The more I interact with my realtor, the more I realize realtors are the leeches of society. They are one of the biggest reasons why house prices are the way they are (you can come at me with investors, rates, inflation, whatever). They give you “comps” in the name of strategy and competitiveness but send you “comps” that aren’t actually comparable, whether more rooms, square footage, less work, and really anything else not comparable, to give you the false impression that you need to bid above the “comps’” selling price to be competitive or fear losing out. At scale, this inflates the market dramatically bc people fear letting the one get away.
They encourage sellers to underlist and ask for “best and highest” to ensure information asymmetry so the sellers have all the information and power while buyers have none, again, resulting in inflationary decisions driven by fear.
I don’t have a fix besides not using realtors, ignoring them into oblivion, but it becomes a prisoners’ dilemma bc, supposedly, having a realtor will be an advantage over someone who doesn’t …