If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

Re:If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pens... by milkytron on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @03:06PM (#27451787)

> Over a long enough timeframe, the trend is toward higher prices, but it's not clear how much of a factor agents are in that, compared to many other factors.

I can't imagine agents would have much of an impact when compared to other causes of rising house prices. The way I see it, is that they are more of a kind of facilitator to increase the efficiency of the market, and don't have as much of a role in market behavior.

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Re:If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pens... by KirillPanov on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @11:51PM (#27456472)

There is a half-open set of prices the buyer will pay: [0..max).

There is a half-open set of prices the seller will accept: (min..$\infty$]

If these sets do not intersect, there's no deal no matter what the agents do.

If the sets do intersect, the agents collude to ensure that the sale closes at the HIGHEST price in the intersection.

That is why realtors are such a big factor in the housing crisis. They collude to push all of the transactional surplus to the seller, because both agents work for the seller.

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Re:If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pens... by pwinnski on Thursday June 10, 2021 @10:00AM (#27460851)

I have yet to encounter a realtor that competent, or possessing perfect information, but your mileage may vary.

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