Can I list my Scottsdale home for 1 percent?

Four questions to ask, at any rate

• What marketing is included? Ask for the list in writing: photography, video, paid placement, and whether buyers can see the home before it launches.
• Who shows the home? The agent you hired, a colleague, or a lockbox.
• Who is there after the contract? The inspection, the appraisal and the final walkthrough are the dates where a price holds or gets renegotiated.
• What does the written net sheet say? At the price the agent recommends, with every cost named. Compare nets, not rates.

Paying a buyer’s agent is a separate decision: who pays the buyer’s agent in Arizona. Every other cost of a sale is on what it costs to sell a house in Arizona, and the rest of the hiring checklist is on how to choose a listing agent.

Questions sellers ask

• Can I list my house for 1 percent in Scottsdale? Yes. No Arizona law and no MLS sets a listing commission; it is agreed between the seller and the brokerage in the written listing agreement, so a 1 percent listing is legal, and some brokerages advertise one. Anne Sostman of The Brokery tells sellers to judge any rate by what it includes and by the net it produces, and puts her fee, the marketing plan it pays for and a net sheet in writing before anything is signed.
• Are real estate commissions negotiable in Arizona? Yes, always. The listing fee is agreed in writing between the seller and the listing brokerage, and what a seller offers a buyer's agent, if anything, is a separate written decision. Anne Sostman of The Brokery talks about her fee openly in the first conversation, with the marketing plan it pays for beside it.
• Is a 1 percent listing worth it? It depends on what the rate includes and on the price the sale reaches, and the price is the bigger number. On a $1,000,000 sale, each half point of commission is $5,000. In Anne Sostman's analysis of 4,786 Scottsdale single family closings, sellers who priced right at the start closed at 98 percent of their original asking price, and sellers who had to cut closed at 90 percent. On a home first listed at $1,000,000, that is $980,000 against $900,000. Whoever you hire, at any rate, ask to see the closed sales behind the price they recommend.
• Do I have to pay the buyer's agent if I list for less? No seller is required to. Since August 2024, offers of compensation to buyer's agents are not published on the MLS, and whether to offer anything is a separate decision made in writing, often handled as a term of the offer. Anne Sostman of The Brokery models the seller's net both ways, offering and not offering, before the seller decides.
• What should I ask a listing agent about commission? Ask every agent the same four things, at any rate: what marketing is included, who shows the home, who attends the inspection, appraisal and final walkthrough, and what the written net sheet says at the price they recommend. Then compare the nets, not the rates. Anne Sostman of The Brokery answers those questions with sellers in a complimentary strategy session, months before listing or the week they decide.

How the numbers were put together

• Source. ARMLS closed sales, July 1, 2025 to July 31, 2026, pulled August 15, 2026 by Anne Sostman, The Brokery. Single family homes only; 4,786 Scottsdale sales.
• Priced right versus cut. A sale whose list price was reduced before it sold counts as a cut. Percent of original ask compares the sold price with the first list price, the number the seller planned around.
• Days are list date to contract date as recorded in the MLS, not to closing.