Do you want to wait until March 1 to close? That's a long time away and in the meantime you might find another house that would also suit your needs that you could get into quicker.

You know how much $$$ the seller wants to get out of the house. If you want to use your agent then you may have to pay the commission yourself. At 2.5% that would be about $7000. Would that be ok with you? If not, I'm not sure you can come up with a solution to make everyone happy.

Since it would be 10 weeks before you could close on the house anyway, maybe you should look around a bit more.

Those close date of March 1 does not really bother me. I just would not want the seller to change his mind before then. Could he back out if he has our earnest money and a contract.

It sounds as though broker had the homeowner sign an agreement that homeowner will pay the 3% commission. So the homeowner is looking at a sales price from you of $291,490 ($283,000 + $8,490). If he's selling FSBO chances are he's not in any hurry or need to sell. As for decision to delay closing till March 1st probably due to weather if your in the NE.

At least you know what the bottom line is. At this point the decision is up to you.

Not sure if you had signed an agreement with your broker or what the agreement included but you probably would have been better going to FSBO without your broker. I know friends who hired a broker for a flat fee ($500) just to help them handle paperwork (though a real estate lawyer is generally a better choice). Just wanted to add this as an option incase you come across another FSBO.

Since the seller did sign the commission agreement and you made an offer, I am not sure you can buy this house now without the seller paying the broker. He brought a ready, willing and able buyer and if it closes the seller (or you) will have to pay him. It may be too late to exclude him now.

Thank you for the replies. I am getting a little torn up about this. The realtor has still told me that we do not "have to" go through him but we will feel unethical if we do not. We just want to do the right thing and right now the only thing between us and the house is the realtor commisson. I have offered the realtor a flat fee commission of 4000.00 and he does not seem thrilled about that. Not really sure what to do.
anymore help would be appreciated.

If he wants to net 283, he should be listing for more than 285. 290-292 would be more like it.

It sounds to me like he thinks he found an overeager buyer and now he wants to milk as much out of you as he can.

You said the house has a great price--is it worth it if you have to pay $283K plus the 3% realtor commission?

Do you have a real estate attorney lined up? If so, I would ask them what your legal obligations are to your agent, given the circumstances (specifically the paperwork the seller signed agreeing to the commission).

If you really want to move forward with purchasing this house and you're legally free and clear to do so, I would offer through the attorney and then offer the agent compensation for his time.

I don't understand why he would tell you that you're free to purchase without him AND refuse a commission of $4K. Surely he must realize that you could offer on your own and he would get nothing for the time he spent with you?

I just heard back from realtor and they have decided to accept my 4000.00 flat fee for commission. We will be making a counter. I truly appreciate all the feedback.

Well, congratulations.....I am glad your problem is solved.
Good Luck on the negotiations!

Great, I hope negotiations go well. Be sure to come back to this thread and let us know how it works out.

If they sign a contract they cannot back out (the seller) Depending on which state you are in, buyers are far more protected than sellers when it comes to RE purchases. So the March closing date should not be an issue in that regard.

Hope everything works out for you.

I have a question about a comment that mfbenson made above. You said "If he wants to net 283, he should be listing for more than 285. 290-292 would be more like it." That doesn't make much sense to me. If he gets 285 (asking price) for it he would be netting at least 283.

Your real estate agent had to get his company to agree to the $4K fee. We almost had a similar situation and our realtor said it's unethical and he could lose his license if he took a flat fee check from us for his time. It has to go through his firm. He's losing money most likely (his normal pay out may be 1.5- 2% of the price) but hopefully you can get him some referrals. I also agree that you might want to relax a bit. Not sure where you are located but it sounds like the seller may sense your urgency and is using it against you.

Your real estate agent had to get his company to agree to the $4K fee. We almost had a similar situation and our realtor said it's unethical and he could lose his license if he took a flat fee check from us for his time. It has to go through his firm.

This is true. Real estate agents can only be paid through their broker.

We sold our house FSBO last fall. Our buyer came in with his buyer's Realtor. We made it quite clear that his Realtor was his expense.

I don't know how much they personally paid their Realtor, but I think it was under $1000. We sold our house to them for $340,000. They felt they needed a Realtor even though they also had their own attorney. Can't imagine what the Realtor was needed for.

Hey Wow, I've been absent a couple days from the board (my whole family including DH has the chicken pox). It has been hard to keep up with everything.

Just wanted to clear up a couple of things about my initial question and current situation. The paper the realtor had the seller sign was not a contract, it was a disclaimer that any offer presented through the realtor included 3% sales commission. I did not know that at first. Second, my first idea was not a flat fee it was 1.5-2% split evenly by buyer and seller. My confusion was that in our area (midwest) houses sell from 130k to 300k, if my realtor sold a house at 130k of which he has many listed than that would earn him the same sales commission that I was offering him so how could he lose money just because the price was higher. I was confused about that. He did ultimately agree to the fee, maybe only because he was aware we could present our offer directly to the seller. This realtor is a good friend of mine and I think he may have felt bad knowing that the seller did not want to go through him. I wanted to make a deal that would work for all 3 parties. I read another post where people found and bought a fsbo and sent thier realtor a thank you note, and a gas card and hopefully some refferals. I found that concept insulting. I did like some of the ideas about a gift card, more expensive and not for gas ($500), but of course worried that would also be insulting. I did not entertain the idea of them losing money because it is slow sales in our area right now and my realtor's firm just started about 4 months ago. Honestly I would have thought his reaction would have been more along the lines of "Thank you, I know that you had no obligation to use our office and your faith in me means alot". I did not get that reaction and by the time they agreed to the 4000 I felt like I was practically begging.

As for owner thinking we were eager buyers, that is possible. I believe he had his house priced about 25K below what a realtor could have sold for. I think that he fairly priced it without that 5-6% in it. I truly believe I got a good price in the end 283500.

I want to thank everyone on this board and especially all the realtors that post here. I've learned alot

Just one more thought,
We did not choose this situation. We felt horrible, however the fact is that after 1 week of searching I found my own house, it is not my fault that it was a fsbo. Truly I looked at every available house that was in my price range and met my criteria. I knew the minute I walked into this house that it was mine. I knew it was a good value. I believe that I created so much stress on myself by worrying about my realtor. My instinct is that if I would have made my offer directly that I would have saved another 5-8K. In reality I thought I was being generous to my realtor only to now wonder if I have forced him to do something unethical (I did not know about the liscense thing) If the agency excepting a flat fee from me is some sort of a violation than it is up to them to inform me of that.
Let me ask some of the realtors what I should have done. When the owner told me that he flat out told me that he did not want to pay a realtor fee, then what would have been the proper protocol to purchase the house? I have heard before that the thing to do is pay the realtor yourself, for some reason I could not bring myself to pay the realtor over 8000K for a house that I found myself.

Also wondering if any realtors ever think it is the right thing to do to say, Hey you found this house you have no obligtion to me (no contract) I know that I am going to list your house when you move and perhaps you should take over from here?
Just wondering???

I'm pretty sure that if you found the house yourself you have no obligation to the realtor. Even if you had signed an exclusive contract. They only get paid when they find the house.

When we bought our house, we had been working with a realtor. We felt we did more work then he did, but he did point out (we didn't go in it, we just drove by) a house that was just about to come on the market. They were waiting for the owner to sign a contract with his agency. The owner decided to try to sell it himself first, and placed an ad in the paper. I happened to see the ad, but didn't know it was the same house until he gave me directions. We ended up buying it from the owner with no realtor involved, so we felt we had no obligation to our realtor.