S2 E29: I Closed a Deal for Clients I Never Met

What happens when your buyers are in South Dakota, your seller is a solo military spouse packing up a house alone, and the whole deal is a for-sale-by-owner? In this episode of Closing Chapters, Brittney walks us through a 2019 transaction unlike any other: a remote closing with clients she never met face-to-face, negotiated through a for-sale-by-owner who had no idea what came next after saying yes.

This episode is a masterclass in what realtors actually do behind the scenes. From navigating VA buyers with limited cash to handling paperwork for both sides of a FSBO deal, Brittney pulls back the curtain on the unglamorous, underappreciated work that makes a closing happen. She also tackles one of the biggest misconceptions buyers carry: that their realtor didn't do anything because they found the house themselves.

Brittney also opens up an honest conversation about commission negotiations, sharing that she accepted just 1% on this deal, and why she'd do it again in a heartbeat. Helping two military families move forward, even at a personal financial cost, is exactly the kind of work that keeps her in this business. If you've ever wondered what a realtor is actually earning their fee for, this episode will change how you see it.

Key Takeaways:

•  FSBOs are worth pursuing. Many will pay a buyer agent commission, and the stigma needs to go.

•  VA buyers are often first-time, cash-light buyers. Knowing how to serve them well is a skill.

•  Remote transactions are absolutely possible with the right systems and communication in place.

•  Realtors often do double the work on FSBO deals, handling documentation for both sides.

•  Commissions have always been negotiable. This was true long before the NAR lawsuits.

•  Buyers finding their own property is normal. The realtor's value is in the process, not just the search.

•  Serving military families sometimes means accepting less pay to do the right thing.

•  A FSBO appointment is also a listing lead. Leave the door open professionally.

🎧 If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear what realtors really do. Your support helps this podcast reach more military families and real estate professionals who are navigating these exact situations every day.

Closing Chapters Podcast: Where Every Mission Has A Story

Thanks for listening. We talk all things military real estate, my transactions, the mistakes, the wins, and simple plays you can use right now.

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Disclaimer: This podcast education only & is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Talk with your own pros about your situation. Opinions are my own.

© 2025 Brittney Frye. All rights reserved. Realtor, license # 352197 in NC. Brokerage: REAL Broker l Military Division

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey my friend, welcome back to the closing chapters podcast where every mission has a story. It is August 6th, 2019, closing on another transaction. This one is doubly unique because yes, it closed while I was gone and in South Dakota, so that means I wasn't there in person. But two, I never met these clients in person. Not ever. How Brittany, how could you do that? We met on Zoom, but not in real life in person. Hey, hey friends! We are pushing through to a new month. We are looking at transactions in August of 2019. Isn't that crazy? That was almost seven years ago, y'all. So August 6, 2019 is when my next transaction closed. Quick reminder: if you're new here, we are a military family, and in this time frame, we had orders and we moved mid-July of 2019 from South Carolina to South Dakota. Did I get license in South Dakota? No, no, I did not because our stay went there was very short and I was also expecting our first child. So it was honestly a really cool time that I just got to take care of me and my little crew, the dogs, my hubby, and we did our thing for about five months before we made a cross-country trip back to South Carolina. It was quite interesting. So, anyhow, here we are. It is August 6, 2019, closing on another transaction. This one is doubly unique because yes, it closed while I was gone and in South Dakota, so that means I wasn't there in person. But two, I never met these clients in person. Not ever. How Brittany, how could you do that? We met on Zoom, but not in real life in person. So we did a buyer consultation and figured out what they needed. And I went looking, they came across a house that was a for sale by owner in a neighborhood. And those can be tricky for realtors, right? Because for sale by owners aren't always going to be willing to pay commission. It just is what it is. So what do you do? I am working with predominantly VA buyers. Now, there are some VA buyers that have cash. Period. End of discussion. They've done very well, they've made good decisions, and over time, they have gotten a great savings account together and they have cash. They have opportunities. They have mobility. Most of my clients are first-time home buyers that are younger or enlisted in the military, not bringing in a whole lot of dough. So we are usually pretty cash strapped in VA deals. And this is no different. They were buying at $180,000, which was actually a decent sized house for this price point. It was a two-story house, over 2,000 square feet, with over a half-acre yard. And y'all, this it was like in the back of the neighborhood. So like backed up, and it was like a triangle lot with the detention pond and like a big ditch around it. So they were almost like on their little remote little island, so to speak. Like they did not have any backyard neighbors. And it was a very big yard and it had some tree coverage because they didn't clear that section of the neighborhood. And this is a neighborhood that was pretty much clear cut in all of the newer sections. So really cool opportunity for them that they got a decent house at a really good price point with a pretty substantial backyard. So when I went and met this gal, this is the cool part though about working for sale by owners, right? So it's a there's an up and a down. So I had the opportunity to go meet the owner, and she herself was a military family, husband was gone. She's prepping the house to get ready to move by herself with her children. This lady, you could tell, was very big on being clean. Very big on being clean. And that was really cool to see. So that was like a nicety to know, okay, the the house has been taken care of to the best of its capability, which is really awesome. So when I'm talking to her though, she's telling me that she has to talk to her husband, of course, and what they're considering they weren't really thinking that they were gonna have to pay anybody's commission. So that wasn't their expectation. And of course, like military lifestyle, they had not been in their home very long. So they needed to just get out from underneath of it to go to the next place. So we had to do a little bit of negotiating, right? And in this particular situation, I only got paid one percent. And you go, what one percent? What does that mean? Okay. With our commission, we get paid a percentage of the total sales price. Rather, my company does. Whatever brokerage I am with, it gets paid this percentage. So my broker got paid 1% of the sales price, which is $1,800, right? And then my broker says, All right, Brittany, here's your split, here's your amount out of that. So I did not get paid a whole heck of a lot on this transaction, but I got to help two military families in very unique situations and do it remotely after we got under contract. So I had actually met them in person, videoed the house, and had been there through inspections before we were transitioning out. So it was a very unique situation. And I'm blessed that I was able to be of service and help. Also, the other thing that's very hard with for sale by owners, and this was 100% true in this case scenario, is more than not, they literally have absolutely no idea what needs to happen once they get under contract. It's okay, somebody tells me that they want to buy the house. Now what? So I had to still fill out all of the documents, all of the paperwork, help send it over to her to be electronically signed. Do everything for both sides when I should have only had to do it for one side. And is it like a huge end of the world deal? No, no, it's not. But we are getting paid to facilitate these transactions. And now not only am I hardly getting paid, but I am doing double the work. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it? So this is one of the reasons why there's so many agents that will stub up their nose to for sale by owner. They're like, oh, I don't know, they're not gonna do anything, they're not gonna pay your commission. Do you really want that? That's not your best opportunity. Like, you can't pay for the commission. So if you can't pay for your commission, then we really don't need to be messing with that. Like, they're not gonna do that. Not always. There's plenty of for sale by owners that absolutely will pay a buyer agent commission. So we've got to stop that stigma. But also we have to realize that at some point, like me as a realtor, I made that decision, right? I accepted the 1%, I accepted the scenario. And you just have to do the best that you can with it, right? And here's the thing. I can go to bed at night with a good conscience whenever I know that I was helping someone that was deserving, right? I walked into this house and saw how hard this woman was working on cleaning and packing and her story of getting out and PCSing while her husband was gone. Now I have lived that experience as well. And I know how daunting that is. And looking back, I'm really glad I didn't second guess it. I'm really glad that I didn't get caught up in the money and say, oh no, I can't help you because you're not willing to pay me enough. That is like the beauty and the specialty of this business is that we get to honor and help people in any way that we deem necessary or see a way forward. And this is also a clear understanding of the fact that once again, commissions literally are negotiable. This has been such a big part of our world the past couple of years, and they have always been negotiable. Okay. You guys, this was 2019. This was pre-all of this COVID bubble, NAR lawsuits, like all of this stuff. We always negotiated our commissions. It was never a set amount that we were going to be guaranteed to get ever. So here you go, here's your proof. Not we never always got paid the same amount in every transaction. And there is really no set thing at all. Every conversation with a seller is different, and sometimes they're like, Brittany, I'm not doing that. Or there's some agents, and I honestly think this is cool. It's not something that I do personally with my business, but I find it very unique and interesting. There are some listing agents that literally have package deals where it's like, hey, I'm gonna do these services for you, but in it's gonna be X amount, right? A set price or a set percentage, whatever have you. Or you can do this, right? Just like a photography package, right? We can choose. I just want the listing photos. I don't need a website, I don't need a video, I don't need a floor plan, whatever, or give me the works. I want the drone photography, put it all in there, make it fun, do a cool video. So there's such a gamut of opportunities and such a variety of services that we can offer. So I'm really curious if you have ever been in a scenario where you've worked with a realtor, was it ever offered to you where you offered different levels of service for a different fee or amount? And if so, what are your thoughts on that? Even if you haven't been offered that, would you want to be offered that? Would you prefer to have the option to be like, yo, bare bones, put my house in the MLS for me, take the pictures, I'll pay for the photos and get me to the closing table. I don't need any fuss. Like, you're not gonna do extras. I'm not gonna ask you to do an open house, you're not gonna market it online actively, you're not gonna have to spend any time and effort on this. I just need it in the system. It'll and it'll do itself, like it'll take care of itself. Or do you want a full listing agent where we're going to have the marketing done, we're going to put it on social media for you, we're gonna have it in the MLS, we're gonna do open houses, we're going to try to reverse engineer buyers, like all of those things. And then, oh, by the way, then once you get an offer, we're going to help you negotiate it out. And there's some people that like really just say, No, I know exactly what I want. I've done this before. I can handle this. I just need help getting it into a system. So there's a lot of different ways to hash this out. But back to what I was saying, that's exactly what the flip side to being able to talk to for sale by owner was. Like, so I got to go in the door from the buyer's perspective of, hey, like, I have a buyer that's interested in your home. And then on the way out, I got to have the other conversation of, hey, if my buyer decides they are not interested in your home and you decide that you would like some help, please keep me in mind, right? We had a great conversation. I made a great rapport with this person and was very careful till you can't cross a line, right? If I'm not representing you, then I can't know certain things. I can't know your motives, your whatever's going on. I don't want to know your money side. Like you've got to keep all that to yourself. However, if I, my buyer is not your buyer, then could I come back and service you as a listing? And that's a pretty neat opportunity, right? Because now I've built a little bit of trust. They can see that I'm a good person and that I'm not scary and I'm not out to get them or do anything shady because everybody has an experience, everybody has heard things, everybody gets advice from all these different places. And I get that. We all have a million people, places, things in our ears, in our face all the time. And it becomes very hard to make really good decisions on what is best for me and my family. And I understand that. But when I have the opportunity to say, hey, I'm a friendly, I'm here for you. I will absolutely do what I can to support you. It's really cool to see people like calm down, let their guard down, and be like, oh, okay, Brittany's got my back. And that feels really good. So ultimately, I didn't have to talk to her about the listing because my buyer was her buyer, and we got to the closing table. But she was absolutely willing to have that conversation with me after she met me and after we'd gone through the house, which was really neat. So, all in all to say, realtors don't always turn down those Fispos. And buyers, also a quick reminder, huge reminder, honestly. Okay. There are so many times that people are like, I found the house. My realtor didn't even find the house. What am I even paying them for? Hello, friends. I'm the one that got you in the door. I'm the one that did the contract for you. I helped you schedule the inspections. I got your documents to the attorney and the lender. I made sure that the appraiser had access to the property. And I did all the digital signing for you all along the way. And oh, by the way, let you know what's a reasonable amount of earnest money that you're gonna pay. How should you negotiate this property? And who does the earnest money go to? How do you get your wiring instructions for closing? How do you get access to the house after you close on it? Any and all of those things, right? It is extremely normal that buyers typically find their property, right? Because you are looking all different places and you were putting the juju out there, right? It's the same thing like whenever we go car shopping. You think about a car, you're looking at a car, you're you're checking out the specs, and all of a sudden they're everywhere, and you're like, Yeah, I like that car, I'm gonna find that car. And then you start looking at dealerships and going to all these different places to look and find that car, right? You could go to a dealership and say, hey dealer, this is the car that I want, find it for me. And they would, but how often do we do that? It's so easy when we're just like got our devices at our the tip of our fingers. And so do not discount your realtor if they don't bring the property to you, right? It's okay for us all to work together as a team. My job is not only to provide listings to you, options to you, my job is to help facilitate the actual transaction. That is where my value is. My value is not just plugging key terms into a computer and starting a search for you, right? My value is getting you through the door and negotiating and getting you through the process and getting you to the proper channels, like you know, the resources you need along the way. Now, also it is in my wheelhouse to help source out options that may not be available or that we may not be seeing. So totally is normal that realtors are gonna go back to our office and say, hey, I got a buyer that's looking for this and this, or send out emails to the MLS subscribers, which are the other realtors, and say, Hey man, I'm looking for three-bedroom, two-bath that's on a pond, waterfront, something very specific like that. Sometimes if we have exhausted our search and then what we're looking for is just not there, then it's great to cast it out to our comrades because you never know who has something brewing or has had a conversation with someone, or it's yeah, I know I need to plan to make a move in the next year or so, and then like you, their house fits my need. All right, then motivation. Sometimes everybody just needs a reason to make a move, to make a shift. And if a buyer shows up on your front doorsteps, sometimes that is perfection. So this is not a one size fits all world in real estate. We have so many different jobs, avenues, things that we are coordinating and doing at any given time. So just know that you can be unconventional in this world. It doesn't have to be in the multiple listing system for us to sell it. That certainly makes it a lot easier to access. And it doesn't have to be listed by an agent, so to speak, to sell it. You can be represented, you cannot be represented. You can have different levels of service if you want. So the world is your oyster, my friend. When you're working with a realtor, the biggest thing is clear expectations. And you need to realize that the saying is true, you get what you pay for. So if you are not willing to pay for services, you will not receive services, which is extremely normal in every other facet of the world. However, in real estate, for some reason, it's expected that we are supposed to do like a lot for nothing. And it is a lot. Like, there's a lot that happens behind the scenes that people don't tend to realize or understand. Oh, you gave me a CMA that had to have taken you like what 15 minutes? No, I do hand CMAs, meaning I go through and search the MLS myself or I go to the courthouse retrieval system and show and search for properties myself. And then I manually adjust them. I don't just let a system do it. Because I predominantly am working in some smaller markets, and like the big systems don't tend to reflect it well. So most of the time I find error in them. So I would rather hand do it. So I it's not pretty, it's an Excel spreadsheet. It is what it is, but I am taking the time to do it. So it takes me upwards of an hour and a half or so to find those comps and to sit down and weigh them all out and give a range. And that's one option, one thing that I am doing. And that's on the listing side and the buyer side, right? So there are lots of things that we are doing behind the scenes that take time and effort. And oh, by the way, the travel time in general, the capability like that people think that we're supposed to show five houses and be able to write an offer within 30 minutes after leaving a house. Hello. I've got to actually get to a computer. I've got to get to my home. Let me get to a situation and then I can make you the report to make sure we're putting in the right offer that I can prove that we should be doing X, Y, and Z. Because if I can't prove it, then why would I like tell you to do that? I just, yeah. So there's a lot more that goes in it behind the scenes, friends. So just realize that we are absolutely working for your best interest. And sometimes slowing down and being patient and hanging tight for your realtor and letting them go through the motions so that you are protected and that you have really good information to make a solid decision is absolutely worth it. So I hope you guys have a wonderful day, and I cannot wait to talk to you soon. Hey! I just wanted to say thank you for being here and listening in on this episode of Closing Chapters with me. I truly enjoy putting this content together, and I hope that you enjoy it too. If so, could you like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you know that will enjoy it just as much as you did? Thank you so much.