Exclusives (Comm'l) VS. Exclusives (Residential)

So, here's the deal. An Exclusive Listing by a commercial real estate broker is a regular Right To Sell listing agreement. It's just like any other residential Listing Agreement. Why do they use the words "Exclusive Listing"? Not sure. Maybe it's an intimidation thing, who knows. But the fact is that every commercial "Exclusive Listing" sign out there is a co-broke. You need only to call up the agent to find out what the split is.

I know it's confusing. I used to be a residential real estate agent. And I did have a couple of "Exclusive Listing" agreements with sellers. In the residential real estate world this meant that nobody else could sell it, therefore no co-broke situation existed outside the listing broker's office. (Silly, isn't it? With 230 real estate agents in our North Country? They all have leads, too.)

Not so with commercial real estate. All those commercial real estate signs that say "Exclusive" are simply Rights to Sell agreements. You need only ask the real estate agent what the co-broke is.

Another difference is that commercial real estate agents don't use Disclosure Forms. When you think about it, it's kind of a waste anyway. So many are left blank, or lied about, or wrong information is given even perhaps innocently. In the end, the buyer is the one who needs to find out on his own if there is anything about the property that they'd rather not get involved with. That's where due diligence comes in, and that's what our buyer's in the commercial world (investors/entrepreneurs/speculators) use.

Of course, with commercial transactions, there is so much more involved, like income, and traffic counts, and with development land there's that pesky little issue about utilities. Oh, and it goes on.

Commercial real estate selling is really very interesting - to me, anyway. In my mind, it's 3-dimensional to the 1-dimensional house sale. No offense out there. I just like this better.