---
title: "The realtor's commission should be paid by the landlord!"
author: "Stan Voo"
url: https://www.99rabbits.com/blog/the-landlord-should-pay-the-realtors-commission
published: 2009-06-14
summary: "The agent finds tenants, shows the place and fields the calls, all for the owner. So why does the tenant pay his fee?"
---

# The realtor's commission should be paid by the landlord!

Look: say I'm looking for an office to rent, right?

I call the numbers in the ads, and almost everywhere it's agents who answer, not owners.

Why? Because property owners usually hand the letting over to their agents. What's in it for them?

1. The agent runs around (rings around) the classified-ad papers;
2. The agent shows the premises to prospective tenants (buyers) several times a day;
3. The agent answers a pile of calls from the merely curious.

So the agent performs some useful functions. But useful for whom? For the property owner.

Moving on...

I turn up, the tenant, wanting to rent a place for some kind of legal activity. We agree on the price and the terms and (attention, here comes the trick) on **the price I'll pay the agent**.

And now, the question! What good has the agent done me, the buyer, that I pay him, as a rule, 50% of a month's rent? So the agent works for the property owner, and his wages are paid by the tenants?

It's fair to assume that **the commission should be paid by whoever gets the income**, not the other way round.

Having thought all this through, I've come to the conclusion that the rules of the game in this business need to change into something more sensible. All the more so because now is exactly the right time: the property market has turned from a seller's market into a buyer's market, where supply far exceeds demand. In a market like that, it's the buyer (the tenant) who has the "power".

The only thing missing is some kind of consolidated response from buyers, some kind of action. I think we could start with articles in the media, and from there the shift in emphasis won't be far off.