It has always been a joke between my wife and I because when I purchased my first home (now our rental), and she purchased her condo (sold before we wed) prior to us meeting, we did not receive gifts from our Realtors. I remember distinctly hearing from all our friends that “Our Realtor bought us a _______,” and thinking, wow, I did not receive anything. Well other than my yearly envelope of business cards and a magnet for my fridge. Then I met my wife, and the same thing happened to her. To this day, it seems like we are the only ones who did not receive a house warming gift from our Realtor.
So when we closed on our new house this week, we waited in anticipation of whether or not we would receive a house warming gift from our Realtor. It was not that we needed to receive anything from our Realtor; however, after hearing that all of our friends and family had, we were hoping something might change in our favor. The house has now been ours for a couple of days and still nothing.
As we were driving back this weekend from our trip to Detroit, my wife decided to search on the internet whether it was typical for Realtors to buy their clients housewarming gifts, and we wondered what was the typical amount spent.
As my wife searched, we were both shocked that rather than find on the internet an abundance of gifts received FROM the Realtor, she found it was typical that people bought gifts FOR their Realtor. Really? I was appalled, and here is my thinking!
A Realtor makes a heck of a commission on the sale of a home. In our instance, listing agent and selling agent were with the same company, but separate agents. The selling agent pulled in $5,973.39 and the buying agent $3,982.26. I realize these numbers do not mean the agent made that entire amount as the company itself probably took a decent amount of that income. However, they still made a decent income off the sale.
Also, on our deal, we walked into the home un-represented. Therefore, the Realtor automatically was our selling agent, and scored big as I am sure most people come with a Realtor. We really enjoyed working with our Realtor, and in our own experiment were hoping it would mean we might get a housewarming gift.
There is always debate about whether the Seller or the Buyer really pays the agent commissions. Most will say the seller pays the commissions; however, the price of the home would have been cheaper without Realtors, and I can reasonably argue their commission was included in my purchase price.
So with all that in mind, why would I need to buy my Realtor a gift when they just got paid a hefty commission to represent me on the home? As much as we really liked our Realtor, and he was helpful and always available, we just paid him, and in our opinion, there is no need to buy him a gift above and beyond what he already received.
So in the end, I think my wife and I are cursed when it comes to housewarming present from the Realtor. I know this whole post might sound tacky and like we want a present. That is not my intention. We just found it ironic that everyone we know always gets something, so shouldn’t we?
I am really interested to hear people’s opinions on gift giving/receiving when it comes to Realtors and the purchasing of your home. What do you think?
When it comes to selling your home and gift giving, that is an entirely separate discussion in my opinion because a selling agent may actually have to put in a considerable amount of work to get a home sold. On the buying end, the effort put forth by a Realtor is a lot smaller for still a pretty big chunk of the pie.
Hello There,
As a Realtor myself, I find it standard practice to give my clients a gift, whether they are buying or selling! I spend SO much time with my buyers showing them property after property that I usually have a pretty good idea of what their interests and tastes are so for one couple, I may buy them a gift certificate to dinner, for someone else, they may get a bottle of liquor they have mentioned a few times. Once I even got my buyer a lamp that I KNEW he wanted because he described it in great detail! He was so shocked when I showed up at his doorstep after closing on his home with this lamp! Again, this is completely up to the agent, and you should base your choices of picking an agent on more than if they were in an open house of a home you liked. You have every right to interview several real estate agents and find someone whose personality you can work well with for the next 6 months! Ask them how many closings they have an average per month, too few and they might be a part time agent, too many and they may not have time to show you homes or return your phone call! Referrals are also the BEST way to find out about real estate agents, just because someone bought a house from an agent, doesn’t make that agent good (any blind squirrel can get lucky and find a nut!!) but if you have a friend or family member that GUSHES about how great their experience was and how their agent really went to battle for them (which it usually is a battle during negotiations) then that might be someone you want to seriously interview. Our job is like anyone elses in many ways and you wouldn’t hire a personal assistant based on them being at Starbucks the same time as you, would you?? I must tell you though that your idea of a buyers agent doing less then a sellers agent is completely incorrect. As a sellers agent, yes you must do a CMA on the home, suggest and help with staging and/or repairs, list the home, market the home, sit in open houses, ect but as a buyers agent, you have to get to know exactly what your buyers are looking for, it isn’t just the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and garage stalls. This is the biggest purchase of their life thus far in most cases and you are responsible for finding them the home they are going to raise their children in and have family holidays in. You go through home after home (sometimes upwards of 40-60 homes!!) You get a sense of their personality and you know as well as they do the minute you both walk into “THE ONE” for them! And that is just the beginning…