I recently had a somebody ask me if I thought it would help their house sell faster if they offered a “Selling Bonus” to the buyer’s agent.

My answer was no.

Selling bonuses use to help back in the days when realtors were the only ones who knew what houses were for sale.  The thought was that you could entice a greedy agent to show and sell your listing because they would make more money.  Today, it is usually the buyer who tells their agent what houses they want to see since they have access to all listings (and thanks to some sites that are not up to date, they also have access to houses that WERE for sale and are no longer available….but that is another blog post.)

Know what I told this person?  To reduce their price.  If they were willing to pay more commission to an agent, why not lower the price by the same amount and offer it to the buyer?

Offering a selling bonus does one thing today:  Since the buyers have access to all listings and pick what they want to see, a seller is really just giving extra money to the agent of the buyer who would have bought the house anyway.

When I show a house that has a selling bonus, I always make a point of telling my buyer before we see it.  Should they end up buying the house, the last thing I want is for them to think it influenced my advice to them.