That isnt being a real estate agent, that is buying/selling the market.

Ok I’ll rephrase: We software engineers tried to buy/sell houses using algorithms, and failed to the tune of $550m. I think we collectively would have similar success (or lack thereof) as actual real estate agents.

These are two different jobs.

“The algorithms are fooling themselves…” I loved that comment haha! Great link.

The right thing to do is I think to digitise the process. Having a transparent way of following a bidding session and subsequent legal arrangement to completion would be extremely useful, and would surely scale pretty well.

Sometimes real estate agents fail at flipping and stick to brokering other people's transactions too.