The Realities Of Real Estate: Who do agents work for, how are they paid?

By Bob and Donna McWilliams

Published 10/26/08

In the next couple of columns, we're going to examine the role of real estate agents. There's much to talk about here - how to select an agent, who represents who in a real estate transaction, how agents get paid, and a host of other issues. Due to the extensive nature of this topic, we'll break it up into a series of columns. If there's a question you have, and we don't cover it here, feel free to e-mail us and we'll do our best to get you an answer.

In this first installment, we'll talk about agent representation and how agents get paid.

How agents can represent someone varies from state to state,...

This story has expired!
You can purchase the full text in our news archives.

YOUR COMMENTS

RULES OF PARTICIPATION

If you encounter other problems, please email ewiffin@capitalgazette.com and include your name, username, and any errors or messages that are displayed. The more information you can provide, the better able we will be to assist you.

In order to post or vote on a comment, you must be signed in with a hometownannapolis account.

Report Abuse or Vote In order to allow the user community the ability to collectively rank the value of comments posted on the Capital Gazette websites we have implemented a thumbs-up/down system. All logged-in users may participate by voting up/down each comment. If others vote on your comment, your individual score will go up/down depending on the votes. Initially, everyone starts with a score of zero, and must earn credits to have significant voting weight. Individuals with higher scores will have more voting weight. 0

Buying a fist home - November 11, 2008

Dear Bob and Donna; I read your article about real estate agents and I found it very informative. My question for you is this; My girlfriend and I are on the market to purchase our first home (we are both first time buyers), we found a great home through our "buyers" agent and we put an offer in. We have a great FICO scores, we have nothing to sell, we are able to close in less than 25 days and on the top of that our "dream home" owner and selling agent (both in one) is not replaying to us with any answers about our offer. The owner made very clear to us that she is in the situation that she MUST sell her home (she lost her job and her husband got sick and cannot work)they have 4 or 5 other properties that are on the market right now. Owner was extremely helpful in letting us see the house on more than 4 occasions, yes we looked at the house 4 times. Right now is more than 2 weeks since we put the offer in and no answer either way, is this NORMAL in today's market?? After reading your column I'm not sure if our agent is doing all that she can to help us get this house?!?!? Is it OK to contact the seller on our own, and find out what is going on??? Thank you for your time in this matter. Frustrated and confused John and Janine

unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking

John Sawicki - Piscataway, NJ - Karma: Bad