How many times have you professionally represented your buyer or seller and come close to an agreement only to have poor representation by another agent kill the deal?  Unfortunately, most negotiations that fall apart do so because of lack of experience or competence on the part of one of the two agents involved in the transaction.

At first blush, it might appear as though you have no control over another agent.  From a practical standpoint, you do.  If you’re skilled at crafting arguments for your client, why not take the extra time crafting arguments for the agent representing the other side of the transaction?  You may ask yourself, “why should I do the work for another agent when they’re getting the same commission amount?” The alternative is to do half the work, and get nothing because the deal falls apart.  Consider the following options:

1. You present an offer for a $500,000 property with a 3% commission paid to each side. You’ve done a great job preparing your buyer and they recognize the recent appreciation so it’s reasonable for them to pay above the market value of the property.  The seller’s agent, however, has done a poor job managing the seller’s expectation and the seller refuses to lower their unreasonably high listing price.  The result: negotiations fall apart and you get nothing! 
2. The same scenario as above, but instead of accepting the poor performance on the part of the other agent, you spend several hours justifying your buyer’s offer in writing. You give the written argument to the other agent and strongly encourage them to sell it with their seller.  The result: the seller doesn’t like the argument, but lower’s his price and the price is agreed to by both parties.  Your compelling arguments closed both the buyer and seller and you get paid 3% for representing the buyer. 

In the above examples, it’s better to do all of the work and get paid 3%, than it is to do half of the work, and get paid nothing!