Ethical Homes

Ethical Homes is happy to offer buyers our Discovery Discount, which can save thousands of dollars for homebuyers who have already found a property that they would like to purchase.

We firmly believe that homebuyers who expose themselves to as much of the market as possible usually find the best deals, and since the vast majority of homes in the DC area are listed with Realtors, the most effective way to get that exposure to the entire market is to work with a buyer’s agent who can provide access to all of those Realtor-listed properties.

Even so, buyers can come across properties that they want to purchase before they start working with an agent. Many buyers often “test the water” by visiting open houses before starting their official search for a new home, for example, and some end up seeing a home that they like so much that it jump starts them into the buying process earlier than they expected. Other buyers are purchasing from family or friends, and thus already know exactly the home they want. And some investors find properties through their own networks of leads.

In all of those situations, the buyers are usually still best served by working with a buyer’s agent who can explain the 15-20 pages of contracts that are used in most purchases in the DC area, help them negotiate the best possible deal, and manage the transaction so that the buyer can have a smooth path to settlement without having to quit their own day job in order to coordinate between all of the vendors and parties involved. For those buyers, we offer our Discovery Discount for Buyers program.

The Buyer Agency agreement that we normally use specifies that buyers whom we represent in the purchase of a property will pay us 3% of the purchase price of that property, with any amount that the seller’s agent is offering as a “cooperative commission” being credited against the 3% that our clients owe us; if the seller’s agent is offering a cooperative commission higher than what our clients owe us, we rebate the difference back to our clients. We have to spend about a third less time working with buyers who have already found a property, so our Discovery Discount program allows us to use an alternate agreement that specifies that the buyers will pay us only 2% of the purchase price of the specific property in question; since most seller’s agents in the DC area offer a 3% cooperative commission, this means that most buyers taking advantage of the Discovery Discount get 1% of the purchase price of their new home back at the settlement table. For the typical buyer in the DC area, that translates to a rebate of between $3000 and $5000, which they can use towards their closing costs or (if their mortgage lender allows it) take home as a rebate.

Disclaimer: Commission Examples Are Only Examples

Want to know more about our Discovery Discount for Buyers? Contact us and we’d be glad to explain all of the details.