4 ms·

Hire experts. You are definitely allowed to do this, for everything. Even your day job. If you're starting a project or doing something complicated for the fir

Hire experts. You are definitely allowed to do this, for everything. Even your day job. If you're starting a project or doing something complicated for the first time (ie, buying a house), pay someone to walk you through the basics and answer a list of questions. It's often cheaper than you think. The hardest part is finding experts who are willing to do one off work for a few hundred or thousand dollars.

throwaway_1928 4y ago
"A star programmer fired for outsourcing his own job has learned a harsh lesson: exploitation is a job for employers, not staff" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/17/sacked-model-modern-employee-outsourcing https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/17/sacked...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- more_corn 4y ago
  Funny thing about that. If you want to do it you are allowed. You only get in trouble if you lie about it. Quit your W2, form LLC, go back to employer. “Hey boss, I started a new company, me and my team will do just what I did before but now we can scale up and down as needed.” My business does this. We’ve got ten people and a fantastic amount of work. I was worried that the downturn would hurt us but we have more inbound work now than we did a month ago and we’re adding two new people next week.
  - throwaway_1928 4y ago
    Brilliant.
version_five 4y ago
> The hardest part is finding experts who are willing to do one off work for a few hundred or thousand dollars. In my limited experience, I find that there are tons of people willing to "help" me with tasks I don't care about, whereas it's very hard to find people who can actually provide high value assistance. For example, setting up my company, I called an accounting firm. The guy they put me in touch with had no real input re the specific tax and situational questions I had, and wanted to sell me bookkeeping software (while telling me to call revenue Canada - our IRS - and ask them about my questions.). That seems to be the norm. Same is true with financial advice, legal advice, travel agents, all sorts of things. Understandably, people have built businesses that "productized" something, and are focused on selling that, because of the low marginal cost. It makes it very hard to actually get expert advice
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
  ya.. i paid $300 once because i was moving from Canada to use and wanted to know about tax implications from an expert. for 45 min. she answered my questions but offered nothing more. i wanted to know all the things i didn't know i should be asking. if i knew I'd just Google it
orzig 4y ago
When I was buying my first home, I decided to try paying an hourly rate for a 'second opinion' from another Real Estate Agent (on the theory that my primary one had an incentive to close on a mediocre deal quickly). I could have tried harder, but I was disappointed to get feedback from the one I talked to in depth that nobody would risk their relationships/reputation for a few hundred dollars. I'm not the first person to say it, nor is this the biggest example, but definitely evidence in favor of "Real Estate Agents are a oligopolistic cartel"
- popcube 4y ago
  this interesting, in my country they will start fighting to decide that who server you...
- version_five 4y ago
  Not that I disagree with your characterization, but I can understand why a real estate agent wouldn't advise you. They are not consultants or professional service providers, and are not set up to do hourly work. If you're an engineer or a lawyer, you have limits on the kind of consulting you would do, and have insurance against errors, plus your whole business is set up to handle hourly consulting work. A real estate agent won't have the insurance, probably has not mechanism to even take your money through their brokerage (who would want a cut of everything and limit the kinds of services the agent could offer). Plus what they told you is correct, there is a limited upside in making even a very high hourly wage offering you advice, and huge downside if there advice doesn't pan out and you sue, or they have some reputational issues from second guessing colleagues. The whole market just isn't set up that way. And I'd guess a big reason is that at the residential transaction level, there is basically no demand for it. If you're buying a site for an industrial project or housing development or something, I'm sure you can find a consultant that specializes in that. Tldr, there are good reasons why a real estate agent wouldn't advise you like that, even if overall it's a scummy job.

throwaway_1928 4y ago

"A star programmer fired for outsourcing his own job has learned a harsh lesson: exploitation is a job for employers, not staff" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/17/sacked-model-modern-employee-outsourcing https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/17/sacked...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
more_corn 4y ago
Funny thing about that. If you want to do it you are allowed. You only get in trouble if you lie about it. Quit your W2, form LLC, go back to employer. “Hey boss, I started a new company, me and my team will do just what I did before but now we can scale up and down as needed.” My business does this. We’ve got ten people and a fantastic amount of work. I was worried that the downturn would hurt us but we have more inbound work now than we did a month ago and we’re adding two new people next week.
- throwaway_1928 4y ago
  Brilliant.

version_five 4y ago

> The hardest part is finding experts who are willing to do one off work for a few hundred or thousand dollars. In my limited experience, I find that there are tons of people willing to "help" me with tasks I don't care about, whereas it's very hard to find people who can actually provide high value assistance. For example, setting up my company, I called an accounting firm. The guy they put me in touch with had no real input re the specific tax and situational questions I had, and wanted to sell me bookkeeping software (while telling me to call revenue Canada - our IRS - and ask them about my questions.). That seems to be the norm. Same is true with financial advice, legal advice, travel agents, all sorts of things. Understandably, people have built businesses that "productized" something, and are focused on selling that, because of the low marginal cost. It makes it very hard to actually get expert advice

8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
ya.. i paid $300 once because i was moving from Canada to use and wanted to know about tax implications from an expert. for 45 min. she answered my questions but offered nothing more. i wanted to know all the things i didn't know i should be asking. if i knew I'd just Google it

orzig 4y ago

When I was buying my first home, I decided to try paying an hourly rate for a 'second opinion' from another Real Estate Agent (on the theory that my primary one had an incentive to close on a mediocre deal quickly). I could have tried harder, but I was disappointed to get feedback from the one I talked to in depth that nobody would risk their relationships/reputation for a few hundred dollars. I'm not the first person to say it, nor is this the biggest example, but definitely evidence in favor of "Real Estate Agents are a oligopolistic cartel"

popcube 4y ago
this interesting, in my country they will start fighting to decide that who server you...
version_five 4y ago
Not that I disagree with your characterization, but I can understand why a real estate agent wouldn't advise you. They are not consultants or professional service providers, and are not set up to do hourly work. If you're an engineer or a lawyer, you have limits on the kind of consulting you would do, and have insurance against errors, plus your whole business is set up to handle hourly consulting work. A real estate agent won't have the insurance, probably has not mechanism to even take your money through their brokerage (who would want a cut of everything and limit the kinds of services the agent could offer). Plus what they told you is correct, there is a limited upside in making even a very high hourly wage offering you advice, and huge downside if there advice doesn't pan out and you sue, or they have some reputational issues from second guessing colleagues. The whole market just isn't set up that way. And I'd guess a big reason is that at the residential transaction level, there is basically no demand for it. If you're buying a site for an industrial project or housing development or something, I'm sure you can find a consultant that specializes in that. Tldr, there are good reasons why a real estate agent wouldn't advise you like that, even if overall it's a scummy job.