Matthew Maschler:
Welcome to the Real Estate Finder Podcast. I’m Matthew Maschler, real estate broker with the signature real estate companies here in the great state of Florida. And I am here today to talk to you about, um, two different topics, um, questions that people ask me in response to the newsletter. Um, two different issues that come up sometimes in, um, in real estate. Uh, one thing I want to say is, uh, there’s some confusion. People ask me, uh, what has to go onto a real estate ad, right? If you’re advertising a house, uh, do you need your name, phone number, address? Um, so according to the Florida, uh, real estate licensing laws, when you have a real estate ad, the only piece of information that is absolutely required is the name of the brokerage firm. So if you work for signature real Estate Finder, you need to put signature real estate finder on the ad.
You do not need the address of the office. You don’t need the personal name of the broker, you don’t need a phone number. Uh, you don’t need your name as a sales associate. Obviously, if you include your name, you have to include your whole name. Uh, you can include your address and phone number, et cetera. But when you are doing, um, your ads, you must, must, must include the name of your real estate brokerage. Now, a new uh, rule came out, uh, because people were confused by this, not people being agents, but sometimes customers, right? If somebody puts the Matthew team on their ad, um, the question becomes is that the broker? So to avoid any confusion and to strengthen the rule that you need your broker’s name on it, uh, they made a rule that if you’re in a team, you know, if you’re in a team or a group, um, your team name or group name can’t be larger than the name of the brokerage firm.
So anyone out there that’s on a team or starting a team, you gotta be very, very cam careful. You can’t be the, the, the five star team and then put in really small letters, signature real estate finder. Okay? So that’s one thing. Alright? Another thing, when you’re entering a listing, um, or when you take a listing, right? Sometimes the, uh, seller will say to you, can I pay you less if you bring the buyer? So, you know, some sellers think that it’s less work if, if, if you bring the buyer to me, I never like that because I, what’s the point of hiring me if you don’t want me to market your property to my buyers? Right? It’s one thing if you put the property in the multiple listing service and another agent comes with their buyer. So if, if, if you’re paying me 6%, another agent comes with their buyer, I have to pay that agent 3%, and then I keep the remaining 3% of the 6%.
But if you say to me, well, Matt, you shouldn’t keep the whole 6% if you bring your buyer. Well, if I go to 5%, then I’m gonna lose 1% if I sell the property to my buyer. So now you are gonna tell me that if I have a buyer, you want me to take it to your competitor, right? I’ll take my buyer to the house down the street where I get the whole 3%. Why would you want me to do that? You’d want me to encourage me to spend money and marketing money. ’cause I’m hoping to bring my buyer. That is my intent. Um, and that’s why I’m gonna spend so much money, um, to attract buyers to your property. It’s what you’re hiring me for. Why would you penalize me for, for doing my job? But if you’re in a situation where you do, um, make an agreement to charge less, if you bring your buyer, you have to make sure you put that in the multiple listing service agents.
There’s a spot called a variable dual rate variable or dual rate. Um, and it says yes or no. And what that means is, if I’m getting 6%, um, but 5%, if I bring my own buyer, that means if I bring my own buyer, my seller will net more money on two identical offers, one from me and one from my competitor. So my seller will be incentivized to take my offer and not another agent’s offer. So that puts the, the other agent’s buyer on an unfair footing. It gives me an unfair advantage, uh, to, to get my buyer’s approval. My buyer’s offer approved because the seller’s gonna make more money with my buyer. So I have to alert the cooperating agents out there that if they bring a buyer, uh, there’s a chance that, uh, uh, the, uh, a similar offer from my buyer, uh, would, uh, be accepted over theirs.
And that’s the variable rate or the dual rate. So you put yes in the multiple listing service. Um, there’s some confusion out of that. Uh, some people think, some people think that if the commission isn’t split evenly between the buyer and the seller, that’s what that means. And it’s, it doesn’t. So if I take a listing at 6% and I keep four point a half percent, and I only offer one point a half percent in the m l s or the opposite, I I’m gonna keep 2%, but I’m gonna offer 4% in the m l s. People think that is, uh, what variable dual rate means. And that is not what it means. That does not have to be dis disclosed. It is no one’s business what the listing agent is charging the seller. You know, it’s only, uh, what the listing agent is offering to a cooperating agent.
Uh, that’s anyone’s business. So that is not variable dual rate where the buyer and the seller get an unequal amount, okay? That is something else. So variable dual rate has to be disclosed. And also if the other agent asks you what the deal is, you have to tell them, um, there’s no reason that they would ask other than they’re preparing an offer for their customer. But they want to know, they wanna be prepared that if they bring an offer, if, and they want their offer to be competitive with my buyer’s offer, uh, they need to know what the difference is. The net effect to the seller will be. And that’s why that other thing that I described isn’t disclosable in the M l Ss. It doesn’t make a difference to the seller. Nothing changes, uh, variable due rate, um, means that the seller will pay different amounts in different circumstances.
So I wanted to clear up, uh, those two things. What other questions do you have for me, um, about, uh, real estate? You can email me, matt@realestatefinder.com or on, on social media. You could reach out to me. Um, we talked about, um, two things today, the dual or variable rate commissions and, and the required information that’s needs to be in a real estate ad. The name of the brokerage firm. And if you’re on a team, the name of the brokerage firm has to be at least as big. If not bigger, then the team name. All righty. All right. All right. Thank you for joining us on the Real Estate Finder podcast. It is a short episode today. Um, so we will, uh, see you soon.
Speaker 3:
The future looks bright and the storms pass by the sky’s dog. Blue when it’s almost at time, light shows cameras flash when I pass. Living in the moment. Forget about the past. They saved the best for last Matthew Mania. We about to make a splash. Life is a marathon full of sharp turns, gotta keep pace while the hands on the clock turns high stakes. Five star. I run a show. You can tell the boss, center plate electricity energy. If I’m always on time, even if I’m late, I make dreams come true. Living my life. Hope the same for you. Success. My sights got a real clear view. If you know the time, I’ll give you a clue.
Speaker 4:
You know, it’s time. You know it’s time. You know it’s time. It’s, you know, it’s time. You know it’s on. You know what sound is, you know, it’s on. You know, it’s on. You know what? It’s, you know, it’s, you know what, you
Speaker 3:
Know what time it is. You know what time it’s, you know whose time it’s, you know what time. You know what time. You know time. You know what time it, yeah. Got him shut. Scared. Can’t look. We’re not afraid of the big bad wolf.
