We had an agent one time that was so, so good. Lowered his fee and worked with us for MONTHS in a hot market in the best neighbourhood. We wanted it for the schools but, it was over our budget a bit. I mean that guy went above and beyond. Fast forward 28 years and I have referred every person I know who was looking for an agent to him and he has sold houses of at least ten of them. Be good to your clients. They WILL remember.

I was not shocked that this happens. Kudos to the first realtor for being honest.

If people stopped using agents then the system would be forced to correct itself and they would have no choice but to take less commission.

Serious respect for the first agent. He was honest and looking out for his clients and not for his pocket.

THIS is TRUE Journalism. And right on time, people need to know this

I sold my own home and I'm not a real estate agent. I lived in a high demand area and I knew it. I advertised online, on Kijiji, and put up signs in the neighborhood. You don't need for MLS. I had 1 Open House where I got 5 offers. I sold it that day for my full asking price. After I printed my own purchase agreement which you can buy at Home Depot, I took it to a lawyer who I paid $150.00 to look it over. I would try do the same on my next home sale. I think you should always try to sell your own home first.

The larger question is did you report the two offending agents so they can have their license revoked?

We did a similar thing, we sold our own house in a private deal. When a real estate agent told us we'd lose 6% to them, I told my wife, "Heck, we could DROP the price of the house by 6% and be at the same place!" House sold in a week. I'm afraid the agents are going to price themselves out of the market eventually. Times change.

“Sold to a private buyer, no agents involved” God I love a happy ending :)

Took three months, but I'm glad the lady sold her house without any crooks involved.

I painted a sign on a piece of plywood. By the end of the month, cash in hand, I gave the keys to the new owners. We used a real estate lawyer to process the transaction, the cost was $800. I had decided to use an agent if it didn't sell in 3 months, all it cost me to try on my own was nothing, I already had the plywood and the paint in the basement.

I gave a full offer to a real estate agent. He never even provided the offer to his client. He hid it because the listing was still only a week old and he wanted to find someone who’d offer him more. His client is 86 years old. I had to drive to the client’s home and tell him my offer for him to find out i existed.

Being a consumer it sure feels like a lot of real estate agents are like used car sales men.

Lisa practices realestate law for 15 years and gets shocked looking at these very common practices. Thats even more concerning.

Disgusting, we all should do our own buying and selling and setting up viewing appointments

My wife and I bought a house last year. We saw a few and then found one for 50-70K less then the ones we had been seeing but we liked it. Our realtor gave us a speech about how an extra $200 a month on your mortgage gives you so much extra money in buying power. She told us many times we can do way better then the house we live in now. She was legit angry that we didn't max out what the bank would loan us but came in 100k less. This business is insane.

CBC always exposing what needs to be exposed. Marketplace is such an amazing show. Thank you!!!

We have been working with our realtor for 4 months. At first it seemed pretty typical, but I started to find it wierd when she would consistently send us overpriced bungalows, pushing us to make an offer, but any fixer-upper or anything not expected to go 200k+ over asking that we approach them about, can barely even get her to agree to a showing.. really their just making more work for themselves though, because we're not interested in an overpriced bungalow.

If the house was overpriced, why did she not suggest negotiating with the seller.

I don't understand how a realtor would completely disregard a lower commission vs NO commission.

Steering. Red lining. Threats. Ghost email harrassment. "The Board" does nothing. Should Realtors be valuing land taxation? Where are the assessors? Glad someone is talking about this.

Love how the second realtor is saying "he" instead of "she" because she's lying just that much. Inventing an entirely different person, not just nonsense about the house being overpriced. So scummy.

In Australia. the standard is 2% but it is negotiable. We recently sold our home and were charged 1.25% of the sale price as the vendor.

It's not just steering but there are many more tricks in the book that they regularly use like asking for a higher commission, negotiating tactics... When I bought my house a few years back, there were broken windows, broken doors, broken carpets. I offered them $5000 less to cover the cost of repair of those items. But I told the realtor (buyer's agent) that I really loved that house because of the location. Later I realized that was a big mistake to tell her that because she knew we would buy it at full price regardless (or even offer more). So she came back and said the seller wanted a full price, no negotiation. I didn't understand why at first why they just couldn't reduce $5000 from a $700,000 price. And it's not like I was trying to low ball them or anything. It was for repairing broken things in the house. Later after we already bought the house, I found out that she teamed up with the seller's agent to NOT reduce the price for us so that she can get more commission from the seller. Car dealers, dentists, and realtors are usually on top of the list of people you should never trust.

Commissions are negotiable, there is no such thing as a "standard" fee. As a Realtor this is truly upsetting. We are to negotiate our fees with the seller, and pay half to the agent who brings the buyer, period. If the buyer wishes to see a house that is listed for 1%, it is my job to show the buyer that house. We work for the client, so take care of the client! Do what's right and your work will be blessed

I dealt with this five years ago when I sold a home in Orlando, FL. It took a while, but I was finally able to sell it myself with zero fees to somebody that really loved the home. It felt good. Just hang in there. You're going to get a lot of calls. Screen them and tell the realtors to go away. I would do it again any day.

I've sold two of my homes by myself no problem saved a lot on commission. Agents gave me gifts and promises but I did it all myself no problem.

Another problem: since the agents get paid a percentage there is an incentive for them to inflate the price of the house by faking bidding wars etc, more transparency is needed.

Business Ethics is taught in Business Schools, but in reality profit above Ethics is the order of the day.

Every house I have ever sold, I sold myself. This is my advice: 1. Find a real estate attorney to help you construct a contract that will benefit both you and potential buyers. 2. Write your 'for sale by owner' ad and list it in your local newspaper, with an 'appointment only' notation. This is where potential buyers look first. 3. Do your one on one negotiating with potential buyers, and adjust your contract to suit both you and your buyer. Your attorney can help with this. You and the buyer will both be happier in the end. 4. Your attorney will handle the legal end such as title search, lender options, closing date, etc. 5. On closing day everyone can meet to close the deal in your attorney's office with all of the paper work ready to go, including your check. What you will pay your attorney will be thousands of dollars less than what you will pay a realtor. 6. Give the new buyer the keys and a hand shake, and go your separate ways, with no self-serving realtors to deal with. Hopefully, you have already moved out. If you are planning to sell your house try this for a couple of months. If you decide that this is not for you, you can always call a realtor and collect a lot less profit at closing.

imagine being the honest realtor whos like oh great thanks for wasting my morning cbs news

Realtor is just another word for "lier". When I was selling my house a couple of years ago, I had someone make an offer then back out a day before settlement. My agent tried to keep their deposit for herself even though the contract said the money would go directly to me. She was hoping I would "just trust her". After that, she would rarely return calls and ignore emails. My house did sell two months later, but she showed her true colors.

Normalize Private Sales, time to oust the need for the realtor. Greed is so disgusting.

As a home buyer and I saw a listing I didn’t give them a choice to show me the home or not. If they refused I dropped them and found another agent.

There’s absolutely no reason that we need to be paying a % commission with the way that home prices have outpaced inflation. It’s an old, expired model. Real estate agents do valuable work in many cases, but they should be compensated based on time spent or a flat fee, just like accountants, lawyers, etc. They don’t need a special model.

I sold my house by owner in 2021. I got a bunch of calls from relestate agents saying they had someone interested but they wouldn't allow them to come unless I offer a good percentage commission for the buying agent. I would offer them 2%, only one agreed and came by. Most of them threw hissy fits about a "low commission". Then told me they would tell their client "it isn't going to work out" or something like that. Not sure what they would actually tell their clients but I definitely missed out on several showings because the agent was being a firewall. I ended up selling with no realtor, above asking, no realtor fees.

Always felt it was an inherent conflict of interest when both the buyers agent and sellers agent work on commission. They both have incentive to get that price as high as possible.

The first guy agent was honest and he had ethics. He said he just wanted the buyer to be happy and have a home...he was all in with the low percent commission. He was honest.👏

This is why we did away with agents completely. We saw a seller listing their house on their own, and we directly contacted the owners and got the house without any issues. All negotiations were done directly with the owners and we were all happy by the end of it. Contrast this to the 2 years of having multiple agents who were clearly rigging the system and making sure that the best houses were going to their friends. We once bid 10k over the price because we just wanted to be done with it. The final winning bid was 100 dollars more than ours.

My hubby and I sold our home in B.C. last summer through Property Guys. It cost us $6000.00 . We sold in 3 months for asking price.

As a realtor I am so happy this is happening. Not once have I turned down a lower commission, in fact I have put down my commission on my own many times just to help my buyers secure a home. I am glad this is coming out, I hope more comes out. Makes people who practice real estate for the love of it look bad and get pushed out of real estate. I am on the verge of giving up real estate because of the agents not the clients

Show their faces . Why you protect those scammers ?!

This is appalling. I wonder how many ppl have missed out on their dream home bc the realtor didn't want to miss out on a few percentage points.

As a buyer I would always do my own home searching on MLS and elsewhere to find homes I want to see, no way would I rely on an agent to find me all of the houses. Everything is negotiable. Kudos to everyone exposing the system and to busting it wide open. 👏👏👏

The real estate agents that do this should lose their license, be heavily fined, arrested and jailed!!!!!! THEY ARE SCUM!!!!

This is the best show. Every Canadian needs to watch this

With average homes increasing dramatically in prices, the real estate agents can make more from one sale than a homeowner can make in a year. It’s outrageous.

It's tough for me to see 6% of the sale go to realtors when all they are doing is showing the house. The title company is the one that takes care of most of the paperwork.

Back 10 years ago, I sold my house "For sale by Owner" , sold in three days.

There needs to be more transparency with real estate agents.

From my personal experience, realtors are at the same level as any low-life sleaze-ball criminals.

This need a follow up video. 3million views shows that Canadians care about this issue

If most agents are ignoring the lower commission homes I'd be selling them like gang busters. And I'd want to expose those unethical agents. They're the ones who need to be blacklisted!

The amount of work the crew did for this is amazing, Keep it going.

That remark about the investigation not being about individuals and because of it not showing their faces was ridiculous. The very first agent actually wanted to show the house, his identity should be known. To be honest, even the other two agents, people should know who they are.

I’m still astounded as to how the fees are this heigh, and more that an automated system isn’t in place where all the paper work can be simplified

When you have a product that sells itself, you don't need a middleman to take a 5%.

"It's not a service industry, it's a me industry." Greed seems to prevail.

Yes, people who work on commission to sell a home want to make as much as possible... You can always find a home on your own and not hire a relator to hand hold you and give you their time....

I released a couple of agents who steered me away from houses as a buyer. I got someone who took me seriously and looked after my interests.

Most buyers find their own houses on the MLS listing anyway. Then just call their realtor to arrange a viewing, make a bid, and settle the paperwork. But most of the work is done by the consumer and the real estate lawyer who does the real finishing touches and legal/financial paperwork. Realtors don't do much at all. In this digital age, they have become mostly obsolete. Time for a change

A Real Estate lawyer who says "I can't believe an agent would act this way" is simply not credible. I have yet to meet an honest real estate agent. Their "code of ethics" is 99% about them not stealing each other's listings and 1% related to their treatment of clients.

One of the easiest fix to this problem is just to make the realtor commission percentage publicly available to buyers on every MLS listings. That way it's much more transparent.

She is exactly right. Thankyou for doing this episode.

Such government inaction and lack of oversight is shocking and deserving of large scale protests across the country.

$14,000 seems like a great commission for a relatively small amount of work. Most of these agents are greedy and provide minimal services.

It happening to me right now! I'm in Quebec. Thank you for investigating!

That is so sad! I can't express how thankful I am my friends refereed us to an amazing agent. I with everyone could find an honest agent

All the bad agents are giving a thumbs down.

I sold my house independently and saved $18,000 in commission fees. Real estate agents are not worth the money. Selling a house is a fairly easy process.

This is interesting, because when I bought my house (I'm in the US) my realtor showed me many houses, but the one we ended up buying I found myself online and it was 50k less than all the other houses we saw.

Agents should not be paid by percentage, it should be a flat fee. It doesn't require any more work to sell a million dollar home then it does to sell a $200,000 home.

Never owned property until my dad passed away. Didn't hire an agent, and didn't need one. The process was seamless. In fact, it was more of a hassle buying a house with an agent.

Through the years of home shopping I wondered why it seemed the realtors silently REFUSED to show me certain houses I requested to see. I have been searching for years to find out why until now. Thanks

My mom bought her house when we walked through the dining room our feet sunk into the floor and my mom at the time was desperate to get out of her old house because it reminded her of my late dad. So we asked the realtor to do a check on the wood for termite damage and he kept just saying it's a done deal its a done deal and talked my mom into buying the house then skipped town and retired the entire floor was being held up by a single plank and some carpet. They sold my mom's house for 250k which 4 years later sold for 1mil and my mom bought her new broken house for like 450k the realtor retired off my mom's property

I'm in a different country and watching marketplace. Such a good show.

Different problem you can run into: I was looking to buy a house, in the US. I told the realtor that the house was over-priced. She blew up. Had been in the business for 30 years and that the price was right. 6 months later it sold for HALF of what she said was the correct price.

This video only scratches the surface of what is really going on. I`ve been a realtor for 11 years. This system we have is set up to benefit the realtor and not the general public. It is so full of unethical, self absorbed low life people that are only in it for themselves, it`s sickening. Everything should be more transparent and designed to protect the consumer, not just take their money. As far as reco, crea etc goes, they are a typical governing body. It`s a boys club and you (and I) are not in it. I know a lot of realtors and can count on 1 hand how many put ethics first. It`s a pathetic industry full of dishonest crooks with a few good ones sprinkled in.

Yep... Definitely happened to me! So frustrating.

Always buy and sell without an agent. Find homes sold by owner by driving around and asking friends and coworkers.

don't understand why sellers still use agents in a hot market,I bought and sold privately and saved a fortune, though agents try to scare you

I'll never use an agent again to sell my house, especially in this market.

I’m so glad my partner had a family friend as a realtor. She bent over backwards to find us the best deal took us to so many homes even for sale by owner homes

I am so glad that the lady was able to sell her house without the agents.

This is why no one trust realtors.

It’s not a service industry. It’s a “ ME” Industry. Florida Realtor, I’m beginning to see more & more reason as to why agents are failing their first 2/3 years of the business. Greedy , selfish, miserable, egotistical , prideful people.

Good love every minute of this. Thank you !!

Also, watch out for those realters who offer to get you a discount on inspection and a lawyer. They are all in it together. I was caught out there like that. The lawyer was shady. Wouldn't even answer simple questions whenever I called about different things and kept saying I will find out at closing. The inspector spent about 10 mins in my home and come to find out the roof was bad, bubbling and began leaking less than a month after moving in. Never again.

I’ve sold homes from $9,000 to 2.5 million and treat all my clients the same. It doesn’t matter about the commission, just want my clients to have a less stressful home buying/selling experience with no regrets.

I hope action is being taken on those that are being unethical

5:54 Wow, I'm so glad this guy mentioned this is a home. I thought it was an empty lot but now I know better.

Super informative! Thank you

Now that was good investigating reporting. DO MORE.

I would love the name of the first realtor, he looks like he actual wants to sell people a home they want.

In Manitoba, it's worse than that. Here the agents from many different agencies, get together and have an open house, with all buyers seeing the house at the same time, then they brake off in groups and start a bidding war, jacking up the price, right before your eyes, with no conditions allowed!... My daughter was in the market for a bigger home, she saw 12 different homes and the same thing was going on, bidding wars, with ALL the homes being sold $20-30,000 over asking prices, with a young couple there is NO chance of competing with that!... I myself was in Real Estate for 3 years and in every case, if you had an offer to purchase, the listing agent was responsible for taking the offer and proceeding to sell the house to the person putting in the offer, that is the law in Manitoba, every offer needs to be presented to the owner, in a timely manner!... What we have here, is the agents getting together to jack up the price and strip any conditions for the owner having to deal with, before the new owner takes possession of the property! They are also responsible for disclosing any problems with the property, cracks in foundation, flooding, roof leaks that sort of thing, but now you get what you see and forget the rest!... This needs to STOP and help the new people starting off in the home owner world, but what you see here is, everyone in it for the money, who cares about the owner or the buyer any more NO ONE, not even the government who has allowed foreign governments and companies to rise the housing markets in Canada, for future sales to go too their own ethnic group of the population, through banks set up from foreign countries to supply their ethnic group an upper hand on the rest of the population, along with interest free mortgages, no money down or even no payments for the first 6 months, not even our own Canadian banking system, will never offer that option to anyone in Canada, not even Trudeau's government!!!

I would be a hustler if I was an agent. I wouldn't mind getting paid $14,000 for selling someone's house. These agents are so greedy!

Sold my home by myself, cost me less than $1000, in 3 weeks. Realtors kept calling me, telling me I won’t have success like they would because I didn’t have the market knowledge. I was a 28 year old machinist. If I can do it so can most home owners. Save a ton of money by doing your own research on the market and how to prepare your house. Sure it takes hours, so what. Calculate saving 30-60,000 by how many hours it takes. Its a zillion times more per hour than what they make at their job. Too many dishonest realtors charging way too much and are largely responsible for jacking up the housing prices in the last few decades to the point where the average Canadian middle class can’t afford them anymore.

Realtors and agencies are worse than used car salesman at their junk car lot....

Love that pieces like this will tout the amazing benefits of another system but none of their negatives.

I am wondering does this practice happen in the USA? This almost sounds like organized crime. I would say this should be stopped right now!