The real estate industry is in for another lawsuit very soon.
This new case pulls on similar legal claims made in the Sunderland case, which alleges price-fixing conspiracy among industry players. You can learn more about it here and here.
Find out more next week, as we’re doing a deep-dive on the recent claims made and what this means for the industry.
Are there standard fees in the GTA area? If a consumer spends just a few minutes checking out Realtor / broker websites they may arrive at the idea that fees in the GTA area and Ontario are say 5% split 50/50 and all the fees are set by the seller as there is no cost for buyers for their buyer agent services since they are paid by the sellers. Here are a few examples:
The info on the internet could definitely help the lawyers.
The real estate agent commission fee in Toronto, Canada is 5%. The commission is usually evenly split between the seller’s agent and the buyer’s agent – typically 2.5% to the seller’s agent and 2.5% to the buyer’s agent.
For the buyer’s agent, the average commission is 2.5% with a range from 2% to 3%.
In Toronto and other cities in Ontario, the standard real estate commission is 5%, which is usually split equally between the buyer’s agent and the seller’s agent.
The Seller decides how much commission to offer the agent who represents the Buyer; this is referred to as the ‘cooperating commission’. The amount of the cooperating commission is set out in advance and is used to encourage or entice other agents to sell the home.
Sometimes the amount paid to the selling agent is greater than 2.5% and this is often seen as an incentive for that selling agent to show and sell that particular property and receive a slightly higher commission than they would otherwise receive by selling a property that offers 2.5% or lower.
In Toronto, it is commonplace for a seller to pay a 5% commission on their property’s final sale price. Typically, the commission is evenly split between the listing agent and the buyer’s agent – 2.5% to the listing agent and 2.5% to the buyer’s agent.
let’s say there is a house listed for $500,000. The typical commission rate in the GTA is 5%; this means that if the house sells for its asking price, 5% of $500,000 – $25,000 – is used as commission. This amount is split between the buyer’s agent and the seller’s agent, usually equally.
Employing us as your buyer agent comes at NO cost to you
Our commission will be paid by the seller to the seller’s agent and then distributed to us. Meaning taking a buyer’s agent out of the equation won’t actually save you any money, as this commission has already been determined contractually.
WHY ARE MOST REAL ESTATE FEES SET AS A PERCENTAGE FEE? DOES IT REALLY TAKE MORE WORK TO SELL AN $800,000 HOME THAN A $700000 HOME AND YET THE $800000 SELLER PAYS $5000 MORE (5%) than the $700000 SELLER OR $2500 FOR SELLER AND $2500 FOR BUYERS. By uncoupling real estate fees could the real estate consumers could save tens of thousands of dollars in fees.
Garth & company named 92 real estate boards and associations in their latest bid, including a number who are no longer with us. While some were merged out of existence in 2023, others disappeared in 2022, 2021 and in at least one case – 2018.
I’d love to see the look on the process server’s face when he shows up at Katherine’s Chateau in Collingwood to serve the defunct Southern Georgian Bay Association or the Re/Max office in Parry Sound, one-time home of the old Parry Sound & Area Association. For their sake, I hope the servers were paid in advance.