The case was effectively about steerage. Let's say your area has a 2.5% buyers agency fee average. If you lowered the rate (did not matter the amount), which was published by the MLS, the plaintiffs found blatant evidence of buyer agents steering prospective and actual customers away from your property. This is considered collusion between the buyers agent and the selling agent.
Once you get past “location, location, and location,” you need to make the house stand out from the others in that location….or even make it worthwhile to look at. A good real estate agent can make a big difference, even in great markets.
The case unfortunately did little to remedy the steerage problem, which is still occurring unhindered. The suit only mandated they remove the %share from the MLS, but didn't preclude it from being shared elsewhere.
You mean like ticketmaster/live-nation?
They're a great example as well. But whereas they pick up $20 at a time from begrudging customers, realtors are collecting outsized $20000 paychecks.
Depends on where you move. We left NJ for Idaho, got twice the house we had previously with a simultaneous 75% reduction in property taxes. Lower income tax too, and when the state runs its' usual budget surplus residents get a check back for the overage. We've not been here long enough to receive one, but I recall Mom's being about $1600, with a nice note from the Governor's office explaining that tax dollars belong to the people, we collected more than we need, so here is your refund.
Sitzer didn't cover the buyer or seller's necessity to deal with (or pay a particular rate) to a broker, it was the NAR's collusion to only offer specific fees (both rate and the buyers agent payments) by their members (Realtors).
100% true. The venue near monopoly hits 10K+ people at a time, though.
If you want to fall asleep, go back and read the case details. The prediction by the statisticians and economists are it will take years of a very strong sellers market, to give sellers the confidence to stop paying the buyers agency fee. Same for reducing the selling/listing fees.
Yeah. We had a thread on that a while back.
But there's really only one person paying for anything during the transaction: the buyer. Nobody else is showing up with any money...
I did exactly the same thing as you on our move last weekend Let them pack and move everything but garage and guns (and the chest freezer, which I moved FULL in a little uhaul trailer).
Note, however, that the chart begins at 1994. When I said "previous generations", I was thinking more about the 1900s through about the 1950s.
That would be during a period called "The Great Migration". And also the second half of the urbanization megatrend when the nation switched from being farms to cities.
