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> "Would you trust purchasing a house from a seller, without meeting/talking to them, or a single person before and throughout the purchase?" You mean I can ge

> "Would you trust purchasing a house from a seller, without meeting/talking to them, or a single person before and throughout the purchase?" You mean I can get an unbiased look at a house in peace, compare the numbers, look at the plans, measure the humidity and do my due diligence without a sales person breathing down my neck? Hell yea. I'd pay premium for that.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
I found my apartment online. Set up the meeting. Negotiated the documents and corrected them where necessary. The broker I paid 10% of my first year's rent? Apparently he bought a ticket to Paris the morning of our closing.
- johnchristopher 10y ago
  If you negotiated the documents yourselves, why were any broker involved ?
  - rejschaap 10y ago
    For my first appartment I used a broker as well. At the end of the process I discovered their added value was less than 0. Disregarding their fee, I paid too much for the appartement and they encouraged the high price, because they just wanted to close and receive their fee. When I bought my next house I did not use a broker. That's just the way things go, you live and learn. People are more and more selling without a broker as well, or at least they start to use cheaper brokers where you only buy the service you need.
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    Most apartments in New York City have a broker involved somewhere. In this case, the building owner had a sell-side broker. A condition for renting the building was paying the building owner's fee, directly to the broker, and while simultaneously absolving the broker of any responsibility to me, the paying party, over the building owner, the technical client.
    - madeofpalk 10y ago
      The whole NYC real estate brokers thing is completely fucked. The whole thing is a scam.
    - johnchristopher 10y ago
      Ah, I see. What's in it for the building owner then ?
  - koolba 10y ago
    > If you negotiated the documents yourselves, why were any broker involved ? It's a scamola with a similar racket being Ticketmaster's "convenience fees". Most apartments in NYC will require going through their broker who collects a fee (usually a percentage of the first years rent). A chunk of that fee ends up being a kickback to the owner of the apartment. Ticketmaster does the same thing with venues (tack on $15 fee, give the venue $7.50).
princeb 10y ago
since a company is made up of people, and the performance of a company is closely tied to the ability of the management, and when you buy over the company you might be concerned about your affinity as an owner to the group of people that makes up management, then I think an investment banker fulfils the same role as an interviewer or a recruiter for a job candidate. would you hire a person for your team just by looking at degree transcripts, LOC written, and the resume? maybe you would, but I'm not too inclined to do that.
gedy 10y ago
I did exactly this when buying my home through Redfin. I only met the selling agent in person because they unlocked the door so I could see inside. The rest was though email mostly.
deleted 10y ago
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deleted 10y ago
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tatabska 10y ago
This is the classical hn bias. Normal people would like to talk to humans. Hn users would rather get info, plans, etc from houses and eventually buy them and sign the contract using a REST API with a node.js client..
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  Kind of defeats the analogy though.
- neximo64 10y ago
  Exactly lots of people want the experience of the salesman in picking a house, information on the neighbours and what its like to leave there & why the previous person is getting rid of it. The HN bias is a bit like the salesman is the inefficient part disincentivized to help you and trying to rip you off.
  - hueving 10y ago
    The salesman is incentivized to screw you. They work on commission so the faster they can move houses, the better. Real estate agents are screwing both the buyer (feed you bullshit to get you to buy) and the seller (convince to back off of higher prices because the 0-15% difference in price isn't worth the weeks more effort on their commission).
    - neximo64 10y ago
      Like a restaurant though, if they were bad at their job they wouldn't attract new clients. Under a HN analogy if they screwed clients they'd have a 0 rating and lose future clients. The assumption you have is they are simply a market matcher but they're offering more than that. Their incentive is to get the highest possible sale price in the shortest amount of time and a good reputation. That high price has to also be clearable meaning it cannot be just up in the air and seemingly arbitrary (it can cost either time or reputation). Without them there is much more information asymmetry. Using an online version you basically have access to the same information you would as with them but without the human element to judge through nor their experience on offer.
geocar 10y ago
> > > "Would you trust purchasing a house from a seller, without meeting/talking to them, or a single person before and throughout the purchase?" > You mean I can get an unbiased look at a house in peace, compare the numbers, look at the plans, measure the humidity and do my due diligence without a sales person breathing down my neck? No, I don't think anyone means that. They mean purchase the house. You can't go into a company and get them to show you their sales pipeline and their staff's performance evaluations before you (potentially) invest. If you want to do these things, you need to make a series of smaller deals first. Human beings can be fluid, can enter into non-disclosure agreements and make these kinds of bespoke deals, while a web-based transaction form with a buy-it-now button cannot.
- icantdrive55 10y ago
  For a decade now, I can't figure out why we still bother with Realtors. It's basically eight courses, and an easy test. Oh, and the experience. Don't get me started. It's the biggest purchase most of us will make, so I understand the need for hand holding, but times have changed. The typical buyer is educated, and in all likelyhood knows about as much as the typical ex-cheerleader Realtor. I thought the profession would be gone by now. It is ripe for elimination. The only reason I would use a realtor is out of convention. And believe me, I would want to see a fresh copy of their omissions & errors insurance premium. (Need someone to sue, but that could easily be the Seller if they lied.) Sorry if I sound bitter. I just don't get giving away 3% on huge amounts of money for essentially hand holding. (In CA, the Realtors Lobbyists tried to cut down on new Brokers by making the Brokers licence harder to obtain. Gov. Schwartzeneger saw right through the ploy, and vetoed the bill. He knew they just wanted to decrease the amount of Brokers, so the Cheerleaders would have less competition. Gov. Brown let the bill ride right through. All of you should remember that when paying thousands of dollars (full commission) for a few hours of a Realtors time. When that bill passed, I became an Independant.)

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

I found my apartment online. Set up the meeting. Negotiated the documents and corrected them where necessary. The broker I paid 10% of my first year's rent? Apparently he bought a ticket to Paris the morning of our closing.

johnchristopher 10y ago
If you negotiated the documents yourselves, why were any broker involved ?
- rejschaap 10y ago
  For my first appartment I used a broker as well. At the end of the process I discovered their added value was less than 0. Disregarding their fee, I paid too much for the appartement and they encouraged the high price, because they just wanted to close and receive their fee. When I bought my next house I did not use a broker. That's just the way things go, you live and learn. People are more and more selling without a broker as well, or at least they start to use cheaper brokers where you only buy the service you need.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  Most apartments in New York City have a broker involved somewhere. In this case, the building owner had a sell-side broker. A condition for renting the building was paying the building owner's fee, directly to the broker, and while simultaneously absolving the broker of any responsibility to me, the paying party, over the building owner, the technical client.
  - madeofpalk 10y ago
    The whole NYC real estate brokers thing is completely fucked. The whole thing is a scam.
  - johnchristopher 10y ago
    Ah, I see. What's in it for the building owner then ?
- koolba 10y ago
  > If you negotiated the documents yourselves, why were any broker involved ? It's a scamola with a similar racket being Ticketmaster's "convenience fees". Most apartments in NYC will require going through their broker who collects a fee (usually a percentage of the first years rent). A chunk of that fee ends up being a kickback to the owner of the apartment. Ticketmaster does the same thing with venues (tack on $15 fee, give the venue $7.50).

princeb 10y ago

since a company is made up of people, and the performance of a company is closely tied to the ability of the management, and when you buy over the company you might be concerned about your affinity as an owner to the group of people that makes up management, then I think an investment banker fulfils the same role as an interviewer or a recruiter for a job candidate. would you hire a person for your team just by looking at degree transcripts, LOC written, and the resume? maybe you would, but I'm not too inclined to do that.

gedy 10y ago

I did exactly this when buying my home through Redfin. I only met the selling agent in person because they unlocked the door so I could see inside. The rest was though email mostly.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tatabska 10y ago

This is the classical hn bias. Normal people would like to talk to humans. Hn users would rather get info, plans, etc from houses and eventually buy them and sign the contract using a REST API with a node.js client..

madeofpalk 10y ago
Kind of defeats the analogy though.
neximo64 10y ago
Exactly lots of people want the experience of the salesman in picking a house, information on the neighbours and what its like to leave there & why the previous person is getting rid of it. The HN bias is a bit like the salesman is the inefficient part disincentivized to help you and trying to rip you off.
- hueving 10y ago
  The salesman is incentivized to screw you. They work on commission so the faster they can move houses, the better. Real estate agents are screwing both the buyer (feed you bullshit to get you to buy) and the seller (convince to back off of higher prices because the 0-15% difference in price isn't worth the weeks more effort on their commission).
  - neximo64 10y ago
    Like a restaurant though, if they were bad at their job they wouldn't attract new clients. Under a HN analogy if they screwed clients they'd have a 0 rating and lose future clients. The assumption you have is they are simply a market matcher but they're offering more than that. Their incentive is to get the highest possible sale price in the shortest amount of time and a good reputation. That high price has to also be clearable meaning it cannot be just up in the air and seemingly arbitrary (it can cost either time or reputation). Without them there is much more information asymmetry. Using an online version you basically have access to the same information you would as with them but without the human element to judge through nor their experience on offer.

geocar 10y ago

> > > "Would you trust purchasing a house from a seller, without meeting/talking to them, or a single person before and throughout the purchase?" > You mean I can get an unbiased look at a house in peace, compare the numbers, look at the plans, measure the humidity and do my due diligence without a sales person breathing down my neck? No, I don't think anyone means that. They mean purchase the house. You can't go into a company and get them to show you their sales pipeline and their staff's performance evaluations before you (potentially) invest. If you want to do these things, you need to make a series of smaller deals first. Human beings can be fluid, can enter into non-disclosure agreements and make these kinds of bespoke deals, while a web-based transaction form with a buy-it-now button cannot.

icantdrive55 10y ago
For a decade now, I can't figure out why we still bother with Realtors. It's basically eight courses, and an easy test. Oh, and the experience. Don't get me started. It's the biggest purchase most of us will make, so I understand the need for hand holding, but times have changed. The typical buyer is educated, and in all likelyhood knows about as much as the typical ex-cheerleader Realtor. I thought the profession would be gone by now. It is ripe for elimination. The only reason I would use a realtor is out of convention. And believe me, I would want to see a fresh copy of their omissions & errors insurance premium. (Need someone to sue, but that could easily be the Seller if they lied.) Sorry if I sound bitter. I just don't get giving away 3% on huge amounts of money for essentially hand holding. (In CA, the Realtors Lobbyists tried to cut down on new Brokers by making the Brokers licence harder to obtain. Gov. Schwartzeneger saw right through the ploy, and vetoed the bill. He knew they just wanted to decrease the amount of Brokers, so the Cheerleaders would have less competition. Gov. Brown let the bill ride right through. All of you should remember that when paying thousands of dollars (full commission) for a few hours of a Realtors time. When that bill passed, I became an Independant.)