 Regulation and Commissions
I am no great proponant of government based regulation. I spent my early career in the Uk during the late 80's and 90's and watched as regulation in the form of The Financial services Act decimated the independent financial adviser sector.
To sit back and wait for the Spanish Government or the European Parliament to impose regulation would however increase the costs to agents far beyond putting there own house in order.
In the US regulation is not onerous. Agents must be licenced and follow a fairly straightforward set of practices. They must take a minimum 60 hour course, pass it and then pass the state licencing exam which includes basic real estate agency law and practice, some contract theory and maths. The second part of the exams relate to the individual state's Real Estate law.
If you look at the Code of Practice set out by the NAEA in the UK and compare it to US federal legislation you will find that the NAEA took most of the code from the US.
At AMLA we did the same...on the basis that if it aint broke dont fix it rule...and amended parts of the code to best suit spanish property market practice without rocking the boat too much.
As for commissions, in the US there is no regulation fixing commission levels. In South Carolina where I took the course commissions range between 5-8%. There are laws preventing jerrymandering or Commission fixing between agents. The basis is to let the market find an acceptable level.
Agents compete for listings on the basis of their marketing strategy and success rate for selling property...unlike in Spain where the marketing budget is spent attracting buyers with little strategy seemingly spent for the vendor who employs them. This can be put down to the fact that a vendor will list with numerous agents so that an agent has only a small percentage listing/sales turnover ratio.
Funnily enough, this is another area where MLS benefits both sides.
In a MLS system, the agent can argue the case to the vendor that as a member of the MLS they are effectively listing with all the agents in the area and the need to individually list a property with many agents becomes uneccessary.
Once a listing has been obtained and listed on the MLS making it available to all members, the agent hasn't the need to spend so much of their budget on attracting buyers. The property is available to the buyers of all agents.
Agents become either listing agents with local knowledge and expertise in helping the vendor make the best of their property and a diverse marketing plan. This may include video or virtual tour production, arranging open house tour for other local agents and a marketing plan for other forms of media.
or they become Buyers Agents, concentrating their effort and marketing toward the potential buyers in the market. The Spanish property market would seem to be an ideal model for this type of system due to the geographical distance involved.
__________________
The Spanish Property MLS is a multiple Listing Service designed on the US model to help agents increase efficiency and gain Page 1 Google exposure at a fraction of the cost of advertising sites. We are currently offering FREE membership to Agents in Spain to help ease the burden on costs whilst markets remain poor. Sign Up here. We also provide SEO for real estate agents | 
