Buying land without an agent

[JD Singer]

After searching, locating and researching a piece of retirement property, we are considering an offer to the seller's agent (who knows very little about what he is selling).

As the buyer's agent is typically compensated by the seller, is it normal to ask for a reduction similar to the 3% that the buyer would pay to the non-existent agent?  

We are likely to hire a real estate attorney to ensure that our interests are covered as thoroughly as possible so my concerns are limited to negotiating based on a single realtor in the transaction.

[Bruce Lynn]

Get a buyer's agent.....it is different than using an attorney.  You may want to hire an attorney too if you can find one that will look at your contract quickly and give you advice.  Sometimes this is tough to find though.

The commission is set with the seller and the agent when they take the listing.  If the buyer is unrepresented, then the agent gets to keep all the commission and not split some part of it with the buyer's agent.   So you could perhaps make your offer 3% lower or whatever % they are offering buyers agents, but the agent is still going to get the full commission from the seller.  Most agents won't reduce it, because they now know there is more work involved and a lot more risk working with an unrepresented buyer.

Lawyers are great with contracts, but they don't always know prices, the market, and typically won't go out with you to point out pros/cons of the property and also don't often negotiate contracts for you, or if they do, they may want to charge more.

I can tell you from the handful of experiences I have been involved with where I represented the seller and the buyer thought it was a good idea to represent themselves...it was not good for the buyer.  They may have thought so, but they didn't save any money, and in fact not having representation probably costs them a lot.   It's not an intelligence thing, it's just an experience thing.   I could for example ask most buyers on the normal contract 100 different questions that are important and vital to the sale that they would have no idea about....I mean not the 1st clue.   That may or may not be you...but you don't know what you don't know.   Get someone on your team that does know.  Real estate is a team sport.  Rare do you win going at it alone.