All Forum Posts by: Angie Menegay

I'm with Joel Owens on this. In TX, your agreement with A typically has a protection period (3-6 months etc.) but it's voided if you relist with another Realtor (B in this case). As far as the buyer is concerned, it is highly unlikely that either A or B will also be the buyer's agent (i.e. "showing" the house to the buyer). The buyer will probably have his own agent (let's call him C), and your listing agent (B as of now) will be splitting his 7% commission with that agent C.

Hypothetically, assuming A is also the buyer's agent, then B will split his commission with A, because A is effectively the buyer's agent in this case. If B somehow manages to become the buyer's agent (which is rare), then B will become a dual agent and gets the entire 7%.

You shouldn't have to worry about whom B splits his commission with. You're obligated to pay B 7%, and he'll deal with splitting that with the buyer's agent (whoever that might be). These terms should be clearly spelled out in your listing agreement.

Hope that helps!
Angie

Hi John,
Yes of course if you're the owner, you have all the rights. Just thought if you didn't want to disclose that fact then some tenants might ask.
Angie

Hi John Winston

Just a word of caution that in TX, in order to be a "Property Manager" legally, you need to have a real estate license. Most tenants probably don't know and care, but I thought you might want to be aware of that law.

Angie

Interesting to see why her credit is so low if her income can justify such a high rent.
I only charge $35/adult but $50/adult is also reasonable (and you can order more reports with more money). Make sure it's per adult (for future reference).
I'm still crossing my fingers on cats. I've heard bad things about them, but I love pets so I let my current tenants have them at $350 refundable deposit (might be too low according to some veteran landlords). I honestly don't know what's standard in your area. You might want to scour MLS and see what other listings are asking for.
BTW, CitiCredit has changed their web site to http://www.CTcredit.net. If you want to use them, start applying for an account now because they need to verify your identity thoroughly before they let you run people's credits directly.

Originally posted by James Willson:

Somewhat still confused if my agent is broker or just an agent.
What's the difference? Is it possible that he is A BROKER too?

You should be able to search for his license status on your state's RE Commission web site (I think it's http://pr.mo.gov/realestate.asp). It should list whether he's also a broker.
As far as his showing you properties, if you didn't sign a buyer's representation agreement with him, you don't owe him anything (though I don't like it when customers do this, but sounds like he's a bad apple).

Hi James,

Did you charge her an application fee, and then ask her to pay for SmartMove? Just curious since you mentioned she was turned off by the fee.

I had a couple who used SmartMove and were fine with it. But I charged them $35/adult to start with as the application fee, and paid for the screening myself. I asked for the application, application fee, proof of income all in one shot and ran the credit checks as soon as I got the money, not going back and forth.

However, I ended up creating an account with CitiCredit.net and used that service instead of SmartMove because it's a lot easier on our side since we don't have to wait on the tenants to fill things out.

Good luck on your new prospect. Four teenagers seem like a stretch, but if it were me, I'd collect everything on the 2 adults, including the application fees, run their credit reports, and decide from there.

Angie

I hand out paper applications and only go run credit checks for those that return the applications along with the application fees.

I agree that it's a bit difficult with MySmartMove because it requires the prospective tenants to read their emails and respond. I can't blame it because of security/authorization reasons. I ended up creating an account with CitiCredit.net instead (someone from BP mentioned it). It takes some paperwork to set up but makes it easier to run credit checks.

Angie

Originally posted by Grant Kemp:

Let's say I was looking at a house FSBO and wanted to be represented. Does the agent contact the owner and just say "Hey...I'm representing ____. I'm going to need 3% of your sale price, sign here."

Obviously phrasing would be different, but what happens there? What does the agent have the owner sign, and when, that says the owner will be paying the buyer's agent. And how do you, as an agent, approach the owner in this situation?

Why do you think you need an agent if you already found a FSBO house yourself? Mathematically, the Seller will just add the 3% commission back to the sales price. You can just negotiate with the FSBO seller directly.

If you've already been working with an agent and would like to do this so that your agent can be compensated (which is very honorable of you), then as everyone else had mentioned, either the agent will ask the Seller for that 3%, or you will pay him/her that commission, depending on your Buyer Representation Agreement.

BTW, it's a different story if the Seller is represented by a listing agent, but I don't think that's the case here.

Angie

Brian,
That's a great idea (if you can turn around and pay off the credit card balance within a month).
Also, be on a lookout for a 1099-K that Square (or whoever the credit card processor is) will mail you at the end of the year, indicating how much you've received as proof of income (the IRS wants you to pay taxes on that money you received from your "customers"). Depending on your tax situation, this might not matter much though.
Angie

We haven't raised our rents for existing tenants either since I'm quite content with the current rates and I actually feel bad raising rents on the good tenants :-(

We do increase the asking rents for new tenants (e.g. one property just went from $1275 --> $1390).