While we’re on how NAR and others have failed us, let’s mention the latest class-action lawsuit:

Link to Notorious Rob article Link to HW

Buyer-agents are heralding this as the Big Turning Point is real estate because the lawsuit aims to ‘break up the cartel’ and unbundle real estate commissions.

There is a whole legion of agents that offer a fee-for-service menu who think they are doing the consumer a favor. But it is a great dis-service to tempt consumers to select their agent based on their fee.  This is where NAR and others have failed us miserably because nobody talks about how important it is for consumers to identify the skill level of agents they are considering.

Agents offer a discounted commission/rebate/fee-for-service because they don’t have the skill level to earn a higher fee.  In effect, they ‘buy the business’ with lower cost/less service, and the consumer gets what they pay for.

But if this lawsuit prevails, causing MLS companies to be run out of business and ‘broker cooperation’ to get dismantled (seller paying the buyer-agent fee), the buyer agents will be the first casualty.

On this blog we talk about street-level impact.

Here’s an example that happened to Kayla in Manhattan, where the rental market is so hot that tenants have to pay their broker directly – and the typical fee is two months of rent.

Kayla is showing rentals to her old college roommate plus one other woman.  The listing agent is present, and when Kayla goes into a bedroom with one of the women, the listing broker pulls the other aside and says, ‘if you don’t want to pay Kayla’s fee, just go through me directly’.

The two women rented the apartment directly through the listing agent, and burned Kayla.

We’re sliding into single agency, where buyers/tenants will just go directly to the listing agent.  They will never know if they saved any money, they won’t know if they got proper representation (unlikely), and they will just take what they get.

The reason disintermediation worked in the travel business because consumers don’t worry about a bad vacation costing them an additional five- or six-figures in resale costs (and major disruption of life) to unwind one.

Without constant reminders of how important it is to Get Good Help, buyers will be left to their own devices and just go directly to the guy who has the product – the listing agent.

Single agency is not what’s best for consumers or agents – yet the market forces are heading in that direction without recognizing the ramifications.  Watch what you wish for!

Obviously, my rantings on this topic have done nothing to slow down the trend, so joining Compass was the best way to position myself for my clients.

Pin It on Pinterest