PAYING A HIGHER COMMISSION WAS A COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY.

This property at 1813 N. 56th in Washington Heights was listed with Homeowners Concept until 9/30/08 when it expired at $249,900. Our very successful agent tried repeatedly to get seller to pay attention to the declining market, to no avail (yes, despite our 25 yr expertise in the market, some sellers have a tough time coming to grips with the current market). After a couple of months off market she listed with a First Weber agent who had sold only one other property in the last 12 months, MLS #1057682 (there are some sellers that for some reason believe that another less successful, less seasoned broker will do a better job...?). Seller proceeded to do a number of price reductions all the way down to $214,900 by late September, 2009.

At that price, a Homeowners Concept Realtor who was working with a buyer showed the property and got an Accepted Offer for $208,000. Eventually Homeowners Concept sold the property and seller paid a much higher commission to us via the "co-broke" of 2.4% (this actually came out of the listing broker's 6% commission). That is about $1,872 more the seller had to pay to us plus an additional $7,488 to the listing broker for a total of $9,360 more than our 1.5% commission.

The irony of this very real transaction is that by backing away from Homeowners Concept's overwhelming and successful record of 25 years, this seller found out that the market controls the price the home sells for. The seller only has control of how much commission one pays. Had the seller stayed with Homeowners Concept this seller would have walked away with $9,360 more at closing. Buyer would have paid the same amount for the home regardless!