Quote:
Originally Posted by disneysteve
I didn't really get that to be your point. The title of the thread is "Why do home buyers use real estate agents?" and your OP said this:
That's why many of us have responded as we did, trying to explain why, as buyers, we used a real estate agent. Whether or not the commission is worth it to the seller is a different discussion.
|
The title was mirroring the point I was trying to make: that indeed, the commission is not worth the reasons presented, on either side. Moreover, if this commission is imposed on the party that did not even choose to use the service (someone said that it makes sense for buyers to use a REA bc it is free for them!!!) then you can recognize the absurdity of the whole thing.
It did help to read the arguments, though, because before this, I was afraid I had really been missing something serious that I just did not know about. The justifications I read for the monopolistic existence of these abusive RE agencies just confirmed what I had suspected in the first place: that a certain mindset/culture of real estate agency "crucial usefulness" is in place and people simply do not want to break out of this mindset because they are stuck in it, psychologically. They prefer to pay high commissions for what most people in this world would consider frivolous/imaginary reasons: the lack of "safety" in meeting a prospective buyer/seller (take a gun with you if you're really so afraid), the supposed "emotionality" of the buyer who ostensibly does not know what is good for him/her and needs to rely on a REA to open his/her eyes, the lack of time to print out some maps and drive in said place, the need to have someone open a "lock box" when buyer/seller could simply deal with each other after work hours, etc.
But thank you everyone for your answers.