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Comment by phantom784 | Hacker News Reader

Realtors earn commissions as a % of the price a house sells for.

It’s also a diabolical amount. My friend bought a house in San Jose, and both, the buyers and sellers agent got $50,000 each on a $2M house. They didn’t even help with the house search much.

Who agreed to those terms?

The buyers or sellers. No one is required to use a realtor. They simply provide a convenient service for a fee.

Tell me you have never bought a house in the US without telling me you have never bought a house in the US.

That's an odd accusation to make with confidence.

I've bought several houses in the U.S., and the last one I sold, I didn't have a realtor. I'm not sure what point you're making here.

That you have bought several houses in the USA makes your experience represent 0.01% of homeowners. Most people in the USA only buy one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnett_v._National_Associatio...

This lawsuit is about realtors acting against your interest (agency problem), and is not about you being forced to pay a particular commission.

You can choose your realtor. You can discuss with them.

This person just bought a 2m house!

> not about you being forced to pay a particular commission

It's literally in the first paragraph of the article.

"At trial, a federal jury found that they violated antitrust law by conspiring to force home sellers to pay inflated commissions to real estate agents."

The force applies to "inflated," e.g. they agreed to pay a fee but were forced to pay an inflated fee. Not they were forced to pay any fee at all.

I don't understand the point of this clarification.

There is a difference between "forced to pay a fee" and "forced to pay an inflated fee." The GP said it's not about being forced to pay a particular commission, which is the first one, which is accurate.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48585389 the thread started here where the commenter said "diabolical fee". In any case this is high pedantry.

Merch has to move for them to earn a percentage. If prices are systematically too high I would guess liquidity goes down.

Nothing a 50 year mortgage can't fix, I'm sure that article will be coming out soon to from our realtor friends.

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