> so the agent didn't have to show us any houses or help us along in any way. She just submitted our offer and that was that.
Why didn’t you submit it yourself and save all that money?
Why didn’t you submit it yourself and save all that money?
So you don't usually save money by not having a buyer's agent.
Huh what? So what incentive does your agent have to negotiate a good deal on your behalf if she’s earning a price commission, and she’s friends with the selling agent?
That's a great question, but it's not unique to my situation... it's standard that agents split the commission. You could say that any agent or salesperson is never incentivized to give any buyer a deal on anything as long as they collect commission.
Secondly, we paid what we thought the house was worth. We're in a competetive market and had a hard budget. The house price came in below budget. As far as I'm concerned, we got a fine deal.
If what the realtors said was true, there would be a conflict of interest. However, there isn't really a conflict here because the buyer and seller are both splitting the loss. One is paying too much, and the other isn't getting paid enough.
The real conflict comes because both agents want you to compromise your price for an easy sale. If you sell your $500k house for $20k less than it could, they only lose a few hundred dollars. That agent will play various tricks to try and talk you into losing $20k so they can get a quick sale and be done with you. Similarly, they don't care if your loan is a bit larger when you're buying. They're not looking out for your best interests.
If the middlemen/parasites were out of the loop, the buyer could pay 3% less, the seller would get 3% more, and some reasonable agency could get a fixed fee for doing the paperwork. Hell, the title agency could do the work trivially, but I'm guessing they don't want to risk rocking the boat. Maybe the current system was reasonable when all you had was newspaper listings and for sale signs, but it's corrupt now.