By rule and industry standards, commissions are negotiable for all parties. However, in practice,
commissions in California are usually 5% of the total sales price. As an example, a home selling for
$1,000,000 would cost the parties $50,000. This is deducted at closing and paid to the agents – usually
50/50.

In theory, an agent charging a commission should be able to get you a higher price than the cost of the
commission – or a lower price for the buyer to offset the commission. In practice however, this is rarely
the case. In our opinion, agents are rarely able to outperform their commissions. Home valuations are
readily available online and there is so much information available to all parties, that most homes sell
for prices that are very predictable – no matter who the agent is.

Yes, absolutely. You will often hear agents say that buyers don’t pay a commission – implying there is
no cost to using an agent for the buyer. This is, of course, not true. The commission is distributed from
the seller’s share of the proceeds – however those proceeds are funded by the buyer! The buyer’s
downpayment and mortgage fund the seller’s share. The cost of the commission is passed on to the
buyer through the total sales price.

Absolutely. One of the reasons that home ownership is often unattainable in California is because of the
repeated, embedded costs of agent commissions. Home prices have skyrocketed over the past 20 years
– and yet agents still change substantially the same amount they did in the past. Every time a home is
bought and sold in California, the 5-6% commission becomes embedded in the price. Over the years,
this embedded cost has over inflated home prices to becoming almost unattainable.

At Hummingbird, we believe that the residential real estate market is a transparent and efficient market
– meaning that the prices that most homes can be bought and sold at are highly predictable and
unchanged by the agents representing the parties. Therefore, the best way to serve our clients is to
charge significantly reduced fees while providing exceptional client service. We charge 60% less than
almost every other agent in California – and provide the same or better service.
See our savings calculator to check your savings and call us today.

Most real estate agents spend their time and money on one thing – marketing.
This is why you see so many advertisements for real estate agents and direct
mailing. There are also dozen’s of companies selling your information in the form
of “leads” to agents. These lead companies are expensive and intrusive. At
Hummingbird Properties, we don’t use those expensive services – so we are able

to focus 100% of our time and energy on our clients and studying the real estate
market. We pass these savings on to our clients.