What Your Agent Is Not Telling You About Commissions, Contracts, and AI

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• The biggest misconception buyers have about how commissions really work
• What actually happens behind the scenes in agent negotiations and deal control
• Why some strategies buyers rely on can quietly cost them leverage
• The hidden risks most people miss in pricing, appraisal, and contract decisions
• How transparency (or lack of it) shapes every step of a real estate transaction
• Why AI in real estate is misunderstood and underutilized by most professionals
• Why choosing an agent based on relationships instead of skill can impact outcomes
• What emerging housing models could mean for the future of how we live and buy homes

In this episode with Fred Glick

Discover the truth behind commissions in this episode with Fred Glick of Arrivva. 

Learn how buyers really pay, how agents control deals, and why real estate transparency matters more than ever. From negotiation mistakes and legal risks to AI myths and industry tactics, this episode exposes the games real estate agents play, and how to avoid them.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Fred Glick on LinkedIn
• Arrivva
• Arrivva Active Listings
• Housing Rebel
• 3016 Jackson Street, San Francisco

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:15] Drew Thomas Hendricks: We’re gonna rapid fire, no prep, no scripts, no polish PR answers.

We’re going around the table. First instance only, keep it under 30 seconds, no fence sitting.

[00:00:23] Fred Glick: And you don’t know what they are. What is the biggest lie the real estate industry still tells buyers.

The seller pays the commission, meaning the buyer, the buyer commission. They’re still telling that lie.

It’s like, it’s so obvious if you know simple mathematics that if you buy a house and they’re, the seller is paying for something that you’re responsible for, it’s just added to the price. So you’re paying this out, you know, 80, 90% of it over 30 years with interest.

[00:00:53] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Hmm.

[00:00:54] Fred Glick: So know that going in and the, the seller just happens to pay for it, but you’re responsible for it and the agent is making it like, “Oh, it’s normal,” and all that, but you gotta know it’s the length of the price and they’re charging you two point half percent. And…

[00:01:15] Drew Thomas Hendricks: As we know, friends don’t let friends pay two and a half percent.

[00:01:19] Fred Glick: Exactly.

[00:01:20] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, let’s switch to the power dynamics in real estate. Who has the most power in the real estate industry today? Agents, brokers, lenders, portals, or the consumer?

[00:01:30] Fred Glick: Well, you know, I’m gonna change it to the listing agents.

Because some of them think they are God, and for you to get in the property, you have to do this and that, that brings me on to something I was going to talk about, so I’ll just hit it quickly. There was an agent who has a listing that is in this off market network that I’m in, that I got and also has it as a coming soon in the multiple listing service.

But he, the people haven’t moved out and so it looks kind of icky per se, as opposed to being all painted and prettied up and furniture and done and all that. So he’s showing it. But the funny thing is, when I got to the house, it didn’t have a coming soon sign on it, it had a for sale sign. So this is pretty sneaky of him to do that.

And then he wanted the name of my buyer and there was a couple, and I only gave him one. And that was on purpose because he wants to register that person that if he doesn’t sell the house during the listing period, and that person comes back within 180 days and buys the house, he’s entitled to a commission.

So he’s all worried about his commission. And this is a big company, and you probably know the name, and they’re very hotsy totsy, so that’s what they’re trying to do. But it gets worse. He sends me an email and he says, “I need the name of the husband.” I’m not gonna send it to him. It’s his problem. And he says, “And I need your feedback.”

And I said, “We don’t send feedback.” He gets all indignant about it. He says to me that, “Oh, had I known that I would’ve told you to pound sand.” Because I won’t give him feedback. So let’s talk about feedback.

[00:03:26] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Feedback.

[00:03:28] Fred Glick: Well, if you’re a buyer broker, you bring your buyers to a listing. And what this guy is expecting us to do is tell him what’s wrong with his listing and why my people didn’t like it, so that he can improve his listing and help his seller.

Here’s what I have to say. If I as a listing agent don’t know what’s wrong with your property, in order to sell it, you pick the wrong listing agent. It’s that simple. You know, I have listings and I know there’s issues and I’ve talked to the sellers about it and you know, one way or another or something’s gonna get done or not done or whatever, but I know all the problems in the house.

I know why it doesn’t appeal to certain people. But these listing agents keep asking for it because they think they’re telling the seller, “Oh, this is great. We’re getting great information and we’re gonna improve and we’re gonna get all this stuff.” And I’d love to go against this person for a listing and sit there at the same time and talk to the seller.

It’s like I don’t get buyer feedback ’cause I don’t, I don’t need it. I know what’s wrong, here’s what’s wrong, blah, blah, blah. It’s unbelievable that these guys do this. And also,there was a lawsuit by a listing agent against the buyer broker because they gave them this, bad thing about the property.

It was a whole mess. I forget all the details, but it’s like, you know, there’s other agents who’ve written articles about it. They don’t give buyer feedback. It’s ridiculous. And it’s, you know, it could be held against you later. So the whole thing is a mess.

[00:05:12] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah.

[00:05:12] Fred Glick: So, yeah, exactly.

[00:05:15] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I’m lost from the first part.

So he’s a listing agent. And you were buyer. The buyer was seeing the property.

[00:05:21] Fred Glick: With him by the way.

[00:05:22] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, with him?

[00:05:23] Fred Glick: Oh yeah, he was there too.

[00:05:24] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Now he wants a referral fee of every single person that’s in your house.

[00:05:28] Fred Glick: No, not referral fee. He, if my buyers bought the property while he’s the listing agent, he gets a commission.

But if my buyers buy that property after his listing contract ends in his current listing contract, and by the way, people, this is in every listing contract. If someone comes to see it while you’ve listed it because of your great advertising and whatever, he is entitled to a commission. ‘Cause he brought that person in.

Even though you know these people may have a new buyer broker and it’s six months later and he doesn’t have the listing anymore, he gets it. That’s why they record the names.

[00:06:07] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Is that standard?

[00:06:07] Fred Glick: That’s why they want your name. It’s not standard, but there’s arrogant people who do it. You know what, I could care less.

[00:06:16] Drew Thomas Hendricks: When you take a listing from someone that you know, they tried out one real estate company and they didn’t sell the house, and now they’re trying to find a new agent. The new agent, the new listing agent is already saddled with this whole referral baggage.

[00:06:29] Fred Glick: If the, if that first, if the contract from that first set comes back like three, they were going to buy it, but their mother got sick and then they came back three months later and now they’re buying it and there’s a new listing agent.

[00:06:41] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s an interesting scheme. So you get a bunch of listings, do a shitty job. Get a whole bunch of people on, on the list and then track it like a hawk in case one of right,

[00:06:51] Fred Glick: Because the price is gonna go down.

Right? The price is gonna go down on the second set of second listing ’cause the guy couldn’t sell it at a higher price.

So you, somebody comes in and the seller finally realizes he is crazy and you lower the price.

[00:07:07] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And then the second confusion, feedback. So you know what’s wrong with the house. You’re not gonna dwell on what’s wrong with the house. But you ask every client or anybody to show the house why didn’t you like it?

I mean, most of the feedback’s gonna be, “I didn’t like the bedroom setup. The windows were in the wrong place.” It’s all feedback that you can’t fix. Nobody’s gonna throw, “I didn’t buy the house ’cause the hose was unfurled in the front yard,” which is something you can easily fix.

[00:07:34] Fred Glick: Exactly, but him and his friends, I’m sure all give feedback and they all yak about everything and they commit other FAIR housing violations.

Like I had an agent do. I had an agent ask me for names a while ago, and he wanted to know what people do. “Oh, where do they work?” None of your effing business. This is a business transaction. Okay? You’re not gonna, he wants, because he wants to Google the buyers and see you. You know, it’s like, “The seller wanted it,” he said.

And I’m sure the seller and him, you know, did want that. But commercial transaction, yeah, you can ask anything. But residential one to four unit? Forget it, dude. It’s a violation of FAIR housing. The only thing you can tell somebody is they’re qualified. Oh. I had another agent the other day and this was on a $7 million house up in San Rafael, North Bay.

I submitted a contract and then she says, “Oh, can you gimme a story? My sellers really like stories about people.” And, and it’s like, “No, have you been trained in FAIR housing lately?” And she’s with one of these big fancy snotty nose up in the air agencies, and, “I’ve been doing this 50 years,” kind of person.

It’s like, yeah. And now you were the ones that were doing this all wrong. They had to make federal laws to fix it. And now you’re supposed to be trained in this, and you obviously are ignoring the training. It’s absolutely disgusting.

So, on that note, and I’m sorry to break down your idea, but it was good. But I actually wanna show everybody something I’m really proud of.

I’ve made Wendy’s Good List.

[00:09:16] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh. Oh, look at this.

[00:09:19] Fred Glick: Yeah, so Wendy, as we’ve talked about the housingrebels@sellinglater.com, uh, have come up with two, two great things. Number one, the bad list. She’s basically apid or exported or done something in every state.

I think she’s up to about 15 of them now. You can go look up an agent and see if they’ve had any violations in the last year, or anybody reported them for anything. So it’s very cool. But now she also made the good list and we are, we’re there.

[00:09:58] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s great.

[00:10:00] Fred Glick: Yeah, and if you, I don’t know how deep you can read it.

Finding good people in real estate is harder than it should be. Oh yeah. Tell us about it. We’ve done years of research, talked to real clients and watched how agents, lenders and others actually behave, not just how they market themselves. The good list is who made the cut. No pay to play, no sponsored slots, no algorithms updated regularly as we keep watching, if you don’t see a name you’re looking for, it doesn’t mean they’re not good.

It means we haven’t met them yet or they’re already on our list to add. So you can search in different areas and states. Or a name and you can find it. So we’re on there as good list for flat fee supports, Housing Rebel programs, verified transparent agents. So I’ve, I’ve done as much we can to do this. And you can read the rest of this stuff.

So really happy about that. And, uh, we need to buy some SEO to get this out there.

[00:10:57] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Made the good list.

[00:10:59] Fred Glick: Made the good list.

[00:11:00] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s definitely a blog post for sure. That’s worth bragging about. That is worth the hype.

But I’m gonna throw one more rapid fire question at you.

No, yeah. This is part of it. ‘Cause what you just said is definitely worth the hype, but what real estate trend is everyone talking about right now that you think is mostly just hype?

[00:11:17] Fred Glick: Because it’s so fricking bizarre and nobody really knows what it is. It’s in the emails that I get to “real estate professionals.” They’re trying to teach the, the analog people about AI and real estate and what they should be doing. That’s what they’re all talking about.

And I met an agent yesterday. She doesn’t use it at all. She’s scared. “Oh, I don’t want to use that.” You know, so the, the AI confusion, because obviously the big companies hire the people and make whatever they can to help the GEO, and so are you really getting the right answers or are you getting the answers that they want you to have?

So the big bucket of ai. I mean, we were just on before this and with our ops person and trying to figure things out. It’s insanity. It’s absolute insanity. And it’s not where we want it to be yet.

[00:12:21] Drew Thomas Hendricks: It’s where you think it is. And it’s not quite like right now I’m telling all my clients, everybody, you can go into Claude.

You can vibe code something. And then think that the hard work’s done and there’s very easy to confuse the speed of, the speed of like delivery with the ease of execution. ‘Cause you can get to something that looks like it’s right, but you don’t know any of the edge cases. And we just, we’re wrestling with that right now.

Yeah. We were trying to make an AI agent better and we were like, well, if people would just leave more information then Amy, our AI conversation bot can give more information. So they’re like, think of this as a voicemail. But as soon as we told the I agent to think of this as a voicemail, suddenly the, the user on the other line thought it was a voicemail, left their message and hung up.

So there’s, there’s an edge case that the first part seemed easy and now we need to deal with how to convey the situation better.

[00:13:19] Fred Glick: Yeah, it’s, I mean, you think, you think it out, but you really don’t.

[00:13:24] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, and I’ve got a firsthand thing. I mean, there’s a, I was at a, the North County Philanthropy awards on Friday.

I was at a table of all heads of foundations and the entire discussion was AI and nonprofits and how it’s become mandatory in some of these nonprofits to, to use it. Either use it or get out. ‘Cause you can’t manually do stuff. And a lot of these people, it’s not casually just going into ChatGPT, it’s setting up a structured system so that the AI works for you.

And I think a lot of the real estate industry is very far behind ’cause the agents take their ai mastery is using it to get a property listing description and that, that’s as far as it goes. But Arrivva, we’ve been working with you to like really create some complex systems where now we’re testing edge cases and very specific scenarios that actually moves this AI forward.

Which I, I think that’s being lost in the hype of how easy it is.

[00:14:21] Fred Glick: Yeah, I know. And in six months we’ll have, everybody will have their, uh, shared use of a quantum computer. We’ll invent our own person and you’ll be able to do everything in the real estate transaction through this brain and you’ll just need us for, you know, our generic advice, everything else, programming, setting, showings, the whole nine yards, be automated.

I mean, that’s what we wanna get to, but these agents don’t understand that it’s gonna leave them in the dust.

[00:14:49] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh yeah, absolutely.

[00:14:51] Fred Glick: But, you know, there’s still analog people who need analog agents because they don’t understand what the digital agents are even talking about. So.

[00:14:59] Drew Thomas Hendricks: But by using AI, it gives you more time to talk to the analog people that need, that need a little bit of a human interaction and a human driven transaction.

[00:15:09] Fred Glick: Exactly. Exactly. It’s fun.

[00:15:14] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yep. Okay.

[00:15:15] Fred Glick: Any more of your rapid questions?

[00:15:17] Drew Thomas Hendricks: What’s one prediction you have about housing that most people will disagree with?

[00:15:22] Fred Glick: Well, it’s usually process things that I, certain people disagree with but sometimes people underestimate the fully underwritten pre-approvals and, you know, I’ve never had a situation where somebody who, you know, said, “I’m not getting fully underrated. I’m just gonna regular, it’s gonna be good enough.” And they’ve lost deals because of it. And they don’t think that it’s important be because the price is not the only important thing in a contract.

Because let me put this one. Don’t ever do this in a multiple bid situation. Don’t put a ridiculous high price that’s gonna win you the bid with an appraisal contingency. Why? Because the listing agent’s gonna know you’re playing this game of just trying to get it under contract and get it lower when the appraisal comes in lower.

But what sometimes people get surprised at is the appraisal doesn’t come in lower, it comes in right at the big number, and they’re screwed. They’re buying it for too much. So you could be screwed either way. So there’s, there’s one.

[00:16:32] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That goes into the biggest mistakes that people can make.

[00:16:35] Fred Glick: Without a doubt.

And there’s so many real estate agents when you interview them, you have no idea that they don’t know how to properly go in and negotiate. You have no idea. You can’t give them a negotiation test. Or you don’t, “Oh, well she’s nicer.” Or, “That’s my cousin.” It’s like we’re trying to explain to people, this is a business transaction.

The last thing you want to do is get involved with family. I got a guy now who’s, he’s gonna buy a property through me, but he’s trying to sell one. It fell apart, but it came back together and it’s like, I gotta use this woman. It’s my girlfriend’s best friend.

So, you know, it’s unfortunate. And he hates her. He absolutely hates her, but he got kinda screwed by that. But people, you gotta put your foot down. You know, you gotta say like, hey, I want you to keep your friendship with Susie. If anything goes wrong, I’m gonna get, you know, we’re gonna have a problem. And then that’s gonna be worse, you know, for your relationship.

It’s better that. But that’s the whole basis of Sotheby’s and Compass and Century 21 agents is go out and Keller Williams especially call everybody you’ve known since fourth grade and ask ’em if they wanna buy a house. It’s all relationship based.

[00:17:56] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I was just thinking everybody relationship selling books that I’ve had to read few years.

[00:18:01] Fred Glick: Yeah. And we’re kind of the opposite of that. We’re letting you come to us because you want to use us and that’s why we’re spending all this money on Drew and Google ads.

So that you find us, we put good information out. ‘Cause it’s a business transaction. It’s not a friend thing, it’s not a relative thing.

And that’s one of the biggest things. I feel bad for buyers and sellers that they don’t know or they don’t think about the ramifications. So there’s a bad…

[00:18:30] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Right. Interesting thought.

[00:18:31] Fred Glick:  So before we go, I got one other screen to show you.

[00:18:34] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. Dang.

[00:18:35] Fred Glick: This is a pretty cool place. Here’s a house 3016 Jackson Street in San Francisco.

It’s got 15 bedrooms, 12 baths.

[00:18:46] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Holy moly.

[00:18:47] Fred Glick: For six and a half million dollars. But what it was, was a giant dormitory that was owned by the ballet, San Francisco Ballet.

[00:18:55] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, wow.

[00:18:55] Fred Glick: So they must, yeah. So it was pretty cool. So I guess they’re not bringing people over and putting them in the house anymore, and the house is expensive to take care of and all that.

So they’re selling it. So here’s the idea. It’s funny, I have clients who I met through these people who now bought a couple houses from me, but they’re all into this idea of having a community. Where you have a single or one or two kitchens, bunch of different families. You know, let’s go back to Hillary Clinton it takes a village concept.

And live like that, as opposed to everybody’s segmented in a single family dwelling. So you may have your own bedroom, bathroom, a 1, 2, 3 bedrooms and baths for you and your kids and your family and whoever you are. And then you have, you know, the big giant rooms for eating and cooking and you know, somebody.

Like, you know, puts on a schedule of who’s gonna cook that week and who’s gonna shop. You know, it doesn’t have to be this big, but that’s kind of gave me the idea and throwing it out and, you know, let’s build new construction houses where instead of facing streets, have them face green spaces.

[00:20:07] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh yeah.

[00:20:07] Fred Glick: And so they face each other and the kids can play and dogs can run around and you can sit and talk and you can barbecue. You know. So getting more people involved in your life is going to make your life easier, is kind of what they’re getting at. And it’s just more creative and kids get to interact with more kids on a day-to-day basis, and they become more able to, you know, be in society or if you wanna be in the basement and code, maybe there’s somebody who can code better than you can. And it’s just the whole concept.

[00:20:41] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s a great idea. I mean, especially in a day when we’re going more and more down this digital silo. Interactions becoming a valued commodity.

[00:20:51] Fred Glick: There you go. Yeah. And it kind of is like a TIC, tenants in common building. They’re easy to do in California. Boom, you’re a TIC.

You’re gonna have five single families and they all become a TIC and everybody kind of invests in every one of them in the common areas as opposed to forming condos or PUDs.

So that’s just another thing. But that was pretty cool.

[00:21:16] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I like that idea. Almost like a commune, but not with any of the, I mean, communes all come with their own, connotations.

[00:21:24] Fred Glick: It’s commune. Yeah. It’s short for communist.

[00:21:27] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, if you got 20 people living in one building with a commune.

[00:21:31] Fred Glick: Yeah.

And hippie smoking dope. You know, so San Francisco hippie smoking dope. So there you go. You could have, everybody wants to smoke weed and you all live in one big house.

[00:21:42] Drew Thomas Hendricks: More of the denotation of economy and then the connotation of it.

[00:21:46] Fred Glick: Exactly. Exactly. Thank you.

[00:21:48] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I like it.

[00:21:49] Fred Glick: That’s a good clarification.

[00:21:50] Drew Thomas Hendricks: This has been another episode of We Fixed Real Estate.