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Many real estate buyers and sellers don’t understand exactly who pays the real estate agent involved in the transaction. To understand who pays real estate commissions—whether it’s sellers or buyers or both—first take a look at how real estate agents are paid and how they share cooperating commissions. Don’t worry if you don’t know how commissions work because I’ve had clients who didn’t know, and it involves a bit of complexity, commission splits and other details that might not be disclosed during the transaction.

How Real Estate Commissions Work

• Real estate agents work for a real estate broker.
• All fees paid to a real estate agent must first pass through the broker.
• Only a real estate broker can pay a real estate commission and sign a listing agreement with a seller.

How Are Real Estate Agents Compensated by the Broker?

Commission divisions vary. New agents can receive as little as 30 percent to 40 percent of the total commission received by the brokerage. From that amount, other fees may be deducted such as advertising, sign rentals or office expenses. Top-producing agents might receive 100 percent and pay the broker a desk fee. Everybody else falls somewhere in between.

Listing Agent Fees

The most common type of listing agreement between a seller and her agent gives that agent’s broker the right to exclusively market the home. In return for bringing a buyer to the table, the seller agrees to pay a commission to the broker. Typically, this fee is represented as a percentage of the sales price and is shared between the listing broker and the broker who brings the buyer.

Co-Brokerage Splits

Divisions of fees among brokers are not always fair or equal, just like life. For example, a seller could sign a listing agreement for seven apples that stipulates the listing broker will receive four apples and will co-broker three apples to the selling broker. It’s not always a 50/50 split. In a buyer’s market, sellers might want to consider asking the broker to give a larger percentage to the buyer’s broker. In a seller’s market, the buyer’s broker might receive less, and no set formula exists.

Most divisions of the commission are locally based. In some parts of the country, it is very common for a listing agent to make more than the buyer’s agent. Be sure to ask about your local custom. The problem with co-brokerage fees is not necessarily whether to pay more to the buyer’s agent than it is to make sure buyer’s agents are not paid less than the local custom.

Seller Pays the Buyer’s Commission

Under a Buyer’s Broker arrangement, the named brokerage and agent represent the buyer. The fee paid to the broker is most commonly paid by the seller. Some buyer broker agreements contain clauses that will compensate the brokerage for the fee it is due less the amount paid by the seller. For example, a cooperating listing might offer to pay a broker a smaller portion of the sales price, whereas the brokerage operates at fees that are a higher percentage. The difference of, say, half an apple, could be paid by the buyer if the broker chooses not to waive that amount.

Buyer Pays the Commission Directly

The seller is not obligated, under most listing agreements, to compensate the listing broker for more than the listing side’s portion of the commission. Often sales prices are reduced to reflect the amount the buyer is paying. Sellers can also credit the buyer the commission and the buyer, in turn, credits the brokerage.

Who Pays the Real Estate Commission?

It can be argued and, quite rightfully so, that the buyer always pays the commission. Why? Because it’s typically part of the sales price. If the seller did not sign an agreement to pay a commission, the sales price might have been lowered. And therein lies the appeal of buying homes through unrepresented sellers because, given the same logic, those prices should reflect a net sales price without a commission. Except they don’t. Which causes potential disappointment for buyers who think that way.

All real estate commissions are negotiable, but not every agent will negotiate.

If you are a buyer, you can combine closing costs like commissions into your mortgage.

It is considered insulting to call an agent to list your home and ask if the agent will discount her commission in the first breath.

Agents cannot be solely judged on commissions. They are not all the same, like a commodity. Top agents often charge more than newer agents.

If you are a buyer, you do not directly pay the commission so a discount would not affect a buyer. There are a few agencies who offer to pay buyers to lure their business, but that type of business practice is considered an odd concept among many agents. To help alleviate much of this confusion, don’t be astonished if over the next 20 years sellers and buyers each retain their representation and pay separately for said representation.

In some cases, agents are seeing a reduction in the amount of commission paid to buyer’s agents. The commission is often not split 50/50 between listing and selling agents. Many listing agents make more than the buyer’s agents. And lately, that amount has been reduced even further, possibly because some listing agents will discount so low that they cannot afford to pay what other agents offer.

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Some people, for their own reasons, don’t trust real estate agents and don’t really understand what an agent brings to the table that they can’t do for themselves. It’s an understandable reaction, as it’s a polarizing subject. Agents are either despised or loved. They earn an A or an F on their closing report card – there is rarely a C on performance in this business.

Some buyers and sellers could manage very well on their own. An A-rated agent can bring added value to the transaction, but for some consumers, an agent is not always completely necessary. It depends on how much money you want to make. Generally, you make more selling with an agent. Here is how you can tell.

Do You Need a Listing Agent to Sell Your Home?

As a seller, you can find your own buyer. But an agent may be able to help you get more on your bottom line – according to NAR, almost 22% more. Much depends on the real estate market.

In super hot seller markets, almost anybody can stick a sign in the yard and attract offers. That’s because buyers are falling all over themselves to buy and waving earnest money deposits in the air. Have you extensive experience handling multiple offers yourself? Will you get sued? Do you know how to extract more money from buyers? Will you get through the home inspection? Will you close?

In buyer’s markets, there are fewer buyers, which makes an agent’s services worth even more.

More than 80% of buyers purchase a home through a real estate agent. If you don’t hire an agent, you could be losing exposure to 80% of the buying population.

Listing Agents Can Bring Added-Value to a Transaction

Unless you routinely attend every open house in your neighborhood, you may not possess intimate information about the interiors of your neighbor’s homes nor know why some sold for higher prices than others. Experienced agents have this knowledge and use it to position your home to sell at the highest possible price.

Top listing agents sell homes day in and day out. Here is a list of services most listing agents offer to sellers:

• Marketing materials and proven selling systems.
• Professional virtual tours and photography.
• Wide internet exposure.
• Promotion at company meetings and MLS meetings.
• Networking with fellow real estate agents.
• Price guidance according to market data and recent sales.
• Home stagers, inspector and repair contractor referrals.
• Buyer feedback and private showings.
• Confirmation of potential buyer qualifications.
• Counteroffer and negotiation expertise, especially with multiple offers.
• Guidance to get past the home inspection without making repairs.
• Suggestions for dealing with low appraisals.

Buyer’s Agents Work for the Buyer and Not the Seller

Done correctly, a buyer’s agent’s job is to put the buyer’s interests ahead of the agent’s, to disclose all material facts, keep the buyer’s information confidential, provide the buyer with sufficient information to purchase a home and expertly negotiate on the buyer’s behalf.

Here are some of the services you can expect to get from a buyer’s agent that you might not be able to obtain on your own. Apart from hearing about listings before homes are available to the public, agents can:

• Provide comparable sales from the tax rolls.
• Provide sales data from MLS based on map searches.
• Pull property profiles reflecting sales history, property data, demographics and neighborhood services.
• Obtain a copy of the home’s historical documents.
• Run reports on listing agent’s list-price to sales-price ratios.
• Calculate annual facts and trends about an area.
• Suggest a pricing strategy.
• Prepare a strong offer that presents the buyer in the best light based on market demands and agent interaction/networking.
• Review of documents for loopholes and obtain disclosures.
• Provide a buffer between you and the seller’s agent.

If you feel competent that you can handle a sale or purchase on your own, maybe you can. But you might always wonder whether you paid too much or accepted too low of a price.

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The Thai government hopes a move to spark a shopping spree by offering tax breaks and cash handouts at the end of the year will improve economic stimulus in the fourth quarter.

The cabinet approved a tax break for shopping spending or spending on services during the festive season between December 14-31.

Bank of Thailand Governor Veerathai Santiprabhob said the tax breaks would be a smart short-term stimulus measure before major government projects were launched next year.

As such, they will have saved from 750 baht up to 5,250 baht in taxes for the 15,000 baht shopping spending, depending on their taxable incomes.

Veerathai said temporary factors affecting economic activities were lower agricultural prices, mainly rice, the crackdown on zero-dollar tours resulting in the decline in Chinese tourists and the mourning period for His Majesty the King.

The government needs a short- term stimulus measure to fuel |economic growth in the fourth quarter, he said.

The tax breaks should be a short- term tool because boosting spending will impact on future domestic demand, he said.

There is also a remedial measure to spur economic growth, with the government handing out Bt12.5 billion to the poor, or between Bt1,500 and Bt3,000 each person.

Mr Kobsak Phutrakul, assistant minister to the Prime Minister’s Office, said the government expected that the tax break would help boost spending during the festive season before year end.

No booze please

Shopping spending for the following items will not be eligible to tax break namely liquor, beer, tobacco, fuel oil and gas for vehicles and vessels.

Mr Kobsak said the measure would cost the government about 3.2 billion baht in revenue loss, but, on the other hand, would generate about 20 billion baht in circulation in the economic system or 0.2 percent of the GDP.

On top of that, the assistant minister to the Prime Minister’s Office claimed that the tax break would boost job creation and production until early next year.

Moreover, he said that the measure would encourage business operators to enter tax system which, in the long run, will benefit the government’s revenue collection in the future

Giving cash handouts to low income-earners

Three state-owned banks have started giving one-time cash handouts ranging from 1,500-3,000 baht to low income-earners in agriculture and non-farming sectors.

Government spokesman Lt-Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd said over the weekend that he expected the payments to the qualified recipients to be completed before the year-end as New Year’s gift from the government.

He disclosed that there are altogether 6,981,000 qualified low income-earners who are eligible to receive the cash handouts to be wired directly into their bank accounts by the three banks, namely Krung Thai, Government Savings and Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives.

Those who earn less than 30,000 baht a year will receive 3,000 baht while those earn more than 30,000 baht but not exceeding 100,000 baht will get 1,500 baht. These one-time cash handouts are applicable for those in agricultural and non-agricultural sectors.

Source: Tax break on goods needed to fuel economy, says BOT chief

Find your dream home

Thailand goes outbound. Thai investments abroad, also known as “Outward Foreign Direct Investments (OFDI),” have come in the focus while the domestic industry lags behind the stated targets. However, Thai-foreign business project registration clearance papers and requirements should be carefully observed.

Not only Thailand’s well-known public companies act as a global player when investing in foreign companies as a joint venture partner or financial investor. Even international conglomerates use their Thai affiliate company as the perfect vehicle for outward foreign direct investments. Also, Thai wealthy families and individuals are keen to invest abroad to mitigate the risk profile in their investment portfolio.

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What marketing works that doesn’t cost years of your life or thousands of dollars?

How much would you pay for 1,000 new ‘targeted people’ to come to your website each month? What return on investment would you expect from it? Maybe 3-5% of these 1000 new visitors clicking your ‘Contact us page’?

If say 5% of 1000 made a serious inquiry that’s 50 extra inquiries and if your business converts 1/3 inquiries to sales then you would have say 15 new sales that month, and 15 new customers.

Depends of course on what you are selling, if you sell plastic writing pens and your average order value is $1 then nope it’s not going to be worth it. But; if your average is more than say 1,000 USD, then yes most likely.

With close to 800 million websites out there now, how are you going to get this traffic?

Will you try P.P.C. (Pay per Click) Advertising from Google? You may find it’s like $10 for a click especially for a decent searched keyword, the higher the search volume, the more the click costs.

Regardless of how targeted Google P.P.C. says it is, you will need a professional landing page with years of experience in A+B Split testing to get the client down the payment funnel to the last page where they pay online or book an appointment with you. Professional online marketers get about ten percent sales ratios to visitors who are sent down their sales funnel so at $10 a click you are already $100 for a customer via P.P.C..

To get 1,000 targeted visitors for the 15 new customers via P.P.C. in this example, you are looking at 10,000 U.S.D spend first! So your Average order value needs to be over $1,000 especially when you consider you need to pay staff because if you don’t have a professional website team, then you could be very badly out of pocket!

Social media works, but what they don’t tell you it’s mostly branding, as in you need to be active on Facebook and Twitter for years to be trusted and for you to develop a trusted brand image. If you have a profile on LinkedIn, you know it’s a good platform to find business, but it is not without their chancers and spammers who think that everyone is open to a blatant;

“Hi thanks for connecting, whenever you want beating up at our Judo club let me know” message.

You could send 500 of these messages Via LinkedIn, which will take a week and you will be lucky to get one email back.

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Our 2017 annual letter is addressed to our dear friend Warren Buffett, who in 2006 donated the bulk of his fortune to our foundation to fight disease and reduce inequity. A few months ago, Warren asked us to reflect on what impact his gift has had on the world.

What follows is our answer to him.

It’s a story about the stunning gains the poorest people in the world have made over the last 25 years. This incredible progress has been made possible not only by the generosity of Warren and other philanthropists, the charitable giving of individuals across the world, and the efforts of the poor on their own behalf—but also by the huge contributions made by donor nations, which account for the vast majority of global health and development funding.

Our letter is being released amid dramatic political transitions in these countries, including new leadership in the United States and the United Kingdom. We hope this story will remind everyone why foreign aid should remain a priority—because by lifting up the poorest, we express the highest values of our nations.

One of the greatest of those values is the belief that the best investment any of us can ever make is in the lives of others. As we explain to Warren in our letter, the returns are tremendous.

Dear Warren,

Your gift a decade ago left us speechless. It was the biggest single gift anyone ever gave anybody for anything, and we knew we owed you a fantastic return on your investment.

In this letter, we’ll share some highlights with you, and we’ll focus on global health—because that was the starting point of our philanthropy, and it’s the majority of what we do.

We don’t have sales and profits to show you. But there are numbers we watch closely to guide our work and measure our progress.

Let’s start with the most important one.

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According to Juniper Research, the global ride sharing market is estimated to grow to $6.5 billion by 2020 from $3.3 billion in 2015. North America is the biggest region in the industry and is expected to account for a third of the market share. Western Europe and Asia-Pacific, excluding Far East and China, are estimated to be the next big regions. While Uber maybe the biggest known brand worldwide, other local services are making a big impact in their respective regions. Billion Dollar Unicorn club member Careem is leading the market in the Middle East.

Careem’s Offerings

Dubai-based Careem was founded in 2012 by McKinsey alumni Mudassir Sheikha and Magnus Olsson. The service was initially set up as a web-based service for corporate car bookings. But as the market evolved, it transitioned to becoming an app that would allow individuals to book a car for hire. The company has expanded its geographic presence outside of Dubai as well. Today, its service is available in 11 countries and more than 52 cities in the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan regions. It claims that it has 150,000 drivers in these countries and helps transport more than 6 million cab riders.

Careem’s Regulatory Concerns

Like Uber, Careem is also no stranger to regulatory controversies. Last year, local taxi drivers in Egypt claimed that Careem was operating without official taxi licenses and demanded government intervention. Luckily for the companies, the Egyptian government ruled in favour of Careem and Uber, thus allowing them to operate legally in the country.

However, things are not so rosy in Abu Dhabi. Ride sharing services of both Careem and Uber were suspended in August without indicating the reason. Earlier this month, Careem announced plans to relaunch its services in Abu Dhabi. It is also adding a new service called Careem Limo to operate under the regulations for limo services in Abu Dhabi. This will make Careem the only ride-hailing app service in the city.

Even in its home town Dubai, Careem has had to revisit its pricing options. Last month, Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) announced a rule to impose some new charges on ride-hailing services. The Authority will be charging a surcharge of AED3 (~$0.82) per trip on Careem users. The surcharge is part of planned new regulations for transport services to deal with app-based ride-hailing platforms. Careem had earlier tied up with RTA in Dubai to allow users to book RTA taxis through the Careem app. The service is expected to be launched soon and will not be charged the surcharge.

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The smartphones that sit uncomfortably inside our pocket are now more powerful than the large desktop computers from 10 years ago. However, many people will tell you that these fantastic advances in technology are not always a sign of progress.

For example, anyone that remembers the days when the tank like Nokia 3310 ruled the world will scoff at our unusual modern ways. Back in simpler times, you didn’t have to worry about dropping your phone or constantly searching for a power socket to charge your phone, and it even fit in your pocket.

You didn’t feel the need to have to search for a game that you somehow buried on page 7 of your phone apps because the only game you played was called Snake. This was an era where reliability and resilience were rated much higher than shiny new gimmickry.

Sure, there was a reversal of fortune when the iPhone appeared on the scene, and we fell in love with mobile apps and screens that shatter just by looking at concrete. Eventually, Microsoft infamously acquired Nokia’s mobile phone business in 2014 for a whopping $7.17 billion in a move that would eventually be the kiss of death for the Nokia phone as we knew it.

According to Evan Blass, HMD Global Oy, the Finnish manufacturer with exclusive rights to market phones under the Nokia brand have an interesting announcement on the horizon. It appears there are plans to announce four handsets at Mobile World Congress later this month including the much loved Nokia 3310 that many still remember as the first phone they fell in love with.

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