When I saw the headline for this story, I thought of the story the other day, about Brokers PAYING to list a house! I said to myself, "Now what? One minute we are paying for listings, the next we are asking for retainers." But, for someone that is doing a lot of buyer representation, this may just be the way to go. How many times have we had people out looking and looking, only not to hear from them again after the third or fourth weekend, sometimes at some significant expense on our part? I think, in the long run, it may work. But in communities where the Realtor competition is keen, the first ad you'll see is, "We don't charge you to look!" or something along those lines. This type of situation would be perfect for a broker working his own shop, with few, if any, sales personnel. The customer would get the benefit of seeing more than the what is in the MLS, and would possible encourage the Broker to go that one step further for his retained client, opening the market up for both buyers and sellers. But change comes hard.....

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