Fees and Compensation
How We Get Paid — and What You Get for It
Real numbers, on this page, before you have to ask. Reading it doesn’t obligate you to anything.
Jump to the part that applies to you
The Plain Answer
Most agents will tell you what they charge when you ask. We’d rather you didn’t have to ask.
If you’re selling, you pick from three marketing programs. You’ll know the number before you sign anything, and you’ll know what each program actually does for your home.
If you’re buying, you’ll sign an agreement stating what we’re paid before we tour a home together. That agreement is between you and us — so on paper, you’re the one agreeing to pay. In most transactions we’re seeing, the seller still covers it. We won’t know for certain until we ask in the offer, so we settle how we’re handling it before that offer goes out.
That’s the short version. The rest of this page is the long one.
What Changed in 2024
Until August 2024, the seller’s agent published an offer of compensation to the buyer’s agent in the MLS. It was handled between brokerages, and most buyers never saw a number at all.
That’s over. Offers of compensation are no longer published in the MLS. Buyer’s agent compensation is now negotiated separately, and buyers sign a written agreement stating what their agent is paid before they tour a home.
We don’t make exceptions to that. If one of us is showing a home to a family member, they sign the agreement before we open the door. Same form, same conversation.
We think it’s a good change. It was always a little strange that the person making the largest financial decision of their life was the only one in the room who didn’t know what everyone was being paid.
Commissions are not set by law, and never have been. Every number on this page is negotiable.
For Buyers
If You’re Buying
The agreement
Before we walk through a home together, you’ll sign a buyer representation agreement. In California it’s the law — since January 2025 every licensed agent needs one signed with you. And any agent working through the MLS, anywhere in the country, needs one before touring a home. We do ours before we tour, without exceptions. Here’s what’s actually in it.
What it says. What we’re paid, who pays it, how long the agreement runs, and what we’re agreeing to do for you.
What it commits you to. Working with us for the homes and time period you agree to. Not forever, and not for every home in the county unless you want it that way.
What it doesn’t commit you to. Buying anything.
What’s negotiable. All of it. The amount, the length, the geography, and the terms. If something in it doesn’t work for you, say so — that’s what the conversation is for.
What we’re paid
Negotiable, and it depends on what you actually need from us.
A buyer who’s already found the house and needs us to write and negotiate the deal isn’t asking for the same thing as a buyer starting from scratch in a market they don’t know yet. The number reflects that. Whatever we land on goes in writing before we tour anything, so nothing about it is a surprise later.
What moves it:
- How much of the search we’re doing
- Whether you’re selling with us too
- Price point
- Whether you came to us through another agent or brokerage referral — a portion of what we’re paid goes to the agent who sent you
- Whether a past client sent you
- How specific or difficult the search is
Who actually pays it
On paper, you do — the agreement is between you and us. In practice, in most transactions we’re seeing, the seller still contributes, and it comes out of the sale proceeds at closing rather than out of your pocket. That didn’t go away in 2024. What went away is it being automatic and invisible.
When the seller covers it in full, it’s handled at closing and costs you nothing out of pocket.
Here’s the part most people don’t expect. Because compensation isn’t published anymore, we usually can’t look up what a seller will do. We ask the listing agent up front, and sometimes they’ll tell us. Often they won’t — and then we find out the same way you do, when the counteroffer comes back.
So what we settle before you write isn’t the answer. It’s the plan.
Before your offer goes out, we’ll agree on what we’re asking the seller to contribute and what we do if they come back lower or strike it entirely. Then when that counteroffer lands, you’re not making a new decision under pressure. You’re carrying out one you already made, with a clear head, before you were emotionally attached to the house.
Most of the time it gets solved right there in the negotiation — the same way a closing cost credit or a repair request does. When it doesn’t, your options are the ones we already walked through: whether the difference comes out of what we agreed to, whether it makes more sense to push harder on price instead, or whether this particular house is worth covering it for.
What won’t happen is you finding out about a gap at the closing table.
Your win is our win. We’re paid at closing, once we’ve found you the right home.
What you’re actually paying for
We know the listing agents. We’ve worked across the table from most of them. How someone negotiates, what their seller responded to last time, whether they’ll tell us where the seller actually stands — none of that is in the MLS, and it changes how we write your offer.
We look at what the seller paid, and when. Public records show the purchase price and the tax assessment. A seller who bought in 2013 has room that a seller who bought in 2023 doesn’t. That’s leverage, and it costs nothing to find.
You see listings when they hit, not when a portal decides to show you. Direct MLS access set up around your criteria — and we send you things you didn’t ask for when they fit anyway.
Someone can show you a home today. We keep a showing specialist on call, so you’re not waiting on one person’s calendar in a market where a day decides it.
We tell you what closing actually costs before you write an offer. Typically 2–4% of the loan amount on top of your down payment — title, escrow, appraisal, prepaid taxes and insurance. Most buyers hear that number for the first time at signing.
We tell you how long each kind of sale really takes. A traditional sale runs 30–60 days. Bank-owned is similar, but sold as-is. A short sale can take four months or more. New construction can take six. Knowing that before you fall for a listing is the difference between a plan and a scramble.
None of that changes what we’re paid. It changes what you pay for the house.
Can you cancel?
Yes. If it isn’t working, tell us and we’ll release you. We’ve never seen the point of holding someone to a piece of paper they’ve stopped believing in.
We’d ask one thing, and it isn’t a condition: tell us what we’re getting wrong first, and give us a chance to fix it. Usually it’s fixable — we’re sending you the wrong homes, we’re not moving fast enough, we’ve misread what you can live with. If you’d rather just be finished, that’s your call, and we won’t make it difficult.
That’s the buyer side in full. What follows is the seller side — if that isn’t you, skip ahead to the questions people actually ask.
Want this applied to your own search?
No pressure. No obligation.
For Sellers
If You’re Selling
Our Flexible Marketing Fee Program
We don’t have one number. We have three programs, and you pick the one that fits what your home actually needs. Each one shows you the fee and exactly what it buys. What you pay comes in two lines, and you control the second one.
Premium
2.5%
$495 coordination fee, at closing
That’s line one of two. The second is concessions to the buyer — and that one’s yours to decide.
For a home that will sell on its own merits once it’s priced right and photographed well.
What’s included
- Professional photography
- Full MLS listing, sent out to the major home-search sites
- Our Coming Soon program
- Pricing analysis prepared by hand — not an automated estimate
- Yard signage and lockbox
- Showing coordination and feedback follow-up
- Offer review, negotiation, and escrow management through closing
Concessions can include what you offer a buyer’s agent, if anything — negotiated when an offer comes in, and explained just below.
Elite
3.5%
Coordination fee included
That’s line one of two. The second is concessions to the buyer — and that one’s yours to decide.
Most sellers choose this
For a home that needs to be found by buyers who weren’t already looking for it.
Everything in Premium, plus
- Targeted digital marketing on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok
- Video walkthrough of your home
- A digital property brochure you can send by text or email
- Launch open house
- Exposure through the Keller Williams listing network
- Search optimization on your property page
Concessions can include what you offer a buyer’s agent, if anything — negotiated when an offer comes in, and explained just below.
Certified Pre-Owned
4.0%
Coordination fee included
That’s line one of two. The second is concessions to the buyer — and that one’s yours to decide.
For a seller who wants the home to answer buyers’ questions before they ask them.
Everything in Elite, plus
- Certified Pre-Owned package — a pre-inspection, a staging assessment, and a home warranty at closing
- The warranty covers the buyer for the first year — so a system that fails in month two is a call to the warranty company, not a call to you
- A printed, multi-page property brochure built around the inspection summary and the warranty
- And we market it that way — pre-inspected and warranty-included in the listing remarks, the ads, and at the open house
Concessions can include what you offer a buyer’s agent, if anything — negotiated when an offer comes in, and explained just below.
What you’ll actually pay
Two lines, and you control the second one.
The first is our marketing fee, set by the level of marketing your home needs. We’ll recommend a program once we’ve seen the property, your price point, and what you’re competing with — the choice stays yours.
The second is concessions to the buyer: anything you agree to give the buyer’s side to get the deal done. Almost none of it is settled before your home goes on the market. It gets negotiated, in two stages.
At the offer and counteroffer. This is where the buyer’s agent compensation is actually decided, along with any credit toward the buyer’s closing costs. Before we list, we’ll talk through what you’d consider — so you’re not deciding under pressure with a contract in front of you — but nothing is committed until there’s an offer to answer.
During the inspection contingency. After the buyer’s inspection they may come back with a repair request. That’s usually settled as a credit in lieu of repairs rather than work done before closing. It’s the last piece of the second line, and it’s the one sellers least expect.
You are not obligated to offer anything.
Under the old rules those were bundled together and you never saw the split. Now you see both. It’s the same money moving the same direction; you just watch it get assembled instead of arriving as a single figure. We think that’s better, even though two numbers can feel like more than one did.
When we sit down, we’ll put your actual figures on paper — our marketing fee, your concessions to the buyer, and what each one does to your net and to how many buyers see your home. One number at the bottom, and you’ll know how it got there.
What moves the number. How much marketing your home needs to sell for top dollar. That’s it. It isn’t a negotiation about what we’re worth — it’s a decision about how much marketing to put behind your property.
What doesn’t move. The work underneath. Whichever program you choose, you get professional photography, a pricing analysis prepared by hand by one of us, and the same people negotiating your contract. The marketing scales. The representation doesn’t.
The transaction coordination fee
This covers transaction coordination, MLS input, and photography — the hard costs of running your file. We’d rather show it as a line item than fold it into a percentage and call it a rounding error.
It works differently depending on the program you pick:
Premium — $495, charged at closing. It comes out of proceeds, not your pocket, and not until the house sells.
Elite — included. Nothing separate to pay.
Certified Pre-Owned — included. There’s no coordination fee on this program either. What’s different is that we pay for the pre-inspection while your home is still on the market, before anyone knows whether it sells. Here’s how that works.
- If the house sells, there’s nothing separate to settle — the warranty is purchased at closing, and the pre-inspection is on us.
- If you cancel and take the home off the market, we bill our actual out-of-pocket costs to that point — itemized, and never more than $995. In practice that’s the pre-inspection. We did that work at your request. We won’t charge you for work we haven’t done.
If it isn’t working
You can cancel. If it isn’t working, you’re not stuck with us. What you’d owe is exactly what’s above — nothing on Premium or Elite, and on Certified Pre-Owned the costs we’d already spent on your behalf.
We’d ask one thing, and it isn’t a condition of anything: tell us what we’re getting wrong, and give us a chance to fix it. More often than not it’s something we can correct inside a week — the price, the photography, showing feedback we haven’t acted on. If you’d rather just be finished, that’s your call, and we won’t make it difficult.
Your separate decision: concessions to the buyer
Since 2024, what you contribute to the buyer’s side is your call, negotiated separately from what you pay us. It covers two things: what you offer the buyer’s agent, and any credit you give the buyer — toward closing costs, or in lieu of repairs after the inspection.
You are not obligated to offer anything.
You should also know what the choice does. Offering nothing narrows your buyer pool — some buyers can’t cover their agent out of pocket on top of a down payment and closing costs, so they don’t tour homes where it’s an open question. Offering something widens the pool but reduces your net.
There’s no universal right answer. It depends on your price point, your timeline, and what’s happening in your neighborhood right now. We’ll have that conversation before we list, so you know your position going in — but the number itself is settled when an offer is in front of you, not before. We’ll bring you the actual figures and you’ll decide.
Want these numbers run on your home?
No pressure. No obligation.
From Luc and Stephenie
We’d rather lose a listing than take one at a price we can’t defend. If the numbers say wait six months, we’ll tell you to wait six months, and we’ll show you the math we used to get there.
We tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. That’s cost us business. It’s also why most of our work comes from people we already sold a house for, or from someone they told about us.
— Luc and Stephenie DeBonis
For Sellers
What the Work Actually Is
We built a checklist years ago because we kept finding the same things falling through cracks. It’s called 151 Steps to the Closing Table, and it’s why your file doesn’t depend on which one of us happens to pick up the phone.
Some of what’s on it:
Before we ever talk price, we look at the homes that aren’t selling. Most pricing analysis only looks at what sold. We also go through what’s sitting on the market in your neighborhood, and what expired without selling, and work out why. The failures tell you more than the successes.
We call the agents on your comparable sales. Those are the recent nearby sales your price gets built from — you’ll hear them called comps. The MLS tells you what a house closed for. The agent who sold it tells you what actually happened — how many price cuts, what fell out of escrow, what credits came off at the end that never show up in the closing number.
You get a full net-proceeds estimate at the listing appointment. Not a price. Approximately what you’d walk away with, after everything. Before you sign anything. Our home value estimator is a starting point; this is the real one, and a person prepares it.
When the appraiser shows up, we hand them the sales we priced from. Small thing. Saves deals.
We coordinate your close with your next purchase, and we hand off the keys, the pool key, the mailbox key, and which day the trash goes out.
Most of what you’re paying for is unglamorous — ordering the right disclosure early so escrow doesn’t stall, catching an appraisal problem in week one instead of week four. Not the sign in the yard.
Over the last 12 months, our sellers’ homes closed at 99% of asking price.
Fees and Compensation FAQ
Questions People Actually Ask
Do I have to pay my agent as a buyer?
Technically, yes. The agreement is between you and us, so you’re the one agreeing to pay. In practice, in most transactions we’re seeing right now, the seller still contributes — it’s negotiated as part of your offer and comes out of the sale at closing rather than out of your pocket. That’s the common outcome, not a guarantee. Since it isn’t published anymore, we usually don’t know a seller’s position until we ask in the offer, so we settle how we’re handling it before that offer goes out.
Who pays the buyer’s agent in California?
On paper, the buyer does. In practice it’s negotiated into the offer, and most often the seller contributes at closing out of sale proceeds. Sometimes they contribute part. Occasionally nothing, and it becomes part of what you’re negotiating on price.
Do I have to sign an agreement before I can see homes?
Yes. In California it’s the law for every licensed agent, and it’s the rule for any agent working through the MLS anywhere in the country — it isn’t something we came up with. We do it before we tour, and we don’t make exceptions, including for our own family. The terms — amount, length, and geography — are negotiable, and we’ll go through it line by line before you sign.
Is your commission negotiable?
Yes. Commissions are not set by law and never have been. For sellers, the three marketing programs are the structured version of that flexibility. For buyers, it depends on what you need from us, and we settle it in writing before we tour anything.
What if the seller won’t cover my agent’s fee?
Usually it becomes part of what we’re negotiating — we ask the seller to contribute toward it in your offer, the same as a closing cost credit. Because it isn’t published anymore, we often won’t know their answer until the counteroffer comes back. So before your offer goes out we agree on what we’re asking for and what we do if they say no, including whether pushing harder on price makes more sense. You won’t find out about a gap at the closing table.
Can I cancel if it isn’t working out?
Yes. Tell us and we’ll release you.
Why does your fee change from one seller to another?
Because homes need different amounts of marketing. A home that sells in a week with good photos doesn’t need what a harder property needs. The service is the same either way — the marketing scales.
What’s the transaction coordination fee for?
Transaction coordination, MLS input, and photography — the actual costs of running your file, shown as a line item instead of hidden in a percentage. It’s $495 at closing on Premium, and included with Elite and Certified Pre-Owned. Nothing is due up front on any of them.
What happens to the fee if I cancel?
On Premium and Elite, nothing — the fee is billed at closing, so if there’s no closing there’s no fee. On Certified Pre-Owned we’ve already paid for the pre-inspection, so if you take the home off the market we bill that actual cost, itemized, and never more than $995. The home warranty is purchased at closing, so if there’s no closing there’s nothing to reimburse. And if you’re thinking about it, tell us what’s going wrong first — we’d rather fix it than lose you, but it’s your call either way.
What are concessions to the buyer?
Anything you agree to give the buyer’s side to get the deal done. You’ll also hear it called seller concessions — same money. It covers three things: what you offer the buyer’s agent, a credit toward the buyer’s closing costs, and a credit in lieu of repairs. The first two are negotiated at the offer and counteroffer. The third comes up during the inspection contingency, after the buyer’s inspection. All of it comes out of your proceeds at closing, and none of it is required.
Want the version that applies to your situation?
Tell us what you’re planning and we’ll prepare the figures for your situation — our fee, what it covers, and approximately where you’d land at closing. In writing, before you commit to anything.
No pressure. No obligation. Just a clear plan.
DeBonis Real Estate Team | Keller Williams Redlands | DRE# 01996590
1473 Ford St #200, Redlands, CA 92373 | (951) 203-4426
A Family—Moving Families
