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Reality Bites: Why do you still need an agent to buy a home?

Date: August 16, 2004
Author: Douglas Gantenbein
QUOTE: ... the flat commissions paid to the realtors who handle the vast majority of those sales, averaging 5.1 percent, act as an enormous tax on the transaction process, taking wealth from both buyers and sellers in what for both is often the biggest financial transaction of their lives.

ABSTRACT: In an effort to protect its members, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) is “taking aim” at the growing number of “discount” brokerages establishing themselves in the marketplace. New rules planned by the NAR allowing local brokerages to bar listings on brokerage sites and preventing online sites from funneling customers to agents in exchange for a fee, have caught the attention of the Department of Justice. These rules, if implemented, would allow residential real-estate transactions to continue to be conducted between two agents while maintaining commissions close to 6 percent when they could be lower.

--- O. Overman

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