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The Middleman Economy: Why Realtors Just Took a Big Loss and Homebuyers Might Benefit
(www.thebignewsletter.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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I mean, real estate agents don't actually do anything lol.
Edit: moreso when the agent is buying than selling
I bought a home in 2020 without agents and it was pretty easy when both sides agree on a lawyer and do their own inspections
They help categorize, advertise and list houses. What else could possibly do tha-ooh we have zillow and the internet now. Forgot there for a few decades...
They also contact cleaners, handymen, and to a lesser degree, tradesman, to get the houses ready to sell. Assuming a buyers market of course.
Shit in 2020 a condemned house sold in my old neighborhood in Seattle for 500k. Condemned. They had to spend 50k demolishing it before they could do anything to it, so beyond the million dollar investment, low balling, theyre looking at sitting on that for at least a year.
That ain't no single mother, new family buying that kind of shit
I don't know if you recall, but Zillow was found to be price fixing as well a few years back. They were buying up real estate, then pumping the Zestimate of any houses they owned. I remember seeing people compiling data on Reddit, tracking home values before the house sold to Zillow, and after. Zillow is just as shitty, and just as much of a middle man. So, yes, Zillow can do a lot of what the Realtor does, but I'd argue we deserve better.
"Zillow was found to be price fixing", you say this as if there was some legal investigation. There wasnt. There were a bunch of salty realtors cherry picking data and confusing correlation for causation. The fact of the matter is, Zillow overpaid and underpaid for houses, and eventually lost millions of dollars during COVID era market swings, recognized the risk of the business and shut it down after only 3 years.
The ibuyer business was intended to take on all of the burden of buying and selling houses to make it easier for consumers to move.
Like most things agents do more than you think. Of course there are good ones and bad ones. Yes you can do much of the stuff yourself if you want to work it as a part-time job.