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Comment by rco8786 | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, NAR goes to great lengths to maintain their monopoly and lock out anyone who tries to buy or sell a house without using them....specifically because they know they're priced insanely high for the services they provide and are in real danger of being undercut.

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You can buy, for example, literally millions of dollars of corporate bonds for “The smaller of $250 or 1% of Trade Value” at IB.

https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/pricing/commissions-bo...

The real estate market is still largely price fixed and quite inefficient.

> NAR goes to great lengths to maintain their monopoly

Went to great lengths, considering they've lost a few major court cases and are now prohibited from their prior shenanigans.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Real...

It’s not stopping them. It’s just causing them to change tactics. NAR still has a stranglehold even after the lawsuits.

Ever since Zillow/Redfin came out, there hasn’t been a need to use a real estate agent. All buyers are getting push notifications 24/7.

If you want to save on commission, then get the pics taken yourself, and pay a listing service a few hundred dollars for your property to show up on Zillow/Redfin.

To be fair to realtors. There is A TON more work and expertise that goes into any transaction than just taking pictures and listing the property.

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