Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Offer to purchase RE w/o agent
I have done myself a tramendous work on RE search, CMA, Income/Expense reports without the help of RE buying agent. I also got the pre-approval certificate from the lender. Now, I am thinking of putting an offer that contains contigencies to the seller agent. At this point, I don't see why I should get an buying agent in the process. Instead, I want to the seller to compensate me that 3% commission at the closing.
To get the law on my side, should I get the RE lawyer to draft/ review an offer? and how much? can an offer be generic so that I can use it again on other house, if this one gets rejected?

Any thought would be appreciated.

Asked on 7/12/07, 2:24 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

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Re: Offer to purchase RE w/o agent

Please also see my answer in reply to your earlier, incomplete posting.

The major problem with the concept you're expressing is that if the seller has listed the property with a broker, he is obligated to pay the full commission, often 6%, to his broker; that broker in turn can share the commission with another broker representing the buyer, but the seller cannot avoid paying the full commission to his broker, and brokers can't share commissions with non-brokers. So, there's no legal way for that 3% or so of the selling price to translate into a price reduction benefitting you. At least none that I know of. This kind of deal was proposed to me once many years ago by a partner of mine in a real-property investment, ans we looked into ways to recapture some of the commission by doing the buyer agent work ourselves, and we couldn't find a way that was acceptable.

Answered on 7/12/07, 6:16 pm

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