As some of you know, Cindy and I enjoy looking at properties, mostly for fun but on occasion, we do acquire something new if it's something we really like. Needless to say, we were down in the Bullhead City, AZ area, saw a house that looked nice and decided to call the listing agent to see if she could show it to us. As we would come to find, she was in the process of heading out of town but she did have an assistant who could help us if we were okay with that. Obviously, we just wanted to see the house and so I let her know that would be fine and asked if her assistant could just meet us at the property. To this, she said that we needed to come to the office and meet her there. Apparently, there were some forms that we needed to sign first. Stupefied by this response, I asked, "just out of curiosity, what kind of forms would we be needing to sign?" And to this, she said just some kind of loyalty agreement and made it sound like no big deal. Being that we were near by, I just thought, whatever and headed down to the office.
Along the way, I got a text message from the assistant asking for Cindy and my email address but I just ignored it being that we were just about there. Upon arriving at the office and being sat down at a desk, the assistant proceeded to open up a folder that had multiple pages showing what a wonderful company they were, BLAH BLAH BLAH and then proceeded to present forms with areas highlighted in yellow for the two of us to sign. These forms were "the Buyer Broker and Agency Disclosure" and as it was explained to me, it would be necessary for us to sign BEFORE they could show us the home.
Now, I should note, I would soon find that all this just started to become a thing as of July of 2024 and call me stupid for not knowing about it but up until now, nobody has ever asked us to sign it and we have looked at other properties as recently as last month. Anyway, among other lame ass things, there were two points that were exceptionally stupid and I just couldn't get myself to sign.
1. We were required to sign and commit ourselves to using their services/this specific agent EXCLUSIVELY for any home that we might want to look at or buy for ONE FUCKIN YEAR.
2. We were required sign and commit ourselves as a BUYER to pay the 3% sales commission should the SELLER, for whatever reason they might have, choose not to pay it in the future.
Again, this is ALL being required BEFORE we can see the fucking house in question!! Essentially commit to using the services of a realtor that I've never met before and have never received services from AND to commit to paying her, in writing, 3% commission for something we haven't even looked at yet!!
When I asked to have this clarified, I was told this was a nationwide thing and that all realtors require it now. When I asked, "just to look at the house?" The assistant told me "yes". Having worked with really really shitty realtors in the past, I politely explained that there was no way we were going to commit ourselves to the service of her boss, for a FUCKING YEAR and especially being that we've never even met her. I told her that we would need to change that time frame to just ONE DAY, today and that would be it. And, when I pressed her further on the 3% commission thing, she said that we could negotiate that later and I told her "then that's when we would commit to it in writing - AFTER it's been negotiated and NOT before we saw the home."
Unfortunately, the assistant let us know that she couldn't show the home until we signed off on the forms and so, we thanked her for her time and walked out. And, as you can guess, I started getting all kinds of texts and calls from the realtor asking us to come back and that she would be there to "answer any questions we might have".
Since leaving the area, Cindy started looking into this whole Buyer Broker and Agency Disclosure and found that it is in fact a real thing but I gotta tell ya, there is still no way I'm going to commit myself to the services of a realtor for a YEAR and to pay them 3% commission just to LOOK at a fuckin house. Maybe it's just me but all this is just BULLSHIT!!
Along the way, I got a text message from the assistant asking for Cindy and my email address but I just ignored it being that we were just about there. Upon arriving at the office and being sat down at a desk, the assistant proceeded to open up a folder that had multiple pages showing what a wonderful company they were, BLAH BLAH BLAH and then proceeded to present forms with areas highlighted in yellow for the two of us to sign. These forms were "the Buyer Broker and Agency Disclosure" and as it was explained to me, it would be necessary for us to sign BEFORE they could show us the home.
Now, I should note, I would soon find that all this just started to become a thing as of July of 2024 and call me stupid for not knowing about it but up until now, nobody has ever asked us to sign it and we have looked at other properties as recently as last month. Anyway, among other lame ass things, there were two points that were exceptionally stupid and I just couldn't get myself to sign.
1. We were required to sign and commit ourselves to using their services/this specific agent EXCLUSIVELY for any home that we might want to look at or buy for ONE FUCKIN YEAR.
2. We were required sign and commit ourselves as a BUYER to pay the 3% sales commission should the SELLER, for whatever reason they might have, choose not to pay it in the future.
Again, this is ALL being required BEFORE we can see the fucking house in question!! Essentially commit to using the services of a realtor that I've never met before and have never received services from AND to commit to paying her, in writing, 3% commission for something we haven't even looked at yet!!
When I asked to have this clarified, I was told this was a nationwide thing and that all realtors require it now. When I asked, "just to look at the house?" The assistant told me "yes". Having worked with really really shitty realtors in the past, I politely explained that there was no way we were going to commit ourselves to the service of her boss, for a FUCKING YEAR and especially being that we've never even met her. I told her that we would need to change that time frame to just ONE DAY, today and that would be it. And, when I pressed her further on the 3% commission thing, she said that we could negotiate that later and I told her "then that's when we would commit to it in writing - AFTER it's been negotiated and NOT before we saw the home."
Unfortunately, the assistant let us know that she couldn't show the home until we signed off on the forms and so, we thanked her for her time and walked out. And, as you can guess, I started getting all kinds of texts and calls from the realtor asking us to come back and that she would be there to "answer any questions we might have".
Since leaving the area, Cindy started looking into this whole Buyer Broker and Agency Disclosure and found that it is in fact a real thing but I gotta tell ya, there is still no way I'm going to commit myself to the services of a realtor for a YEAR and to pay them 3% commission just to LOOK at a fuckin house. Maybe it's just me but all this is just BULLSHIT!!
