Realtors found liable for $1.8 billion in damages in conspiracy to keep commissions high | CNN Business
Realtors found liable for $1.8 billion in damages in conspiracy to keep commissions high | CNN Business
The influential National Association of Realtors and several brokerages were ordered to pay damages to home sellers who said they were forced to pay excessive fees to real estate agents.
A federal jury ruled on Tuesday that the powerful National Association of Realtors and several large brokerages had conspired to artificially inflate the commissions paid to real estate agents, a decision that could radically alter the home-buying process in the United States.
The realtors’ group and brokerages were ordered to pay damages of nearly $1.8 billion. The verdict allows the court to issue treble damages, which means they could swell to more than $5 billion.
Will update with non-paywalled link when one becomes available.
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The amount realtors get paid to the amount of work they do is crazy. Mine spent like 10 hours showing homes, maybe 2-3 hours on the phone, and then the rest was handled by an admin for handling paperwork and DocuSign. For like 15-20 hours of work she got paid almost $50K.
I can say, with absolute certainty, that is not the norm.
For every sale they make, there are countless others they don't. And they still have to put in the time.
I've gone through many realtors looking for a house, all of them gave me hours of their time and didn't see a penny in return.
That said, I don't think realtors are necessary and we should push the idea that people shouldn't use them unless they think they need to.
Sure, that's still 50k for a single sale, sell two like that a year and you don't need to work the rest of the year.
She did a great job and recommend her to all my friends, but the amount of hours she put in wasn't that high for her return. I know I'm paying for knowledge, not hours but it still doesn't feel right.
Our budget really limited what we could buy. So much of it felt unnecessary, like every house has disclosures but you can't view them without emailing my realtor. Every offer is the same, waive all contingencies and bid what you think not what it's listed at. I think realtors are needed in the transaction but the pay isn't correct.
The other realtors are the ones making it this difficult so that you need realtors though lol.
The house we bought and one one we sold, we had an absolutely fantastic realtor but he also lowered his commission on the sale so that we could still make the numbers we needed to afford everything. He was a great one.
It would be nice if we weren't literally forced into that though. We wanted to look at a house on Zelle and they assigned this person to us. Like we literally couldn't look at a house without one. That's ridiculous. I'm happy with the person we got and he absolutely worked his ass off for what he got but the fact you're forced into it basically doesn't sit well with me.
Our realtor was like our best friend for a month while we were looking for houses (not in a creepy way, in a helpful way) and gave us a big wreath when we bought our house. He definitely put the time in.
I’m not saying they are paid perfectly fairly, but the good realtors do a SHITLOAD of work that you aren’t seeing. This argument is no different than “why do we pay IT guys so much”. It’s not because it takes me 3minutes to reboot the computer, it’s because I have years of experience that leads me to that decision quickly. You also sound like an extremely easy client.
And 50k? At a 4/3 which is pretty typical for a buyers agent (at least in my neck of the woods) you bought a 1.5mil house?
Yup, my wife is a realtor. She works her ass off and in our tourism-driven town, it's feast or famine. Locally the split is 3/3, though the majority of the houses around here are around half a mil. She is constantly keeping an eye out for properties to show her clients, following up on leads, cold calling, and processing escrows. It certainly isn't work 2 hours a day and make 6 figures.
There are definitely plenty of agents out there that are dishonest and churners, but not every one is like that. Deals fall out of escrow all the time for trivial shit, be it things come up on home inspections, or finances fall apart. An agent can herd a deal almost to the close of escrow, only to have it fall out for something silly, and then they don't get paid for any of it. It's huge to note that agents do not get paid any form of salary, it's all commission from sales that close. And any good agent will make sure that the house you're buying is right for you and defend from shady buyers/sellers and their agents on the other side of the deal. Realtors definitely provide a valuable service, though there sure are dodgy ones.
you bought a 1.5 mil house?
My comrad in crisis, that is how much SFHs in most of the desirable places in my country cost. At least.
Bullshit. Show me some evidence. I've worked with them, never even seen a opportunity for them to work hard.
Aren’t they usually around 6% total commission, split between the selling and purchasing agent? Unless you bought a house that’s north of a million, that’s a bit much.
In many places of the US, the average selling price is $1M+.
It sure is here.
I'll say that the real estate agent business isn't exactly like a normal job. You work for hours, then the client can pull out etc, and you get nothing. Particularly on the buying side when potential buyers can just give up.
But in today's market, those standards percentages are fucking massive because of housing inflation.
So, it's definitely broken right now. But it's also a volatile profession that is subject to high highs and low lows.
Sounds like the solution to me is that we should stop commodifying housing
I live in the SF Bay area, most houses are easily $1.5m