What is a Realtor^®

A Brief Explanation

So, what is a Realtor^® ? If you are for sale by owner, they will come!

They will phone, ring your bell, attend your open houses, drop flyers in your mail box and badger you to list your house with their real estate agencies.

They have a mission. The mission is to list your house.

You have a mission. Your mission is to sell your house for sale by owner.

Clarification

If you will bear with me for a moment, I'd like to explain something about what is a Realtor^® . Over and over you will see the word "realtor" used, especially on websites.

The main purpose of this page on what is a Realtor^® , is to educate you the for sale by owner, on the reason this is wrong.

If you are already aware of the difference between Realtor^® , "realtor", real estate agents and real estate salespeople, please continue past this section to the next lesson.

In United States and Canada the above words actually refer to different groups of people. Let me explain.

* Realtors^® - These people are members of NAR (National Association of Realtor^® ) in the United States, or members of CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association) in Canada.

As members, they have made a commitment to follow a set of rules and regulations, both professional and ethical. Are the rules followed by most Realtor^® ? More on that later.

- The word Realtor^® is a registered trademark that should always be either be spelled REALTOR^® or Realtor^® . Using just the capitol R is acceptable at least in Canada last time I checked.

* realtor - The improper use of the registered trademark word Realtor^® . You may notice on this website I refer to all people that sell real estate for a living as real estate agents, or real estate salespeople.

This page is the exception. All Realtors^® are real estate sales people but, not all real estate agents or salespeople, are Realtors^®

* real estate salespeople - All people that have a real estate license to sell real property and are either a licensed broker therefore with one of the real estate "agencies", or sell real estate under a licensed broker.

* real estate agent - This is a bit murky as the term is also thrown around loosely. I'm not sure for the United States or other countries but, it was decided in Canada that the term real estate agent was reserved for those that held the broker license with one of the real estate agencies.

All other salespeople that worked under that broker license were actually referred to as, real estate salespeople.

Now that I have totally bored most of you, about what is a Realtor^® :-) let's move on to more important matters shall we?

One more thing about what is a Realtor^® OK? I've noticed in many other countries around the world, that they also use the word Realtor^® , often spelled "realtor", to describe a licensed real estate sales person.

I have no idea if these countries have their own associations like NAR or CREA, so I will not attempt to step into that area.

Don't Shoot Yourself in the Foot!

We will be covering many more lessons after this page on what is a Realtor^® but lets start here with a common error that for sale by owners sometimes make. Here it is folks.

* Don't be nasty to those real estate salespeople!

- You may have had a bad experience in the past.

- You may be annoyed because everyday they are approaching you to list with them.

- It don't matter. Be nice! You may be able to use one of them later to your advantage.

Hey, if I can do it, you can do it. Don't know what I'm talking about? Go to From what is a Realtor^® to Read My Story

Being nasty to real estate salespeople accomplishes nothing and may hurt you later.

You are Still in Control

Just because you are nice to the real estate salespeople that come calling, doesn't mean you have to co-operate with them.

Here are a couple ideas of what you might say.

* Thank you for stopping by Linda, I'll keep your card handy in case I need you. In the meantime, we plan on selling for sale by owner.

* Thank you for stopping by Linda, If you have an interested buyer to show our house to, I'm sure we could work something out.

* Thank you for stopping by Linda but if we do list, we will be listing with my brother Sid. In the meantime if you have a buyer, we'd be happy to try and work something out with you.

You could change those up in your own way for your own situation, but you get the idea, be nice......and smile.

A Lesson on Real Estate Commissions

* Real estate commissions are Negotiable

* A single office or real estate agency can set a commission rate that all salespeople in that system shall adhere to.

* Two or more real estate agencies may Not set a commission rate between them.

To clarify, lets use some examples of the above.

A) If Henry from ABC Realty tells you that he charges 6% commission and is not allowed to negotiate from that and his office does not have that policy in place, Henry is just a big fat liar.

B) If ABC Realty has a policy that all their salespeople will charge a 6% commission unless they have permission from their broker to do otherwise, ABC Realty is completely in their right to do so and have therefore not broken any laws under the Competitions Act.

C) If ABC Realty, XYZ Realty, DoeRayMe Realty and WeSellEveryHouse Realty have a meeting and decide collectively to establish a set commission rate of 6% with no negotiability, they are in deep trouble if this is reported and proven.

This is also known as price fixing.

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