161–170 of 220 posts
Some more discussion a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38156557
Home Sellers Win $1.8B After Jury Finds Conspiracy Among Realtors - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38156557 - Nov 2023 (7 comments)
Jury Finds Realtors Conspired, Awards Nearly $1.8B in Damages - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38089356 - Oct 2023 (273 comments)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
fine, but let's not compare meal cost to a house. that 6% is very arbitrary. i never got how selling a home in a major metropolitan area would require 10 times as much work for a realtor than a house in the middle of nowhere midwest for 200k. the flat percent doesn't make sense.
The same argument goes for buying steak versus buying a chicken meal. The costs are wildly different but the work is the same, why should I pay the waitress more for one versus the other?
Ever since I bought my first house I have always hated the concept of realtors. Maybe before the internet it made sense because it wasn't easy finding houses. But what value does a realtor actually bring in the age of Zillow, Redfin, etc... Also - the percent structure has never made sense to me. Why should a realtor make more money just because the house is more expensive? Does a realtor really deserve to make 60k o…
The percentage structure - while I want to agree with you, we can then look to things like ... the struggle now of delivery food percentages and tipping. If I order a $15 pizza and tip $3, I'm tipping 20%, but that is seen as "cheap" for a tip in 2023... yet if I order a $4,000 bottle of wine at dinner, and tip 20%, the staff will enjoy an $800+ tip for that meal. Worth 20% to pop the cork, really?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find that it's very similar to mob tactics. Prospective homeowners just get passed and funneled from person to person that they effectively have no choice but to interact with. And each of those people take a piece of the pie.
Yeah I saw this a lot -- real estate people would recommend someone for some kind of independent opinion, but that person has a long-term relationship with them (passing referrals), but no relationship with you The problem is inherently that most people are buying a home for the first time. Or they buy maybe 3 to 5 homes in their life. So it's very easy to build up an information asymmetry / cartel there
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my area, you won't get an offer accepted if you don't waive the home inspection. In fact, it's basically required to waive all inspections, such as radon and others. So the state says you have a so-called right to these, which divests the state from liability, but on a practical level, you need to waive these. Buyers end up having to buy ~$1M homes based upon just looking at them once or twice over just a couple o…
> In my area, you won't get an offer accepted if you don't waive the home inspection. This is a consequence of an extreme lack of supply in your area rather than some sort of realtor conspiracy though.
6%! That's a huge amount on a house sale. In the UK your estate agent (seller's agent) usually takes 1-2%, and there are cheaper ways to do it like self-listing. You then get a conveyancer (a lawyer) on each side to actually do the work, and they usually work for a fixed fee. 6% is huge.
UK estate agents do the absolute bare minimum and often less. When it comes to viewings they really are just key holders and nothing else.
Still, 6% is huge
A good realtor can guide you through the market, inspections, and negotiation - all of which hugely affect the largest investment most people make. But that's no reason for them to demand a PERCENTAGE off the sale of the home! Closing fees plus realtor fees are a big reason why it takes so long for a home to break even for most people - something like 7 years in NYC. And one reason why there's so much pressure for ho…
People who routinely paid 20% to tip a waitress for a meal but don't want to pay a tip for someone who hugely affect the largest investment people make, This is just being cheap and rather foolish.
If preferring not to give an additional $60k as a tip is considered cheap, then call me Mr. Scrooge.
I read the article, but I still don't understand how the National Association of Retailers enforce the 5-6% total commission. Does anyone know? The incidence question (is the fee "paid" by the buyer or seller) is a semantic one, but if the cartel is able to inflate the total fees, that's something else entirely.
> I still don't understand how the National Association of Retailers enforce the 5-6% total commission. Plaintiffs submitted some recordings in either this or a related case of an agent who said she wouldn’t even bother to show a house that didn’t have a guaranteed commission. The NAR is not so stupid as to have a “you must sign here that you will only show houses with a commission” form. >> the incidence question ……
I read the article, but I still don't understand how the National Association of Retailers enforce the 5-6% total commission. Does anyone know? The incidence question (is the fee "paid" by the buyer or seller) is a semantic one, but if the cartel is able to inflate the total fees, that's something else entirely.
It's mostly due to the fact that in order to list a house or find a house you need to use a system called MLS. In order to use the system you need to be a realtor. It's quite simple actually
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's mostly due to the fact that in order to list a house or find a house you need to use a system called MLS. In order to use the system you need to be a realtor. It's quite simple actually
While my mom is a mortgage agent that always had access to MLS (which she shares with me), I'd argue some realtors (my realtor I've known since I was 4) are worth the 5% without MLS. She has like 4 assistants managing everything in the background that are so well-trained that I didn't even need to mention updating my converted Single to a Multi-family because they somehow figured it out and just did it. She also seem…
that's what i hate about realtors. in germany they will gladly invite a hundred interested people for a flat and by that make searching for an appartment a huge waste of time. it's easier for them and probably a nice ego stroke.