2007: There's never been a better time to buy! 2008: There's never been a better time to buy! 2012: There's never been a better time to buy! 2020: There's never been a better time to buy! 2022: There's never been a better time to buy!
Recessions are good times to take risks since people are afraid and while capital isn’t cheap this time around, assets are.
All years: There’s never been a better time to sell!
In other countries the agents only make commissions from the seller not the buyer, hence getting the listing is the big thing.
>It is still the buyer who pays even if it is the seller who pay the commission since the commissions are baked into the sell price
This is a trivial characterization, just like an individual who buys lettuce at the grocery store pays for the wages of the person that grows and picks and packages it.
A buyer does not have much incentive to not use a real estate agent because a seller using a real estate agent has already agreed to pay x% or $x to the sell side agent, who will give a portion of that to the buy side agent.
The reduction in costs only comes when purchasing from a home being sold without the use of a real estate agent (“for sale by owner”).
Buyers and sellers are not paying agents to maximize and minimize prices. They are paying real estate agents to increase the odds of having a transaction clear, with the buyer receiving property they want, and the seller receiving a price they want.
For an agent, trying to maximize price is only worth it up to a certain number of hours of work, after which time it is far better for a real estate agent to maximize number of transactions. An additional 2% of say $50k is only $1k of extra pay, whereas an additional 2% of a $500k sale is $10k.
In Hungary the amount varies a lot, but it’s paid by the seller so not the buyer’s problem. Because of this, you always try to sell without an agent, and use an agent only if you can’t find a buyer by yourself.
Dunno about other countries.