So well stated! I don’t feel after 33 years of real estate, full time, that I should have to “fight” to earn a decent commission/ living. Yes the $1 offer can usually be modified in the purchase contract to a decent amount, but not always. Some Sellers won’t agree to compensate us…. and some Realtors do refuse to show these properties. I don’t blame them.

The sad thing is that there are actually firms offering it in the first place which is an insult to our intelligence and our professional worth. My many hours of time showing houses is worth much more than a dollar.

I completely stand behind you on this.

Thanks Gerald. Clearly thought out and eloquently stated. We have come a long way since the old system of assumed buyer sub-agency. The industry is justified in standing up for an equitable middle ground that balances the competing interests of buyers and sellers while allowing the industry an element of control over its own business model.
Ron Farrington
Retired Broker
Peachland BC

When I saw the lawsuit regarding “price fixing”. I was confused, There is just as much conflict between brokerages and their brokers as there is cooperation. If we were able to get along so well as to “nationally price fix” We wouldn’t require 225+ different brokerages in a city with just over a million people. The accusations brought about in the lawsuit is bizarre.

The spirit of the lawsuit seems to be, “This quality of people shouldn’t be able to charge so much, we are going to slander them and defeat them legally to prove our point”.

Some brokerages make their living by advertising their comparably low fee structure. That is their value proposition. Higher fee and lower fee brokerages are able to simultaneously exist, except for some multinational flat fee brokerages that have gone under half a dozen times since I entered the business.

A good buyer and sellers agent protects consumers and the industry from bad actors. They can and often are be the conscious guide for well-meaning individuals dealing with enormous amounts of money and risk. They are currently a necessity.

People are motivated by self-interest. Without conscientious professionals involved throughout the entire sales process, this system becomes cheap in price and substance. The Facbook market place of real estate sales. The process is eroded, the value is eroded and the quality of consumer experience, and subsequently property values, and mortgage values are eroded.

If there was a glaring industry issue to point out, it would be the low barriers to enter and stay in the industry. Trades people require a four-year apprenticeship, accountants require undergrad and post-grad certification. Real Estate agents require three months of education and 7K upfront with minimal upgrading and yearly licensing fees. They can then hold on to their license indefinitely. We have huge gaps in the industry where a majority of agents sell next to nothing. 5.5 M homes sold in the US and there are 2 million agents. No wonder public opinion of our profession is so low. Most of us are running around without any experience charging huge sums of money.
I typically sell three times the national average. 21 ish units a year. I have a ton of free time. My cost to compete in the industry erodes this income completely.

I am all for charging less, as my business experiences an obscene amount of deadweight loss from loss-leading activities, much of which is caused by the plethora of agents competing for the same business. If there were higher barriers to entry, more deals would be left to better professionals, who could in turn charge less for a higher volume of business.

I totally agree. Who thinks that running around for $1 is fair and then you have to ask your buyers to pay which they think is unusual because “we’ve never had to do that in any house that we’ve bought”. Now the relationship turns because they don’t want to pay as “the seller pays”. It becomes complex to navigate thru. A friend said to me, “how come you have to accept this as if I want to sell my old car, I can’t just drop it off at a dealership, leave it on the lot and tell them that I’ll give them a $1 and to call me when it’s sold and I’ll come pay the $1 and collect the balance”. She said that’s what it feels like to her but the car lot would tell her to go to hell even tho her car would get greater exposure there. It’s something to think about. I’m all for competition but not at the expense that someone thinks that my experience and value that I bring is only worth $1. In today’s world there isn’t much you can buy for $1 and I can’t be bought for that either lol.

Ever since that former interim-then-permanent Competition Commissioner started amending the Canadian Competition Act so that it had similar offenses (and teeth) as did the USA version AND THEN started applying the USA-like anti-competitive laws against the Real Estate Business … we have had to battle the Cdn Competition Bureau as if THEY were ALWAYS right and we we ALWAYS wrong.

Thanks for this article and thanks to REM

Having just reeled through your article, I must say I agree with your position wholeheartedly. In the world of politics, perception is reality. In the world of real estate sales, reality is often trumped by misperception. Unless one has been in the saddle as a real estate salesperson for more than a few deals, or years, whichever comes last, one will never fully appreciate the workings of this convoluted, sometimes part-time venture, sometimes full-time try-out scheme, or, sometimes full-time profession. Take your pick. That’s the problem; onlookers and overseers from without who have never experienced the trajectory of the money flow between buyers and sellers who use the M.L.S. system of offering properties for sale on a competitive, but, cooperative, platform, simply can not, and seemingly, do not, want to admit to its longstanding success that benefits buyers, sellers and, licensed operatives alike. Government types don’t seem to like or respect sales people, it seems.

What the government overseers only want to see is the misperception that ‘every’ real estate deal is struck by two operatives working together in the back rooms to ‘pull’ deals together behind their charges’ backs. We both know this kind of dirty-dealing behaviour goes on in this business. That is why government types view this business with a jaundiced eye. Too many brokers cryptically condone this kind of double-dealing for the good of their own back pockets. When this kind of chicanery gets out, of course it tars the whole industry. I have been retired from the business for nigh on thirteen years now. It’s not the system that needs rejigging; it’s the operators. This is a commission-only sales position, and for better or worse, it will continue to attract slippery, unsavory types to its ranks. I blame some brokers for their hiring practices, and, applaud others for theirs. Therein lies the rub.

I challenge anyone who works within the Competition Bureau to go to work tomorrow for one dollar. Their mission is to control the uncontrollable, it seems. Government cannot control human nature.
Methinks their ranks are flush with university grads who never got out of the classroom before entering government service. Idealists? Yes. Realists? No. Choosers of misperceptions that fit their prescribed narratives? I think so.

I’ve worked in a government agency staffed by nine-to-five bureaucrats with left-wing political chips on their shoulders. I know of what I speak.

Should you want to form up some kind of lobby group, let me know.