[eldavido]

Keep in mind this has to include downside protection to cover the very real risk of someone initiating a suit in case they screw up (which I'm sure happens from time to time).

I think overall, what a lot of this entire discussion misses is that 90, maybe 99% of transactions are pretty straightforward, but the 1% where things go haywire, might cost 10, even 100x as much in wasted time, money, etc. Real estate brokerage is a regulated professional service which means by law, there's a minimum standard of care owed to anyone who uses these peoples' services. This costs money to provide which ultimately means a lot of the costs of the problem cases end up socialized/spread out, over everyone.

This feels quite unfair if you've got your act together and everything goes smoothly, but it seems hard to know upfront which ones will be the hard cases, or not.

[closeparen]

Am I getting a 5x higher standard of care from a realtor in San Francisco vs. Chicago, simply because the equivalent condos are 5x as expensive?