Problem statement: Real estate commissions are high on a single transaction, largely because of “contingency” model. Imagine a lawyer representing you on a transaction, who would charge for every minute of his/her time spent as it is spent then buyers and sellers would be very careful in asking or getting representation only on the minimum needed and also be more serious in completing the deal. However represented by agents or brokers, the amount of hours buyers and/or sellers spend with agents on “free” advise is very large significantly prior to agents getting paid. Agents spend very large number of hours in anticipation of making a successful sale/purchase with that principal, and in most cases if they earned the entire commission offered in traditional rates, they recoup the entire cost and turn a big profit. However very significant amount of time that Agents spend on is wasted effort where principals are either not sure of what they want or not mindful of the efforts of the Agents and continue to spend their time. In many cases principals who engage with Agents in some capacity do not complete the transaction with the Agents. Secondly a significant amount of time and money is spent by Agents on marketing and farming out to principals and getting them interested in purchase or sale of a property.

High commission rates are a problem to everyone, and Agentsdeal attempts to solve them by avoiding wastage and/or hurting pay-rates of agents. It achieves that by several mechanisms including but not limited to; a) by solving the need for “farming time” b) by encouraging “patent pending” service tier based bidding system with expectations of each party defined with greater clarity upfront and c) behavioral patterns defined for principals and inputs in detail taken to ensure seriousness of principals and letting know the agents the exact profile of principals before they bid for their business.

Agentsdeal Inc is a licensed CA broker and can represent buyers and sellers directly for purchase or sale of property. Its subsidiary operation through Agentsdeal.com is however a referral service to get buyers and sellers (principals) to select among a large group of qualified agents in the network of Agentsdeal, who are not necessarily employed by Agentsdeal Broker, at a discounted commission rate and earn referral fee from an Agent selected if that Agent completes a purchase/sale transaction with the principal. When a principal enters a specification through Agentsdeal.com to obtain a discounted agent, Agentsdeal.com markets that to all agents in their network who may be working for all different brokerages across the geographical area and might be interested in earning the business of the principal. Buyers get a portion of commission dollars earned by buyers agent from the seller refunded back to them and Seller’s get a lower commission rate for listing their property. This is ensured by careful selection of Agents by buyers and sellers not only on the basis of their expertise, but also on the basis of service levels they offer and the commission rate based on those tiers.

There is no cost for Agentsdeal.com to buyers and sellers (principals). Agents are charged for each referral they earn on a “contingency” basis only if they close a purchase/sale transaction with the referral they earned through Agentsdeal.com in a time period and with respect to terms only defined in detail in “Referral fee agreement”. Agentsdeal would be different than other agent selection websites like Zillow where agents are charged upfront for advertisement and believes in the contingency model.

Agentsdeal.com works by inviting buyers and sellers (principals) to enter in a specification of what they want in detail. We encourage more detail as that helps in targeted real estate agents for principal needs. Also based on the experience level of the principal, the real estate agents can target their bid for the service level desired by principal and save significant time if they find that the principal knows what they want. More detail reflects in a more complete specification that is reasonably achievable in the market. That results in better discounts and more interest from Agents to bid in your business knowing that they have a readier client.

Agentsdeal has a patent pending “service tier” based commission bid model to allow maximum value to principals and avoid any wastage of time for the Agents. To avoid the misused adage “you get what you pay for” in a discounted agent choice, we bind the agent and principal morally and verbally as to what they expect in duties and with respect to those duties what commission discount/refund to expect. So bids can be invited for full service tier if principal is not fully ready and or is not as savvy and can be invited for deeper discount tiers if principal is fully ready and is savvy in real estate dealings. Detailed definition of service tiers is available in a “pop-up” window before the choice of the same and are merely suggestions from Agentsdeal to clearly demarcate where agent time is spent in providing services to buyer.

If principal chooses full service tier then the second page of questions in “additional specification” is optional to provide – however providing those answers does not hurt and only makes it even more attractive for agents to bid for your business even in full service tier.

If principal chooses service tier 2 or 3, then the second page of questions in “additional specification” is “required” – as the principal is representing that they are savvy and know what they exactly want. Deeper discounts are expected only in such a case.

Principals shall receive 3 or more bids as they may desire and can request contact information of the best 3 bids (termed Successful Referral) that suit their needs based on service level offered, experience level of agent and also commission discount. They can then make a selection of the final agent (termed “Successful/Final Selection) from that. Note: See FAQ for “successful referral/successful selection” below.

Our service is completely free for buyers and sellers (principals) and there is no obligation for principals to open their specification for a property for bidding for commission of agents, nor is there any obligation to hire any of the real estate agents that the principals receive proposals or bids from; nor is there any obligation to work or finally close a purchase/sale with the final agent a principal selects out of the bids or referrals received. However for maintaining the integrity of the website and bidding process as above, we ask principals to open up bidding from agents on the commission and request contact only if they are serious to finally select an Agent and work with them to close a transaction. This website’s bidding and auction services to drive commissions down to “market rate” should not mean Agent pay-rate reduction. Discounts partially are meant for serious principals who then with that discounted rate have all the intention to work with the Agent to lower the contingency risk for the Agents. To prevent any misuse, we restrict the principal to no more than 2 attempts in a period of 6 months to open up bids for Agent selection for a particular specification. Agents do pay Agentsdeal a referral fee on a contingency of a successful sale and terms of that are detailed in “Referral Fee Agreement”

We attempt to keep all the information about the principal private unless Principal opts after opening the bid to release contacts of Agents to result in a successful referral. For Agents we also keep your information private unless Principal chooses to release contact of Agents, however in case of Agents authorizing us to advertise their services we may do so for certain Agents for a fee in return. Proposals for the same can be discussed with Agentsdeal staff by contacting support@agentsdeal.com

We have a unique patent pending “service tier” based bidding model where for savvy principals, deeper discounts on commissions can be obtained to avoid loss of equity by applying several tiers to the commission bids based on service levels expected by principals.

We have a list of Agents that we contact or who are present in our database signed up to receive a referral, when principals open up the bidding on the website. Agents are rated based on several factors including but not limited to their educational qualifications, real estate qualifications, real estate experience, number of deals they have closed successfully, their flexibility in bidding for service tiers based commission model, and also the reviews and feedback entered for them by users. Then we reach out to only higher ranked agents for bidding first and there is indeed a minimum score below which we do not allow agents to bid.

When you open your specification, we reach out to very large number of agent on your behalf electronically, and at times as many as 100+ agents. You could imagine trying to contact that many agents and spending time to figure out who is the optimal agent for your needs and who will be the most qualified and yet offer discounted rates based on service levels you desire. Further we let the agents see what other agents are bidding if you allow open auction for their bids and that way with a large number of agents reached out to and they bidding for commission with respect to service level offered or desired – we arrive close to a “TRUE market rate” of agent commissions for principals for service level offered. Private deals through individual referral lack this “market rate” aspect nor do they check upon qualifications or bind agent verbally or morally to a service level that you desire.

That partially depends on your specification. If you enter detailed specifications as we encourage you to by asking multiple questions, you may receive a large number of bids and we will filter out those for you to as many as you specify and based on highest ranked Agent as relevant to your specification (usual number is top 10 bids). You may receive these bids starting from about 24 hours and will continue to receive bids up-to 5 days. For outside CA, the bids may be delayed by up-to 2 business days. We advise you to wait to see most bids before making a successful referral or final successful selection.

You can change the specification, as your specification may not be attractive enough for getting bids. You can seek guidance by emailing or chatting with Agentsdeal customer service who can review your bids.

You can change the specification or request a different service tier bid or change the type of auction to private bids and open for bidding again. If you want more qualified agents who want to give extra service you might want to select full service and also choose agents who give somewhat lower discount but have closed higher number of transactions. If you are unsure, please seek guidance by emailing or chatting with Agentsdeal customer service who can review your situation.

Yes. Our agent network is ramping up and while initially launching this service in CA where our agent network is the maximum, we provide referral services for agents across the US. For outside CA, our bidding response time might be 2 business days longer as reaching out to agents outside our network in these states takes longer.

This is up-to your choice. Unless you want them to perform limited services and thereby get a deeper discount on the commissions, agents offer full-service and bid for commission discounts accordingly.

Private bids are disclosed from agents directly to you and their bids are not seen by the other agents. In auction style bidding, each agent bid is available to be seen by the other agents bidding for the same. Each style has its advantages and disadvantages. For private style bidding, you would be able to see what agents are comfortable to bid for, without the market force mechanisms exerting pressure on them to reduce their commission offer, while at the same time you may not get the best commission discount. Auction style bidding has its advantages in the opposite, agents knowledgeable about what the next person is bidding will put their best offer forward; yet the only disadvantage being if having done so would they be happily taking the service or under “desperation” of making a deal.

We advise that the buyer/seller (referred to as “principal”) to choose up-to 3 agent referrals so that principal can talk to up-to 3 agents prior to final selection. While we provide agent ranking, experience in transactions, reviews of Agentsdeal.com (if available); nothing can substitute the final personality assessment that a principal can do in a verbal conversation or a meeting to assess if Agent is a match. Therefore among the list of bids you get from agents, you can choose up-to 3 bids to release contact information, wherein at that point, all of the up-to 3 agents are part of a “successful referral”. This means as per the terms governed by Referral Fee Agreement, if any of the up-to 3 Agents who earned that successful referral, closes a transaction with you in future, that Agent would have to pay Agentsdeal a percentage of the gross commission. After talking to 1 or more of the up-to top 3 successfully referred agents, principal needs to select and decide to work for their immediate needs of market with 1 agent only who then will, among the up-to 3 successfully referred agents, have the highest chance to close a transaction with the principal. That final selected agent is termed as a “successful/final selected” agent. Note: While selecting the up-to 3 Agents to contact , it is possible that some agents may not want their contact information to be released just to appear in top 3, if they are necessarily the final selected agent, as once their contact information is released to principal, they are bound by the terms of the Referral Fee Agreement. In that case you can skip that Agent if you intend to talk to top 3 to select a final 1 agent.

We advise to not take just the commission refund as the only criteria. Commission refund while being one of the criteria – you should pay close attention to at least the experience of the agent including the number of successful deals the agent has closed which is a reflection on that agent having gone through successfully the whole process of home buying or selling.

While we would like to earn your business and we strongly value you considering our website, however our commitment is to keep real estate commission low and yet not hurt agent pay-rates at least significantly. To avoid wasted effort of a very large number of agents that we seek bids from and who spend time on making bids for you, if you are not reasonably considering selling or buying in the near future (certainly less than 6 months), we would not want you to open bidding here. Agents would want to come and bid here with reduced commissions and still make a good living by doing more business in the same amount of time of taking “readier” principal clients which is what Agentsdeal attempts to do.

Yes indeed, talking and selecting an agent and getting comfortable with them will take you 1 week to 10 days minimum. It is further inevitable that to maximize the sale price, Agent will want to suggest doing a certain number of modifications to your property. Even As-is sales require a significant amount of cleanup, preparation to present to the market. In addition the number of listing documents a listing agent has to generate are large. So getting an agent engaged at least 1-2 months prior to actually bringing a listing to market is a good idea, 3-4 months is more than adequate time, beyond 4months we do not advise unless you want to do substantial modifications to your property and need listing agent advise or help in that. If your decision is more than 3months out, we advise you to take full service tier commissions as agent has substantial “contingency” risk prior to making a sale happen.

Usually when you ask us to release contact information, we expect you to make the phone calls or take phone calls from agents within the next 2-3 business days and decide upon a final agent in the matter of no more than 1week. However individual situations may vary.

Agents are salespersons and while you may have your own set of questions on valuations – you should let them make a sales pitch for your home so as to realize how they will sell your home. Questions on what valuation to expect to sell as-is with minor to no improvements, valuation to expect to sell with significant improvements and how much help they will provide in those improvements with referrals or actual supervision, timeframe it takes to sell, details of services to expect from them, discussion on strategies around listing price, questions on disclosures and paperwork and detailed description of their duties are all legitimate questions to ask.

Agentsdeal.com is a free service and is designed to maximize value to buyer. Agentsdeal.com does not make money of a buyer and does not offer money back to buyer either. However using Agentsdeal.com, buyer’s will get commission refunds back from Agents they choose at the closing of a transaction and the amount to expect will be clearly known by buyer before buyer chooses the agent commission refund bids. Commission refund bids are often reflected as a percentage of the commission that the agent would earn by representing you as a buyer.

Agents who represent you as a buyer to write an offer for a property are called “cooperating agents” or “cooperating brokers” or “buyer’s agent/broker” or “selling agent/broker”. They receive a commission from the listing agent who represents the seller that all comes out of seller proceeds. Buyer typically never has to pay any commissions “directly” in most markets. However if a buyer were to turn around immediately and sell the property after having bought the property – buyer would quickly realize that buyer (who would then be a seller) would be sitting on a “negative equity” as what they would net would be lower than what they paid. This is largely because of the commissions charged by both listing agent and buyer’s agent though there are other closing costs as well. It is therefore in buyer’s interest to reduce the “negative equity” that buyer inherits by seeking some of the commission that the buyer’s agent is getting from the seller, as a refund back to the buyer. This refund is always earned back by buyer at close of escrow (COE) only and can be in the form of buyer’s agent paying buyer’s closing costs or buyer’s agent paying buyer a taxable commission refund at COE or buyer’s agent discounting his/her commission at COE for listing agent/seller thereby making the offer of the buyer more attractive to result in same seller net even at a lower offer price. Usually the most popular mechanism where the buyer’s agent commission refunds are less than 0.5% of sales price is buyer’s agent paying for buyer’s closing costs. The most popular mechanism for buyer agent commission refunds that exceed 0.5% of sales price is by filing a buyer’s broker commission reduction form and reflecting that in a lower purchase price that yet results in same seller net proceeds. Buyer can also work with Agent to choose a mix of both refund strategies and ask Agent for advise as well.

Usually when you ask us to release contact information, we expect you to make the phone calls or take phone calls from agents within the next 2-3 business days and decide upon a final agent in the matter of no more than 1week. However individual situations may vary.

Agents are salespersons and while you may have your own set of questions on what to buy, where to buy and how much to spend; if you have entered enough details, you can let them ask you questions as to understand where you are at and what your desires are in purchase of a property. Questions on what neighborhoods to look for that meet your needs, information on schools, information on streets being valued higher than others, information on valuation of homes and how to arrive at the same are all legitimate questions that you can ask agents.