donald j. moore

For the past 30 years homebuyers and their lenders have been taken for a ride by commissioned brokers. They have used their corrupt rules to push home purchasers to ever higher prices and higher commissions. Now those days are over! Fee-based buyer agency is not only better for buyers and sellers, it's protection for home lenders too. Lenders no longer have to finance overpriced commissions.  With fee-based buyer agency there is also now a countervailing force against commissioned brokers pressing home buyers to buy more expensive houses with higher prices and higher commissions.  Fee-based buyer agency reduces your risk of loan default.  If you have a pre-approved buyer you can't just send them out into the market to be another casualty of the commission-based schemes. Refer them to me and I'll make sure they get the house they want, at a lower price for significantly less cost for professional assistance. 

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For us, the Appraisal and Financing Contingencies are an essential part of our strategy to reduce the costs of purchasing a house.  Financing is not a hurdle to overcome but a key component of how we can benefit the buyer client using innovative negotiation strategies. We want you to use the best, most accurate, local appraisers for your loan process. We do not want any valuations to simply rubber-stamp a purchase price.  We want experienced local appraisers who are accurate and professional and who adhere to the highest ethical standards.  We'll never ask you to shoehorn a customer into a deal where it's in neither your or the buyers' best interests. 

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For example, I recently completed a bank appraisal for home purchase financing where the buyers were using a commissioned buyer agent and the seller was using a discount brokerage service.  There appears to have been very little effort in determining market value when the property was placed for sale or the buyers' offer.  The list price was about $1,500,000.  The settled offer price was about $1,475,000. Actual market value: $1,350,000.  Buyer agent commission: $35,400.  Unbelievable that a buyer agent that ineffective would pocket over $35,000 in commissions. Or maybe it is believable.  Had this been after August 14th, 2024 and if they worked with me, my fee would have been $3,500 and the purchase price would have been $1,350,000 or less.

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I have been trying since I began offering appraisal services in the 1980s to move the appraisal from the back end of the transaction to the front.  With all due respect, I believe that the appraisal completed for the lender after negotiations are completed is backward.  It needs to be information the buyer gets before they begin negotiating so they know market value rather than just an asking price.  Commissioned buyer agents aren't trained in valuation and are not reliable but no one wants to pay for two appraisals even if it can truly help them.  GSEs won't accept the appraisal ordered by the buyer even though that is a more reliable appraisal. At the back end of the deal the appraisal is considered a necessary evil, even a deal-killer and all sorts of pressure can be applied by some participants to accommodate the purchase price regardless of actual market value of the property.  Appraisal pressure contributed to the Financial Crisis of 2008 and brought us the HVCC and additional licensing. 

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Have we appropriately considered what years of Realtor collusion and corruption have done to our real estate market?  How much of the Financial Crisis of 2008 was a function of commissioned brokers pushing buyers and sellers to higher prices so they could pocket higher fees? How much of the current run-up in prices is attributable to the Mandatory Offer of Compensation making it impossible for fee-based services to thrive and act as a brake on home price inflation?  There is currently a federal court case in Florida seeking class action status that seeks damages for home buyers using commissioned brokers going back to 1996.  I began offering fee-based services at that time.  The difference between my superior service at $3,500 compared to 2.4% buyer agent commissions would equate to damages in the tens of billions of dollars.

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For example, in Wisconsin alone, using Wisconsin Realtors Association figures, since 2007 to 2024, commission-based buyer agents receiving 2.4% of the sale price (the usual and customary 40% split of the standard 6% commission) cost home buyers $6.136 billion.  During the same time span, if fee-based services were fully available and using today's cost of $3,500, total buyer agency fees would have been $4.210 billion.  (Fee-based services in 2007 would have certainly been less than $3,500.)  This means that in Wisconsin alone, not one of the highest home price states in the country, buyers paid and lenders financed at least $1.926 billion in excessive real estate commissions simply because collusion and antitrust severely limited home buyers options in buyer agency services. Two billion dollars that could otherwise be used for down payments or property improvements reducing overall risk. Instead it is being siphoned off to fund lavish real estate broker lifestyles and perpetuate corruption and collusion.

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Don't continue to feed their insatiable maw of higher and higher commissions at the expense of your customers. Have them contact me to see if my services are right for their needs. If I can help them, great! If I can't, that's okay too. You've done your due diligence and offered them alternatives that can save them many thousands of dollars.  Thanks for all you do to help home buyers in our market!

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