04-16-2009, 05:41 PM
The pricing system for agents is ridiculous. As someone mentioned above, since the system is a fixed percentage of the sale price, the housing bubble resulted in massive increases for agents for doing no additional work. Also, the fixed percentage gives the same reward for an extremely simple listing that sells in a day and a complex property that takes months to sell. In addition, this system gives the wrong incentive to the buyer's agent...the more their client pays the more they get. It's also a monopoly. There are a couple of local realty companies that do it differently...fixed fee for MLS listings, advertising, signage, etc, and then hourly for the agent's time. However, the other agents tend to shun those companies by steering their buyers clear of those listings and FISBOs. This is unethical. I agree that agents do valuable work but their compensation system is a big scam.