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> ... but this is HN and you all think us Realtors are useless freeloaders

Realtors in the US, when compared to those in pretty much any other first world country, are definitely overcharging for their services, and, according to at least one judge, they colluded to keep commissions artificially high [0]

> It seems to me like so many people are chasing the dream Disney sold them on the world rather than realizing they might have to compromise.

And why is that?

It maddens me that, generation after generation, people have been told to aim high, get a job, work hard, get a degree, move out, see the world, etc. Turns out, now people in their thirties have to "compromise" or "settle" on buying their first homes at half the size, twice the price, and ten years later than their parents, likely earning a relative third less as well.

[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/realtors-liable-for-1-8-billion...

> half the size

A typical starter home in the 70's and 80's was 1200 square feet. I don't think people today are buying 600 square foot houses.

I have heard it claimed that people did not used to include the basement in the square footage of a home, which leads to some apples and oranges comparisons in these kinds of statistics. But I’m not sure if it’s true.

That's true, my house seems tiny by official sq. foot but it has a basement that doubles the usable space

> It maddens me that, generation after generation, people have been told to aim high, get a job, work hard, get a degree, move out, see the world, etc. Turns out, now people in their thirties have to "compromise" or "settle"

Well, it's the generation after Reagan came in with the whole monetarist trickle-down thing, but yes.

Sometimes I think the toxicity of this situation (and it's not just the US) fuels in large part the tendency for people to believe in conspiracy theories about secretive cabals keeping them down. And in a way, it's kinda true too when it comes to housing. You're told you're living in a land of democratic opportunity, wealth and justice. Yet somehow...

This comment is quite a wild ride so much so that I read it twice.

I'll just focus on your first point: patience. You might be right there but as you pointed out the last four years have been rough for buyers and patience can only last so long. Gotta understand a buyer getting traumatized by having to bid on a house they haven't even toured, buyers given only 15 minutes to view a house, 20+ offers on a house, offering $20k over asking and still not getting it. With no end in sight.

That's the market at work. Not everyone can live downtown in a walkable neighborhood. Last thing we need is the government putting mandates on how much you can sell your home for.

Sounds like the market isn't quite working right if there is such a mismatch between supply and demand.

US realtors are undoubtedly useless freeloaders. Other countries do just fine with 1-1.5% realtor commissions while in the US they are 5-6%, that’s about $75k on a median home in SF!

To address your latter point, realtors absolutely bring value to a transaction.

The world isn’t quite as black or white.

What is up for debate and highly contested is whether the commissions collected are commensurate with that value.

The old pre-internet world had deep informational asymmetry via the MLS. Realtors were magical in that they could bring forth magical houses at magical price points and the commissions “felt” like value. And more than being a facilitator, the realtor also played part as pseudo-therapist and mind reader reading situational cues to find good fits for their clients.

However, I’d argue that several things have sullied the relationship over time.

1. The low-ish barrier to entry to become a realtor. Made for a lot of professionals that could coast on value adding activities. So the client who feels that they would have never found or sold their dream property or deal has become less and less so.

2. The democratization of information via the internet has pushed the labor of searching for properties to the client.

3. The democratization of loan broker services via the internet have reduced what a seasoned buyer would have to go through to obtain financing.

So this has reduced the realtor from value adder along the whole process to merely door opening facilitator.

Now that the genie is out of the bottle, it’s not going back, but the question is, is the value offered today, still commensurate with percentages charged as Realestate prices continually go up?

> To address your latter point, realtors absolutely bring value to a transaction.

The average home is ~$425k and a commission is 5%.

I've never met any Realtor that brought $22k in value to a simple single family home transaction.

At least in my area the last time I bought a house that 5% was split between the seller and buyer agent. Seller got 3% and buyer got 2%.

To be fair, I used to run pricing at one of the ibuyers. 95% of realtors have no idea what they're talking about and the other 5% are just as likely to tell you whatever they think will get you to buy vs what they know to be reality

But they still all had jobs, right? So does it matter that much? Or is there some other force keeping them from losing their hides to competent realtors?

Lack of information. Most buyers will only buy a home a few times in their lives and often in completely different markets. You only know your realtor is good or bad well after the fact. Excluding the obviously bad ones but they tend to fall away quickly.

I mean, yes. My MIL was a good realtor and retired early. Both of the homes I bought in California since meeting my wife, my actual realtor was useless as fuck and I went on MLS myself with my MIL to sort out the local market and find what was right for our needs. My agents wanted to sell me homes they could double dip on both times. In one case, she could've pulled it off but she was so incompetent that she didn't understand what we were looking for.

Home ownership has gotten massively less accessible. It's not a patience problem. Most of an entire generation will never own a home.

FWIW one might search for a house that has an transferable (assumable) mortgage. So the buyer picks up the loan where the seller left off. This would preserve the (presumably) lower interest rate of the seller's home loan.

From

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/can-you-transfer-a-...

"Loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are typically assumable. Conventional mortgages, on the other hand, usually aren’t assumable. Instead, conventional mortgages typically come with a due-on-sale clause—meaning the loan must be paid off if you want to transfer the property title."

> I'd recommend talking to a real estate professional to understand what's actually happening in your local market, but this is HN and you all think us Realtors are useless freeloaders.

I'll take you up on that. Is there a way to post a specific price I want to pay, and then pay the realtor x% of the difference between what I set and what I actually pay? For example, if I set $400,000 and they find me a place at $300,000, maybe I could pay them $25,000 at a 25% difference.

You are able to write that contract and try to find an agent that accepts it.

> more inventory than we've had in at least 4 years

Not in my area. Very few people are selling because no one wants to trade a 3% mortgage for a 7% mortgage.

your story is about winning lottery of being born and buying house when they were 5 times cheaper, and now pretending to be some kind of wise man.

What is your market?