However, real estate agents would then expect to be treated like other people who charge this way
obviously, they would have to be paid for ALL their time. this is basically not going to happen, so a commission structure will continue to prevail. however, the 6% structure could definitely be downsized in communities where housing prices have skyrocketed.
it seems to me that RE agents will be either grossly overpaid (if they sell a house quickly, in which case their effective hourly rate may be in the four figures), or grossly underpaid (if it takes a long time to sell a house, or if the house is taken off the market, in which case the hourly rate is negative thanks to the realtor's costs).
of course, if you talk to an RE agent that you just paid a $12,000 commission for their ten hours of work when they sell your house in a week, they will say they were "worth it" because of how fast they sold your house.
but by the same token, when an agent complains that they didn't get paid after investing many tens or perhaps hundreds of hours in a client that fell through, one would have to say that the agent's paycheck of zero dollars was likewise "worth it".
the individual transactions are thus misleading, especially to homeowners and agents who can't "see beyond the valley".
so it is the kind of job that will hopefully average out to a fair wage, even though the individual transactions could deviate significantly from "fair" in either direction. |
