This one has me a little confused….
Boston Condos for Sale
This one has me a little confused….
Kirsten Ganas was ready to fire her real estate agent.
It was late March, right in the thick of homebuying season in southwest Pennsylvania. Ganas and her partner, Austin McCarley, had recently learned they were expecting their second child, and they were thrilled at the prospect of upgrading from their two-bedroom rental.
They were less enthused, however, about the services provided by their agent, Dan Waterhouse. He’d reached out to them in early January, after they requested their first home tour on Zillow; since then, Waterhouse had shown them roughly two dozen properties.
He was nice but sometimes slow to respond, Ganas says, and he lived far from their desired area — no good in a fast-moving market. Shortly after getting outbid on a property, Ganas texted to let him know they’d be moving on.
There was just one problem. When they met Waterhouse for that first home tour, he’d handed them a couple of documents: standard paperwork, he explained, that they would have to sign before seeing the home together.
One of those documents contained language that exclusively bound the pair to Waterhouse’s brokerage for a year. The only way to terminate that agreement, Waterhouse said, would be to get permission from Rita Sumney, the head of the brokerage.
When Ganas contacted Sumney, she got more bad news: getting out of the agreement would come at a cost. Unless they paid an “early termination fee” or found another brokerage willing to pay Sumney a referral fee, they’d be tied to her brokerage well into January 2027.
If they bought a home any earlier — even without using an agent at all — they’d still owe the full commission they’d agreed to: a flat fee of $995 plus a percentage of the sale price, which would likely amount to thousands of dollars.
“We just got that sick feeling about being stuck in this contract,” Ganas tells me.
Ganas and McCarley had signed a “buyer representation agreement,” a contract outlining the terms of the relationship between buyer and broker. Until just a couple of years ago, this would have been unusual — agents typically waited to hand their client any formal documentation until later in the process. But thanks to a seismic legal settlement in 2024, most agents are now required to get a written agreement before they step through the front door with a client. One broker I spoke with at the time called it “the biggest change in 100 years.”
The new rule was intended to make sure buyers know exactly what they’re signing up for when they enlist an agent. But consumer advocates warn that millions of prospective buyers risk being tethered to inept agents or agreeing to inordinate fees before they’ve had a chance to get a feel for the relationship. In many ways, these contracts are the most tangible byproducts of a settlement designed to shore up consumer protections. Two years in, though, the results are mixed.
“The idea that buyer-broker agreements have to be signed before they show any houses is great,” says Doug Miller, a real estate lawyer in Minnesota who helped craft the class-action lawsuits that led to the settlement. “But the practice of springing this on a consumer at the threshold is amazingly unfair and dishonest.”
This one has me a little confused…..
Harvard University is casting aside Eliot Spitzer’s moral lapses and has invited the scandal-scarred former governor to do a star turn as a speaker today — for the school’s highly esteemed ethics center.
“Client No. 9” will be lecturing as part of a series of talks which aim to “promote philosophical reflection on some of the most challenging ethical issues in public life,” according to the Web site for the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics.
Spitzer’s talk will focus on Uncle Sam’s role on Wall Street.
The idea of the steamy steamroller at an ethics forum has some Ivy Leaguers seeing crimson.
File Under: The ethical way of meeting a call girl
Peace be with you
Ford Realty Menu of Flat Fee Listings for Boston and the North Shore
Buyers receive 60% rebate from our portion of the broker fee
As a home seller, it sounds like you have a solid grasp of the current 2026 landscape for flat-fee listings in the Boston and North Shore areas. Here is a concise breakdown of how those Ford Realty tiers typically function based on the service levels you’ve identified:
1. Basic “Entry Only” – $500.00
- Visibility: Your home is listed on the local MLS, which syndicates to Zillow, Realtor.com, and local brokerage sites.
- Your Role: You are the primary point of contact. You handle photography, scheduling all showings, vetting buyers, and all contract negotiations.
- Best for: Experienced sellers or those comfortable managing real estate paperwork and logistics independently.
2. Flat Fee (Assisted) – Starting at $1,000.00
- The Upgrade: The broker takes professional photos and handles the listing setup.
- Added Support: You gain professional guidance for the initial setup, ensuring the listing looks polished to attract higher-quality leads.
- Broker Role: 60-day listing, one open house per month, schedule day and evening showings. The negative is that the full fee is due after 60 days even if the house/condo doesn’t sell or go under agreement.
3. Full-Service – 1% Commission
- The Full Package: Professional photography and floor plans are included.
- Active Management: The broker hosts one open house per month and handles day/evening showings.
- Logistics: They are physically present for the BFD smoke detector inspection and the home inspection, taking significant stress off your plate.
