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Economics & Trade

Biff Tannen said:
Nothing stopping you from not employing a buyer’s agent and negotiating directly with the seller’s agent, even for a reduced commission, while paying a lawyer whatever you want. USA use your incredible market knowledge to negotiate the best deal and understand all the disclosures, etc. It’s not like you have your own job or anything.
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that's the problem -- the industry makes it really hard to do that

I would love to be able to go visit a place for sale without needing an agent to get to the lockbox or be the one to set up the visit
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
that's the problem -- the industry makes it really hard to do that

I would love to be able to go visit a place for sale without needing an agent to get to the lockbox or be the one to set up the visit
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Thus


PhDeac said:
In general, we need realtors because realtors work hard to make sure we need realtors.
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Nah, but feel free to navigate your million dollar purchase or sale on your own.

FTR, I did it myself once and everything went all right.
 
Buyers don't pay brokers, at least not directly. (Some agents charge the buyer a nominal fee of a couple hundred dollars.) Selling agents pay buyer's agents from their own commission. If you come in to buy a house without an agent, the selling agent gets the full commission price unless you negotiate it down. So you could argue that the buyers agents drive up the price of houses, but that isn't specifically the case.
 
I think the field in general is a waste now with most people identifying their houses on their own. do you really need someone to just open the door and read you the listing? this is my experience over the last decade of passively looking at properties. i do all the work...searching for the property, researching the area and background check for any flood or improprieties. they literally just open the key lock...

in fact i should have sued an agent (very good reviews) a few years back on a foreclosure. i put in a bit, it was accepted. then i did more research and found new "issues" and amended my offer...the bank sat on it for over a month before THE DAY before the closing and only reduced by a fraction of the new proposal (2k of 20k ask). my agent said they could not get any information. seriously, i found foundation issues, flooding history and termite damage not disclosed, but i believe they knew about...agent was not surprised. I couldn't get it done, but two weeks later they sold it to a developer (who separated into 5 properties for crap-a-mansions) for the same amended price i offered. my agent did nothing to help me in the entire process.

agents are a waste of money
 
Millennials are more interested in avocado toast than buying a house anyway so I don't see what their beef is.
 
Biff Tannen said:
The idea that they do nothing is pretty silly, especially if you have no idea what you’re doing as a home buyer.
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sure; i think the problem is that if you're a reasonable, intelligent person with the internet and an attorney, you can forgo a buyer agent. I've bought 4 houses in my life, 3 of them with agents, the 4th we did privately. Maybe it's the shit agents i've worked with but rarely did they do anything except set up some viewings, shuttle offer letters and questions. They wouldn't even give guidance on offer amounts one way or the other (and that was two different agents/agencies).

And as far as i can tell, unless you're like constantly buying/selling propoerties, they have no incentive except to close the sale of the house....how often does that specific incentive work for the buyer and in what capacity?
 
ImTheCaptain said:
sure; i think the problem is that if you're a reasonable, intelligent person with the internet and an attorney, you can forgo a buyer agent. I've bought 4 houses in my life, 3 of them with agents, the 4th we did privately. Maybe it's the shit agents i've worked with but rarely did they do anything except set up some viewings, shuttle offer letters and questions. They wouldn't even give guidance on offer amounts one way or the other (and that was two different agents/agencies).

And as far as i can tell, unless you're like constantly buying/selling propoerties, they have no incentive except to close the sale of the house....how often does that specific incentive work for the buyer and in what capacity?
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I had a similar experience with my first buyer agent. They were a a pretty mid agent.

Last person I worked with specifically gave me guidance on my offer price (I wanted to offer 5k under listing, he made a guess at the investors margins and said that the minimum they were probably looking for was another 10k under that). This was on a house I really wanted and was afraid to lose so I really had to trust their expertise that we would still get it. They were also really good at negotiating a bunch of larger fixes during inspection.

I think you are also discounting how much time a buyers agent might have to spend with a person if they end up seeing 10+ houses and making multiple offers. A lower flat fee based on the assumption that you're hitting the happy path of seeing and buying one house doesn't always work.
 
Deacfan2009 said:
I had a similar experience with my first buyer agent. They were a a pretty mid agent.

Last person I worked with specifically gave me guidance on my offer price (I wanted to offer 5k under listing, he made a guess at the investors margins and said that the minimum they were probably looking for was another 10k under that). This was on a house I really wanted and was afraid to lose so I really had to trust their expertise that we would still get it. They were also really good at negotiating a bunch of larger fixes during inspection.

I think you are also discounting how much time a buyers agent might have to spend with a person if they end up seeing 10+ houses and making multiple offers. A lower flat fee based on the assumption that you're hitting the happy path of seeing and buying one house doesn't always work.
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but that's their fucking job....? what's the average path? 3 houses and go to settlement and occasionally you're hitting 10+?
 
If you don’t use a realtor and don’t buy a house Biff doesn’t get to go to Italy.
 
Biff Tannen said:
Occasionally you decide not to buy a house at all.
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right

so, again, the whole system is whack: buyer's agent gets nothing if you don't buy a house, they make more money if you pay more money


should just be a fee-for-service relationship
 
I'm actually afraid to sell my house because we're going to snub any number of Realtor friends when the day comes. We bought our house about 25 years ago and the listing agent is guy a couple of years older than me who went to Wake who we've consulted with a few times when we've considered selling, and before we renovated.
 
ImTheCaptain said:
but that's their fucking job....? what's the average path? 3 houses and go to settlement and occasionally you're hitting 10+?
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Yeah. It's their job, and the current fees make it worth it for good ones like my second agent to even entertain a career in it.

If you want shitty agents willing to work for less and treat it as a numbers game then go w/Redfin I guess.
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
right

so, again, the whole system is whack: buyer's agent gets nothing if you don't buy a house, they make more money if you pay more money


should just be a fee-for-service relationship
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Which is why me must apply a socialist model to single family home sales ?
 
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