Broker Commission Question

[Sean MacLeod]

Hello,

This is my first post, so first off I'd like to say hello to the entire Bigger Pockets community!

So I work at a commercial brokerage firm, specializing in tenant only representation for commercial properties. I recently attained my salesperson license, even though I don't work in that capacity within our firm. I did it more for the knowledge, and so I can make purchases/sales on my own.

My question is, if I make a purchase using myself as a broker, is it possible to receive a credit from the seller when acting as my own agent instead of receiving a brokerage fee? Reason being is because I'd rather not have my company receive a check, and then turn around and pay it out to me. My company doesn't care to get into residential agency, which is why I'd rather not mix the funds. We have had people run the commission through work before, and they pay 100% of it back to the employee (again since they don't care about the residential side of agency). The company would PREFER to not have to do this, so I'm trying to think of a workaround to avoid it.

Another option would be to have the seller reduce the purchase price by the commission, but this causes problems for the seller's agent (less of a commission for him, and he's selling the home for under list).

So to me, the best option is to simply have the seller give me a credit back (much like when they give the buyer credit towards closing costs). Does anyone see any issues with doing it this way? The only problem I can think of, is uncle sam may not like this because he isn't getting his cut of the commission.

All thoughts are welcome and appreciated.

Thank you,