Investor agents and structuring commission w/off-market deals?

[Tehane Gallimore]

How are some of you real estate agents working with investor clients to find off-market properties structuring your commission so you can actually make some money during the transaction? Would you negotiate a commission with the off-market seller to be paid when you produce a buyer? Would you be receiving a commission as a dual agent and be paid as a seller and buyer's agent to broker both sides of the transaction? I'm sure it is all case dependent, but wanted to see what you all were doing. Thanks in advance.

[Jonathan Greene]

You have a lot of options, but all of them, from a buyer's agent perspective, involve your brokerage. Normally, part of it will depend on how you got the off-market lead for your investor. Most wholesalers will package the way an agent can get paid in the release, at least in my area. Sometimes it is added on to the wholesale purchase price. You can ask the buyers to pay a buyer's agent fee direct to the brokerage, but you would need broker cooperation and assistant with that.

On a side note, I run an off-market lead acquisition business under a separate LLC. There are three options when I approach the seller. List (full brokerage involvement, Straight buy (no contact with the brokerage), and what some would call a pocket listing of sorts, but you can't do it in every area. Basically I charge the seller 2 pct (instead of the 5-6 to list) and the buyer 2 pct (for an off-market, direct access with no one else bidding, premium). This goes through the brokerage and gets listed off-market at 2 and 2 or put on the MLS and then put into Attorney Review and the Under Contract.