The same goes for any realtor recommendation service, they are all fee-based, and the Realtor is not going to eat that fee. Also keep in mind that any recommendations for service vendors from the Realtor are likely to be pay-to-play. They can’t get a kickback per referral, but they may require a $10,000 marketing fee (or more) to get on a list of recommended providers. Some individual Realtors may not recommend vendors from their brokers list, but it’s good to know why.

@ L3 — Of course you don’t pay 3%. Negotiate down to 2.0-2.5% AND get 0.5-0.6% back, or negotiate down to 1.5% and skip the referral company (a smart agent would prefer this to the referral). On a $1 million house, $10,000 (1%) is probably worth not having to deal with the other party to the transaction. Anything over that is silly, but it is the crappy system we have.

Exactly. Why engage with these agents and pay them (out of the buyer’s pocket given the rule change) 3%?! Do your own homework and cutoff the buyer’s agent.

This is the usual case with deals that involve airline miles as a spiff for paying for something. I mentioned electricty above, another one would be Bask Bank. The miles rate on their savings instruments is lower than a cash-paying equivalent (even with tax fraud).

@L3 – not sure how you say ‘max value $7,500’ when there is no cap on points-earning under this offer?

And sure if you go without a realtor at all you can negotiate with the counterparty to save that cost. Most people aren’t comfortable doing this, and a good realtor (which you may not wind up with!) does have value even if you’re savvy. They may have a great rolodex of experts to consult as you work through understanding the challenges you may confront with an older home, for instance.

Given that it’s the biggest purchase of my life (presumably), the expertise that they should provide is well-worth my money.

No, don’t assume, run the numbers and compare to make sure you’re getting the best deal.

For the Bilt offer, though, it’s a marketing expense for the agents. For most people this will be the best current deal, but some may be able to separately negotiate something better.

Assume you are paying more. Naive to believe otherwise. Those miles have to be paid for.

I haven’t done the numbers on that deal but I did on electric bills that pay AA miles in TX. The rate was twice what you paid otherwise and the nugatory quantity of miles did not comec near to offsetting it.