How Louisiana Real Estate Agents Get Paid

Whether you would like to sell your home or your are interested in buying one, you’re likely to hire a real estate agent to help you with your transactions.

Based on the reports from National Association of Realtors back in 2013, 9 percent of homeowners on that previous’ year chose to sell their houses without hiring any real estate professional, most of those homeowners are either knew each other already or were related. On the other hand, 99 percent of the home buyers and sellers did hire a real estate professional.

But unlike other employees who get paid at hourly rates or have to present an invoice every end of their project, those who work in the real estate industry get paid every end of a sales transaction.

So if in case a real estate agent in states like Louisiana works with either a seller or a buyer for a certain period of time without resulting in any successful transaction, then they wouldn’t get paid for the weeks or even months that they spend on with the client. Real estate agents in all states earn a commission based on the market price of the house and will only receive it after the deal has been closed.

Commissions are usually covered by the seller themselves. It will be split depending on how many agents the seller worked with. Most people usually get both agent and broker mixed up. Agents are the salesperson who works closely with a professional broker. Both broker and agents are licensed by all states, including Louisiana, in which they actually work.

The broker’s compensation will be included in the listing agreement. Although agent’s rates can still be negotiation and the broker’s compensation only has to be paid as soon as the deal gets closed.

The commission from the sales will actually be split among the agent who worked with the seller, the broker who the listing agent works with, the real estate agent hired by the buyer and the broker for whom that agent actually works.

So let’s say you bought a house worth $300,000 in Baton Rouge with a 6 percent commission rate, the brokers whom the agents work with will get $9,000 each. Both brokers will then split their commissions and give 40 percent of it to the real estate agent.

The only time that commissions will be paid is, after all, the transactions have been settled. However, there will be times when a seller would be held liable for the commission of the broker even if they weren’t able to close the deal. Although this rarely happens, this scenario only occurs of the seller changes their mind and refuses to sell, if someone commits fraud or even demand certain terms that weren’t included in the original listings agreement.