But I'm Not a Lawyer, I'm an Agent

Your agent, no matter who is paying them, has a fiduciary duty to you.

This isn't universally true. In some US states, the frequent problem is that the agent who is showing you homes (and who you tend to think of as "your agent") is not actually your agent (with fiduciary duty to you), but a subagent of the seller (with fiduciary duty to them). Here's an excerpt from recent report on this:

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For many years, a large majority of home buyers and sellers have worked with real estate agents. Most consumers believe that these agents always or almost always are required to represent the interests of the home buyer or seller with whom they are working. ... Yet, real estate agents often are not required by law to represent the interests of the buyer or seller with whom they are working, and many do not.

In reality, there are a number of different types of relationships allowed in most states between real estate agents and their clients.

  • Single agent: The agent works solely for the client
  and has fiduciary responsibility. A fiduciary agent
  is “obligated to procure the greatest advantage to
  his client.”
  • Designated agent: The agent is recruited by the
  listing agent to work with a buyer and has fiduciary
  responsibility to that buyer.
  • Subagent: The agent works with the buyer but has
  fiduciary responsibility to the seller.
  • Dual agent: The agent somehow is expected to represent the
  interests of both the seller and buyer in a home purchase.
  • Transactional agent: The agent works with both buyer and
  seller to facilitate a sale but has no fiduciary 
  responsibility to either party.

https://consumerfed.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/the-agenc...

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So while it's possible that you live in a state where you are correct, where subagency and dual-agency are forbidden, in the absence of a signed contract for the services of a buyers agent, others should not follow your advice until they are certain the same is true for them.

Even with fiduciary duty, most agents undersell property.

When the first offers are underpriced, a lot of agents will pressure you into selling, because their income is tighly coupled with the number of transactions per year.

There’s a couple of studies from the US that concluded that most sellers close the deals way too early, and that rationally they should have waited for more offers.

Real Estate agents are hopelessly conflicted. I don't use them so the seller's agents ends up working for me too. They tend to slip into a mediator role more than a fiduciary.

Lawyers would get disbarred it they operated similarly.

In our state, there is a well known realtor who has grown his practice using unethical methods. As one example, his agents routinely hang on to bids and don't present them to sellers within a reasonable time, using them to get buyers who have contracted with them to put in bids. ("You better put in a bid above asking - other people have put in bids"). This allows him to get the full commission instead of sharing it with other companies.

This is why, when selling, its better to use a la cart brokers. You pay a set fee to MLS your place, and set fees for other things. You still need to pay a commission to the buyer broker/agent, otherwise they won't show your place. So, 2.5% or 3%.

Traditionally, the commission paid was 5% (split 4 ways), but some markets that got as high as 7%. I once had an agent explain to me (who was bad at math) that this was due to inflation.

And as a buyer's agent, they make more money the _more_ you pay for the house you are buying, where of course you'd rather pay as little as you can get it for.

Even if the amount more they'll be making is trivial, it ends up being the same as the seller's agent problem in reverse. At best their incentives are to not care how much you pay, but want you to buy a house already without them showing you more. At worst, they actually want you to pay more.

please... tell me more. this is badly needed advice.

Wait, do consultants do actual work instead of just giving advice? (Serious question.) I always thought consulting is just looking at the existing/planned processes and products and saying “You should do X using best practice Y. Here are the details of my deep knowledge.”

In contrast, I thought anyone actually working on processes or products but not being an employee is a contractor. If anyone can enlighten me, I’d be glad. I always wondered what consultants do.

It's also an "acquihire." I was thinking along those lines, just without the company acquisition.

In practice, there can be a lot of difference between a consulting team and a regular one.

So why don't the packages set up as a production company like say Tiger Aspect in the UK - Or Back in the day as United Artists did in Hollywood

It seems to have completely disappeared.

Too bad, too, because I make the same criticism myself, of the New Yorker style of "make me wade through 500 words just for an inkling of what this is actually about". But yeah, it's a matter of taste.

To each, his own, I suppose. I thought that was hilarious and didn't detract anything from the message. I can see why it would be off-putting though.

This guy wrote The Wire, which famously had a scene comprised entirely of two detectives saying ‘Fuck’ in different tones of voice while examining a crime scene. I’m not sure what you would expect.

I disagree. This is an excellent way for the author to express himself. The meaning is clear, and the author avoided cliche and in doing so ensured that I would respond freshly to the word. If he'd simply said "fuckwad" or "bastard" or some other word I read a lot, my response would have been muted. It also makes it clear to me that his feelings towards these people are raw and fresh. The author has achieved excellent communication; I can literally feel his anger towards and frustration with these people (I'm feeling it right this second, as I type), rammed into my mind with a pithy "fuckbonnets" - it's almost like a kind of emotional punctuation.

The article is much better with this.

Personally I avoid profanity in my writing, because I don't think it would add anything. But this essay illustrates that it can add quite a lot, if you know how to use it. Deployed with expert timing and creativity, in the context of other effective rhetoric, it conveys the depth of Simon's outrage and disgust. I still don't think I would achieve anything by peppering my comments with f-bombs, but I think he has earned them.

It's not so much an article as a personal anecdote. The main difference that articles generally lack something of the author itself.

David Simon has earned the privilege to write that word with a straight face. (I think Stephen King could also pull it off, for different reasons.)

I enjoyed reading it. The creative language implies a seething rage and firmly sets an emotional and moral agenda based on a perceived sense of outrage, something a vast majority of articles these days try to avoid or hide and for that reason, it is immensely refreshing to read in an increasingly neutral, dull and grey landscape of fence-sitting rhetoric.

I'm sure there's other more rational, balanced and nuanced articles but I am dead certain that's not what this particular writer wanted to convey, and the language to me seems intentionally polarising, not accidentally so.

It is sure to ruffle some feathers, more so than a nuanced essay, which likely would have garnered little more than a "hm" from most people. Sometimes shouting in the street gets attention, and when you have that attention is when you hit with the logic.

This is from the guy who wrote "The Wire" (appeal to authority notwithstanding) so I'm willing to lend him some credibility that he understands how to use language, and accept that he has creative freedom in expressing opinions on a subject matter which has personally affected him and other creatives in an industry he deeply respects.

That is not to say I don't think that there needs to be other more balanced and informative essays written on the subject, I just don't think that this article is meant to achieve that purpose.

His followup, The Corner, is one of the most devastating books I have ever read. The show The Wire also pulls from it.

Can you at the very least expand on why it's so terrible, maybe a couple of examples so we can understand where you're coming from. All we really have is "Good God, my eyes" and similar epithets implying your stance that this is simply intellectual masturbation and hubris, but no real substance into what exactly makes you feel this reaction to the article. I am genuinely curious because I thought for what it was worth, it conveyed its point pretty well regardless of whether the guy is some big shot writer or not.