Does that matter? You're not hiring them because there is a high bar of training.

Heck, programming is literally done by schoolchildren for entertainment, myself included, yet people are quite happy to hire us because they understand the value of delegation.

That is true. But the value added by a good realtor can produce as much value add to a transaction. I've talked to enough people who had bad realtors that I know they can literally be useless. But I've also worked with a buyer's agent who got 3% knocked off the price of the home I was buying. This is in the city of Boston, where most houses go for over asking, so I might have viewed this move as risky without my realtor's experience backing me up. And I had none of the issues people complain about online (no pushing a particular home inspector or lender, etc.) Additionally, I've done enough deals involving lawyers to know there are some incredibly crappy lawyers, despite all their training.

On the other hand, is it possible you could have gotten a lower price by not having a realtor? Since the seller wouldn't have to give up a percentage of their earnings to you realtor, they might have been happy to lower the price.

It doesn't take a lot of time to learn how to change your oil, but i still pay a guy to do it.

But would you pay him $1,000 to do it? At some point, you would do it yourself. I think when people say they add no value, what they mean is, they don't add $35k of value on a $500k home purchase.

yeah and it takes longer to become a doctor than a lawyer but I doubt you'd argue against hiring a lawyer for that reason