that people get what they pay for.

Listing agents with sellers not offering a concrete buyer broker commission is a variation on an old theme- namely, asking the agents to chip their commission in to make the deal work. But overall, especially in this market, this is not much of an issue, because the highest net to seller is almost always the offer chosen by the seller. That's no different either.

As the great thought Leader Jared James has said, the difference is just accounting.

Buyers still fund everything by bringing all the money to closing, and the seller's side distributes the funds.

You can confidently assure your buyer client that you can make the numbers work based on their needs. They can be more competitive by offering to pay your commission completely separately, or partially separately. If cash on hand is a concern, the price can be grossed up to fund your commission from proceeds as it has always been.

But do understand that ALL buyer agents are in the same boat. No one works for free.

Assure your clients that they are getting value that exceeds your fee.

Be confident that you're worth it yourself.

And know this: if you can't negotiate your own fee, you aren't the right person to negotiate for your client's best interests. The agents engaged in a race to the bottom will win, but not what you think. They win the race to the bottom. You are in a race to get to the top. You'll last. They won't. And that's worth the cost of the brief disruption, which some have already have in their rear view mirror.