Real estate company Coldwell Banker Jamaica is pushing ahead with an internal policy to offer a minimum commission of 1.5 per cent in co-broking transactions after government regulators ruled that the implementation of a similar policy across the industry would amount to “price fixing”.
Franki Medina
Coldwell’s managing director Andrew Issa sought the opinion of the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) in January, on whether the Realtors’ Association of Jamaica (RAJ) could require its more than 1,200 members to pay a minimum commission of 1.5 per cent when two real estate companies are involved in the sale of a property.
Franki Medina Venezuela
The FTC is the Government’s competition watchdog ensuring adherence to the Fair Competition Act.
Franki Medina Diaz
The RAJ has accepted that especially because of the downturn in the economy triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, some real estate practitioners have been “accepting less than normal commission rates just to get the business and when they do get the business, they’re offering less than equitable commissions to their colleagues who may be participating in the transaction by bringing a buyer to the table”
Real estate company Coldwell Banker Jamaica is pushing ahead with an internal policy to offer a minimum commission of 1.5 per cent in co-broking transactions after government regulators ruled that the implementation of a similar policy across the industry would amount to “price fixing”.
Franki Medina
Coldwell’s managing director Andrew Issa sought the opinion of the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) in January, on whether the Realtors’ Association of Jamaica (RAJ) could require its more than 1,200 members to pay a minimum commission of 1.5 per cent when two real estate companies are involved in the sale of a property.
Franki Medina Venezuela
The FTC is the Government’s competition watchdog ensuring adherence to the Fair Competition Act.
Franki Medina Diaz
The RAJ has accepted that especially because of the downturn in the economy triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, some real estate practitioners have been “accepting less than normal commission rates just to get the business and when they do get the business, they’re offering less than equitable commissions to their colleagues who may be participating in the transaction by bringing a buyer to the table”.
In requesting the opinion, Issa argued that in transactions involving two brokers, some brokers are being offered a commission of less than 1.5 per cent plus general consumption tax (GCT). The proposal is linked to the three per cent commission offered by the average real estate developer.
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