[zugi]

I used a discount buyer's agent and it worked great! We viewed houses on the internet ourselves, went to open houses ourselves, and arranged showings with seller's agents ourselves. Once we had it narrowed down to two houses, we brought our buyer's agent to look at both houses, offer suggestions, and do all the bidding and purchase paperwork.

The realtor cartel still enforced a 6% commission, with half to the seller's agent and half to the buyer's agent. Our contract with the buyer's agent refunded half of his commission to us. So basically we got a 1.5% home discount. Our buyer's agent still made 1.5% but didn't have to babysit us while traipsing through dozens of potential homes, so it feels like everyone wins.

[pc86]

Yeah even our best realtor, who I actually liked and thought he did a good job (see other comment here) spent probably 1/3 of his total time on our purchase just hanging out or also walking around an open house. Such a waste IMO.

[lostmsu]

I did the same and outright offered 3% less and did not invoke buyer's agent at all.

Also when I sold my house (> 1M USD) 2 years ago I used $100 flat fee listing service and outright refused to pay anything to buyer's agents.

Both transactions went well.

[sagarm]

Post-NAR settlement you would have to sign a separate agreement with your buyer's agent specifying their compensation before making an offer.