Freakonomics and Real-Estate, Part 2

The information on Real Estae agents going the extra mile (or lack there of) is completely off base. Certainly numbers crunchers can put any type of spin on things they like. But the reality of it is, typically sellers set ther price (higher than suggested from agents), the home sits on the market longer due to that fact, & advertising costs are going up. When an offer finally comes in 30-45 days being on the market, many times longer in our, market, sellers have options. They make the choice to negotiiate it or accept it. And brokerage fees are less than 6% these days, closer to 5%. To say that agents don’t have their clients best interests at heart when representing them is absurd & offensive. Try looking at the reality of day to day life of agents & stop crunching numbers.

As a Realtor, I am offended by your opinions of Realtors as a whole being “cheats” and try to sell our clients short. Most of the time the Sellers are trying to sell their property for enough money to buy a new house, pay off debts and in this area that is not always reasonable. Also, most sellers have their own incentive to sell as the demand in housing is not necessarily a sellers market in this area and most are selling because they have found something else they want and can afford to take the first negotiated offer rather than lose the property they want to go to. As your numbers indicate, $10k here or there is not a lot of actual commission to a Realtor and Realtors do not make the final decision on the sale – the owners do. So, please give Realtors a break, since your opinion of how real estate works is not necessarily the norm in the whole industry and certainly does not describe what actually takes place in the real world of real estate as a whole. Try it sometime, you would be amazed at the difference in perception of the industry and the actuality of the world of a working Realtor.

I am a realtor and agree that some are corrupt, but not all. I work 10-12 hours a day and sometime for 1 or 2%. In addition to my time pay for all advertising expenses etc. While prices of gas and advertising are on the rise, my income is declining.