Why would any buyer go through a real estate agent?

[3d]

thermarest wrote:
This was the exact topic of one of the chapters in the Freakonomics book. They showed quite convincingly that the agent does not act in the seller's best interest. It is far more advantageous for the agent for the selling price to be lower and sell the property more quickly.

So, I suppose from this perspective that the agent is good for the buyer.

Here's a snippit and link to some discussion of the topic:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/20...revisited/

"Do brokers add sufficient value to justify those commissions? We address this question using a unique data set pertaining to sales of faculty and staff homes on the Stanford University campus. We find no evidence that the use of a broker leads to higher average selling prices, or that it significantly alters average initial asking prices"

Interesting. Which might explain why Mike Johnson says that "I've looked at FSBOs and every single one was overpriced." And he was nice enough to qualify the statement afterwards with, "Not every FSBO is a skinflint a-hole..." Haha.

So according to Freakonomics, it's not that FSBO sellers are skinflint a-holes, it's just that seller's agents are more willing to go down on the price for a quick sale to get the commission and seal the deal rather than haggle over .05% on the counter bid. While if you were dealing directly with the skinflint a-hole... errr.. i mean the owner directly, the owner would be less willing to budge on the price.

Thanks for the link, I'll read into it more later at home.