I see this changing really fast. Real estate firms and individual real estate agents are not gonna want to get sued for hundreds of millions of dollars. They are going to be SUPER careful to avoid that. I foresee the quick dilution of the power of the realtor trademark. I foresee new real estate agents entering the market and not using the realtor trademark. I see those real estate agents using very different business models than what are use now. Lower percentages or fixed-price - but they'll find other ways to make money by being intermediaries with the other players in a transaction.
Whatever is our cost for this cartel, the cost of the MD cartel is at least 10x higher. So perspective is needed.
Seller's agents will get paid a flat rate, then X% commission for just the amount above some certain price. Basically they'll be rewarded if (and only if) they can successfully create a bidding war that sells the place for more than it's probably worth. If they're just doing their normal job of selling the thing for the appropriate amount, they'll get their flat rate.
Buyer's agents will be paid per hour of work, like lawyers.
Buyer’s agents should logically cease to exist. They’ve been replaced by real estate websites, they’ve just been hanging on through an artificial monopoly.
Everything my last realtor showed me was worse than what I found on Zillow on my own, and the formatting of the information was so user-unfriendly that it was basically worthless.
On point! Been saying this for years. I bought my house and had sellers agent represent me. The seller went with our offer because agent made more commission. We were not the highest offer.
That’s another good point! Frankly, there’s really nothing stopping your seller’s agent from lying about the offers that are coming in or at least gently pushing sellers toward commission-maximizing offers, and the scenario you described is basically a push in the direction of buyers’ agents disappearing.
I found a house on MLS (20 years ago), and allerted my buyer's agent. She kept refusing to engage for some reason. We pressured her to inquire and ended up buyng the house. I later told this story to a neighbor and he said the builider's (seller's) agent was refusing to pay full commision to the buyer's agents. So I guess that's why my agent was ignoring the listing. :-)
Whatever is our cost for this cartel, the cost of the MD cartel is at least 10x higher. So perspective is needed.