Important Information

The Buyer’s Broker
Retribution

Your Options

Three Retribution Approaches

Option A

Competitive Retribution

You offer to pay what the buyer’s broker expects to receive (around 2% of the accepted price). This retribution is paid directly from the sale proceeds. This option eliminates steering risks but reduces your savings.

Option B

Reduced Retribution

A fixed amount or lower percentage (e.g., 1% or $5,000) is offered to the buyer’s broker. Any additional retribution is added to the offered price. A note to this effect is added to the broker-only portion of the listing. This option does not eliminate steering risk but may reduce it.

Option C

No Retribution

The buyer’s broker retribution is added to the offered price. A note to this effect is added to the broker-only portion of the listing. This option may reduce the pool of represented potential buyers, but allows you to negotiate with the buyer the portion of their broker’s retribution you are willing to absorb.

Steering

Steering is an illegal and unethical practice, but unfortunately widespread. It consists of a broker placing their financial interests above those of their client. In residential real estate, this occurs when the broker representing the buyer does not present all properties neutrally, but favors or excludes certain options based on the level of commission offered, rather than the buyer’s actual needs and criteria.

Steering is generally not explicit. It operates through selection, prioritization, or omission of listings: some properties are shown less, featured less prominently, or simply absent from the search journey. This practice diverts buyers' attention, penalizes sellers offering lower commissions, and contributes to the artificial maintenance of high, uniform commissions — in direct contradiction with obligations of loyalty, transparency, and faithful representation.

Service Level

Buyer Represented or Not Represented?

Represented

Advisory Service

If the buyer has a contract, their broker provides strategic expertise, protection, and negotiation advice. This is a high-value service, but one that benefits exclusively the buyer.

Not Represented

Administrative Service

If the buyer’s broker has no contract, they can only offer "fair treatment." Their role is often limited to opening the door and filling out forms at the buyer’s dictation (scribe role).

The Fundamental Question

How Much Does This Broker Deserve?

With a purchase brokerage contract

The question is how much you want to pay a broker who has the written mandate and legal obligation to work against your interests. against your interests.

Why?

When a buyer signs a purchase brokerage contract, their broker has the legal and ethical obligation to exclusively protect that buyer’s interests. Concretely, their work consists of:

✦Negotiating the lowest possible price.
✦Including conditions favorable to the buyer.
✦Identifying weaknesses in your property.

What proportion of your property’s sale price does this broker deserve?

Without a purchase brokerage contract

The question is how much you want to pay a broker who has no right to work against you (some do anyway), but who can only fill out the required forms.

Without this contract, the broker:

—cannot give the buyer any detail on recent comparable sales;
—cannot advise the buyer on the price or any other aspect of the transaction;
—cannot negotiate on behalf of the buyer.

In these circumstances, the broker can only carry out what the buyer dictates.