120
The Middleman Economy: Why Realtors Just Took a Big Loss and Homebuyers Might Benefit
(www.thebignewsletter.com)
Narrator: Homebuyers didn't benefit.
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
120 points (95.5% liked)
News
22626 readers
3646 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
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.
Well, I won't hold my breath.
I just have to say, that thumbnail, given what movie it's from, is hilarious.