iwantedjusttom's comments

As a realtor for the past 6 years I can say a couple of quick things as to why I don't see the real estate industry going anywhere, even though I think that real estate brokers are extremely overpaid.

- selling your house, at the end of the day, is quite the undertaking. A lot goes into it, it can get emotional, messy, and sometimes quite complicated. Having someone that does it on a daily basis can be nice and really smooth things out.

- people are too attached to their homes emotionally. More often than not, when trying to sell on their home without a realtor they will not have it in a saleable condition and price it too high for the marketplace. It will sit and not sell, or they will get an offer that is appropriate and be offended and not sell it. A GOOD broker will bring facts, data, and logic to the table so that a person that is actually committed to selling their home will get the job done.

If people saw their homes for what they were when they decided to sell them, a product or a piece of property and nothing more, the real estate industry would die in no time at all.

Then again, there are a lot of swindlers out there too, so it's nice to have someone as back-up to watch out for those types of things as well.

in most cases the seller has already agreed to pay 6% to the agent for the sale of their home - then that selling agent agrees to split it with the agent that brings a buyer. If you come in off the sign you're basically handing the seller's agent another 3% commission - even if you "negotiate" 3% off the top of the house the seller is still paying that 3% to the listing agent.

In the eyes of the buyer it might not matter if you got your 3% off... but that seller probably isn't saving any money on his/her end.

this is not completely true because a seller can negotiate on behalf of themselves for their own home and a buyer can negotiate for themselves as well. Which I suppose is obvious.

You can also have an attorney negotiate for you, at least in my state, and attorneys only charge a flat fee for handling a transaction in my area. A small percentage of what it costs to use an actual realtor.

True, however, though you never know how what you do - no matter how small - will motivate others to something even greater in their lives. As pointless as it may seem - having the drive to progress helps others take on that mentality and move toward something greater as well!