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What does 1.49% actually save you?

By Davis Cook, REALTOR® · GRI, CREN, SFR® · Updated August 2026

People usually ask this as "so what's the catch," which is fair when someone quotes a fee that's half the going rate. Here's the arithmetic.

The comparison

A full-service listing with me is 3% plus a $595 transaction fee. Real Estate Essentials is 1.49% plus the same $595. Same license, same contract work, same negotiation. Less legwork on my end, because you're doing most of it.

At the Central Texas median that's somewhere around five to seven thousand dollars. On a lot of houses that's a year of property taxes.

What that number is not

Two things people get wrong here, and I'd rather you hear them from me before you do the math at your kitchen table.

1. This is my side of the commission only

If you're selling, you may still choose to offer a fee to the buyer's agent to stay competitive with other listings. That's a separate decision we'll talk through, and it isn't included in the numbers above.

2. Commission isn't the same thing as closing costs

Title work, survey, prorated taxes, and the rest are their own line items and don't change based on which service you pick. When I give you a net sheet, all of it is on there.

What you're paying for at 1.49%

The fee is lower because your workload is higher. Here's the split on a listing:

• You do: photos, the sign and lockbox, writing the description, approving showing requests, answering buyer questions.
• I do: pricing strategy from real comparable sales, getting you on the MLS with ShowingTime, the contract, the negotiation, and everything from contract to closing.

Notice what stays on my side. The pricing and the negotiation are where the money is, and the contract is where the liability is. Cutting the fee doesn't mean cutting those.

When paying full commission nets you more

Here's the part most people selling a discount don't tell you. A cheaper fee isn't automatically the better outcome.

If a full-service listing sells for about 1.6% more, it wins. That's the whole test. On a $400,000 house the break-even is roughly $6,200. Sell for that much more under full service and the bigger fee has paid for itself. If professional photography, staging, a real marketing push, and well-handled showings get you there, and on some houses they do, then saving on commission put you behind.

Where the full-service premium tends to be real:

• Homes that photograph well and need presentation to hit their number
• Sellers who won't have time to respond to showing requests within a couple of hours
• Anything needing prep work, where the renovation-now-pay-at-closing program does the heavy lifting
• First-time sellers, where the learning curve costs more than the fee

Where Essentials tends to win:

• You've sold before and know how the process runs
• The house is in good shape and priced in a moving segment
• You have the time and temperament to manage showings
• You're outside Central Texas, where I can't be there in person anyway

The short version

The savings are real, between about $3,800 and $11,000 depending on your price point. But the right question isn't which fee is lower. It's which one nets you more at the end. Those aren't always the same answer, and I'll tell you which one I'd recommend for your situation.