How much commission do agents in SA charge?
Rental mandates are the source of a rental agent’s livelihood, it determines the agent’s duties and importantly the commission payable. While rental mandates fall into two common categories: “place the tenant only” or “place the tenant and manage the property”, the commission charged varies widely.
The TPN Commission Survey results are in: rental mandates to “place the tenant only” indicate some agents take home as little as 1% while others comfortably charge 15%.
The commission of rental mandates to “place the tenant and manage the property” are structured either as:
- An upfront placement commission and then monthly management commission; or
- A monthly management commission (which includes the placement commission) and this commission combination kicks off in the single digits at 5.5% pushing up to 27.06%.
As a side note, given the increasing number of tenants who cancel their leases early, the rental agents who charge a placement commission in addition to the monthly management commission are protecting their payment for work performed, as they are able to charge the pro-rata cost of the placement commission onto the tenant for the early cancellation as part of the reasonable penalty to find a replacement tenant.
Click here for the Commission Survey Results for the lows, the highs and the average commission.
TPN Vacancy Survey Report Q2 2024
Residential rental vacancies in South Africa rose to 6.72% in the second quarter of 2024, up from 4.42% in Q1, as economic pressures and evolving consumer behaviour impacted demand across all provinces and rental value bands. The sharpest increases w…