@Jon D.
Hey Jon. I was reading through everyone's comments and this entire discussion seems to have veered into many other topics so let me give you an outside point of view.
I'm currently living North of Minneapolis in a small town called Princeton. I'm currently working on getting my master's electrician license (test on the 19th) and also working on getting my real estate license (passed state and national exam, need to finish course 2 and 3) and I have learned a LOT from my somewhat unique position. Unique as In I am unable to advertise or talk about the fact that I will be a licensed agent and own an electrician company because of laws claiming it gives me an unfair advantage. On top of this I have been listening to all the podcasts on real estate, money and business on this platform, I read many forum posts and have followed many of the top producing agents and investors. The reason I say all this is I look at it many points of view. Oren Klaff would put someone in my situation into a place of potential and power of choice and work thisintonegotiation tactics. Dale Carnegie on the other hand would find a way to put his client first at any cost because he knows that means a higher chance of repeat business. Me personally being someone is in the process of starting their own company and dreams of starting their own brokerage looks at this situation and thinks it's just more trouble than it's worth. Nothing bad to say about any way anyone wants to do things, just that different people have different opinions, goals and limits of what they're willing to take on. If it's a good deal then work it out, but it sounds like something is missing because if they just found out it's prone to bad flooding then that either should have been disclosed to you immediately (to the best of my course 1 knowledge) or if they just found out that should drop the price without question.
I also seen some talk about hourly rates and agent 1 does the exact same thing as agent 2 and it's all 6/3% commission no matter what so why not negotiate the price down if it's closed so fast? That answer is simple; you also owe me for the years it took me to learn how to complete the job as fast as I did, not only for the time it took to complete the job. There's no secret hidden prices in real estate agents commission, you can negotiate a little, maybe, but it's not like it's going to be a multiple thousand dollars difference on a $200k home. Any business owner at all knows that there is a lot more cost that goes into getting a job done then just simply materials and labor. Same goes for real estate agents. Brokerages have brokers fees, lawyers fees, listing fees, utilities, taxes for the company, themselves and their employees if they have one or 2, rent on their office, drive time, gas, internet, phone, like 3 different types of insurance and I'm sure there's more. Bottom line is an brokerage is hired by someone to sell their house period. It's a bid, not an hourly rate. If they get it done faster then that should be celebrated. If I hire someone to paint my house and they said it would take a week but got Done in 2 days I Don't get a 60% discount. Think about this if you owned your own company or even an hourly wage earner. If you have a deadline on when something needs to get Done and you get Done early do you get the rest of the day off paid or if you were the company owner are you going to pay your employee to go home? It's all dependent on how your pay is negotiated, point being made 3/6%.
I wish you good luck on your quest to find an agent, but just being honest as I'm not even in the field yet, what you're asking for sounds more complicated than I would be comfortable with, especially with the way the market is, probably best to look for someone who has much more experience, but also keep in mind someone who has much more experience might also not want to entertain that idea either if they already have a funnel full of clients.
