"bat" wrote in news:cm2Tb.200170$xy6.1027463@attbi_s02:

M Any advice or perspective would be greatly appreciated.
M Thanks very much for any help,

I don't see why you are so shy to tell the agent what you feel is fair
amount. The agreement was oral; there's nothing in writing; he feels
it should be 50% of the normal commission; you feel differently. Why
not to sit down and settle on some middle ground. His position is no
better than yours, as far as there was no written agreement.

I'm also surprised that you make that arrangement at all. In Illinois
the buyer usually does not pay the agent anything, it's the seller who
does (through his agent, sho shares the commission). When I was buying
a property one year ago, I worked with several agents, each showed me
several properties, but eventually I bought just one, and only one
agent got his commission - from the seller; not a penny from me. It's
their normal way of work, and they are prepared for the fact that not
every perspective buyer becomes a real one. I'm sure that if tomorrow
I want to buy another property, they all will be happy to work with me
again. With this in mind, the arrangement that you pay him even if you
indeed buy the property he found, looks unfair (most likely, he would
get the money from the seller as well); but the arrangement to pay him
for the property he did not even find, looks like a complete nonsense.

Did the agent do anything to help you with the purchase of the house? If
not, I wouldn't think you'd owe anything. Several times in the past, I've
used multiple agents from different offices to help find a home to purchase
(I had a limited amount of time to look while relocating for work).
Different agents covered different areas, or days when another agent wasn't
available. None of them were particularly happy about the situation, but
then, the process isn't about making the RE agents happy :-)

In the end, the agent who showed me the house I bought got the commission,
and the others got nothing. That's the way the business works, and a RE
agent is never guaranteed to make a sale with any particular buyer,
regardless of how much time and effort they spend with/for the buyer.