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> the agent we use has been involved in several sales and a purchase for our extended family in a few years, and we've referred other people to her, too. Great

> the agent we use has been involved in several sales and a purchase for our extended family in a few years, and we've referred other people to her, too. Great, so you are wealthy and have wealthy friends and family. Cool. That still doesn’t mean agents are not trying to get prices up. Your experience could mean that your agent noticed you had money and decided it would be in her best interest to treat you well. You got me about how many times someone buys property. I looked it up and it seems like “most people can expect to own three homes during their lifetimes”. So, let’s say you buy your first home at 30 and die at 81, and own each house for the same time, then you’ll buy a new house every (81-30)/3 = 17 years. It’s very hard for me to believe that an agent will try to get someone a lower price just so they can work with them again 17 years later. Also, given rising housing prices and the state of overall student debt/rising costs of education, I would bet that the average number of houses someone buys/owns in a lifetime is going to drastically go down in the next few decades (thus reducing even further the possibility of an agent of getting repeat business from a single client, unless maybe they are as wealthy as you and your friends and family).

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Great, so you are wealthy and have wealthy friends and family. Relative to HN, probably not; globally, definitely, for California...that’s sort of a fuzzy matter of perspective (probably not for a California homeowner), but, eh, whatever. Not the point. My point is that satisfaction is not completely irrelevant for agents. > That still doesn’t mean agents are not trying to get prices up. Maybe, though even if they aren't hoping for repeat or referral business the incentives are more for agents to close deals as rapidly as possible; most buyers are going to be looking near the limit of what they can afford anyway, a buyer's agent trying to push them higher is just going to make the process slower. A seller's agent wanting to maximize price would actually be acting in their principal’s interest, but even on the seller side the incentive is to get a deal and close rather than drag things out for a little bump; spending twice the work for a an extra 10% on thr sale price (and thus commission) isn’t a winning move even though it may be what the seller would want. > Also, given rising housing prices and the state of overall student debt/rising costs of education, I would bet that the average number of houses someone buys/owns in a lifetime is going to drastically go down in the next few decades The sources I’ve seen have shown it going up recently (increasing economic inequality and buy/rent price ratio should probably have that effect by cutting some of the people that would buy the fewest houses entirely out of homeownership.)
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dragonwriter 5y ago

> Great, so you are wealthy and have wealthy friends and family. Relative to HN, probably not; globally, definitely, for California...that’s sort of a fuzzy matter of perspective (probably not for a California homeowner), but, eh, whatever. Not the point. My point is that satisfaction is not completely irrelevant for agents. > That still doesn’t mean agents are not trying to get prices up. Maybe, though even if they aren't hoping for repeat or referral business the incentives are more for agents to close deals as rapidly as possible; most buyers are going to be looking near the limit of what they can afford anyway, a buyer's agent trying to push them higher is just going to make the process slower. A seller's agent wanting to maximize price would actually be acting in their principal’s interest, but even on the seller side the incentive is to get a deal and close rather than drag things out for a little bump; spending twice the work for a an extra 10% on thr sale price (and thus commission) isn’t a winning move even though it may be what the seller would want. > Also, given rising housing prices and the state of overall student debt/rising costs of education, I would bet that the average number of houses someone buys/owns in a lifetime is going to drastically go down in the next few decades The sources I’ve seen have shown it going up recently (increasing economic inequality and buy/rent price ratio should probably have that effect by cutting some of the people that would buy the fewest houses entirely out of homeownership.)

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