From: "Don" 
Newsgroups: misc.invest.real-estate
Subject: Re: Do real-estate agents receive kickbacks from inspections?
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 21:05:08 GMT

"David Barrett"  wrote in message
news:2jW2e.125593$Ze3.122016@attbi_s51...

> My wife and I are in the process of purchasing a house to be used as a
> rental property.  Our real estate agent was insistent on us having a
> termite inspection done and had strong opinions about the best company
> to hire.  My wife and I were going along with this until the seller
> told us that she had paid for termite treatments a year ago (not
> knowing then that she was going to sell the house in a year) and had
> paid at that time for an inspection that was going to be done next
> week, 2 weeks before closing and offering to give us the inspection
> report so we did not have to pay for an unnecessary, redundant
> inspection. So we called our real-estate agent telling her she did not
> need to arrange a termite inspection.  She was strangely insistent that
> we have our own inspection done and cast aspersions on the seller's
> company and made arguments that did not seem to make any sense. (we are
> paying cash so there is no lender involved.)
>   It seemed to me that the best explanation for her behavior was that
> she was receiving sales commissions (kickbacks) from the termite
> inspection company.  My wife was unwilling to believe this about such
> an otherwise nice person.
>   Am I paranoid?

No, you are not being paranoid, you are being reasonably cautious. Some real
estate agents will also steer you in the direction of particular lawyers,
mortgage lenders, mortgage brokers, insurance agents, home inspectors, etc.,
as well as termite inspectors. How prevalent kickbacks may be, I do not
know, but surely it happens. This does not mean that every recommendation
from an agent is necessarily bad, but caution is a good idea. You probably
will save money if you do some research yourself on these various service
providers and possibly get a few opinions from different people before
accepting the first recommendation that comes from an agent.