One of the main (and hardest) lessons I am currently teaching my 14 month old is to share. She is as sweet as pie normally but all bets are off when the boy on the playground wants to play with her toys. “Mine” can be heard loud and clear as she stomps away. It’s a work in progress.

While understandable from a child, we expect professionals to know better.

The top questions I’m asked when being interviewed by a seller: “What is your commission?” “What sites can we expect to see our listing on?” “What additional fees can we expect?” But very rarely are we asked “Do you co-broke?” AKA Do you play nice with other agents and share?

Why is this important?!

90% of my listings are purchased by buyers that have agents. NINETY PERCENT!!!! That is a huge number. Buyers today are busy, they are savvy, that want to know they are getting the best deal and they want a buyers agent to negotiate for them. When listing agents don’t co-broke (& share) they are missing a huge section of the market.

I recently represented sellers at 53 Johnson Lane (making up the address to not completely put the other broker on blast ?). Asking price was $2,250,000. I had 32 showings my first weekend. 28 were represented by agents. In 3 weeks we went into contract, 25k below the asking price, all cash and in what many are calling a sluggish market.

51 Johnson Lane, right next door, was also for sale. Listed by another agent that does not like to co-broke. Asking price was $2,400,000. When I tried to bring my buyers in I was told “I’m going to try to sell it myself first, if in 90 days we’re still on the market I’ll let your clients take a look.”

90 days!!! This agent has no problem with their seller paying a mortgage for 90 days so she can try to keep the entire commission for herself?! In 90 days the market can shift, rates can rise, your boiler can break…possibilities are endless.

Well, 90 days later it was still on the market and after my clients saw it I was able to successfully negotiate $600,000 off the original asking price. Not kidding. At that point the sellers were tired, the market was shifting, rates were rising and they had a leak in their roof. They needed to dump it fast and we were there to grab it.

The main reason a seller would choose to work with an agent that does not co-broke is simple…COMMISSION! You want to pay less and hope to reap the same rewards. But in this one example:

The owners of 53 Johnson Lane paid $60,000 more in commission than their next door neighbors at 51 Johnson Lane did but basically walked away with their asking price while their next door neighbors walked away with more than a half-million dollars less than they listed for! That’s real money!

Moral of the story – If you’re selling, make sure you’re working with an agent that will get you in front of the most buyers in the fastest amount of time (ahem, ??‍♀️). And if you’re buying make sure you work with me because I’ll clearly get you a helluva deal ?

Abby Palanca is a Licensed Real Estate Salesperson at Serhant. She successfully runs The Abby Palanca Team, has sold over 300 million in residential real estate and has been repeatedly featured on the WSJ/Real Trends Top Teams in NY.