I just love what you posted. Gimme more!

Hi. Very nice blog. I\’ve been reading your other entries all day long..lol.

And what do Americans receive in exchange for that commission, which can total up to $24,000 on a $400,000 home? In many cases, not much. A realtor’s license can be had after as little as 50 or 60 hours of training (the person who cuts your hair probably has 1,000 hours or more). I’ve dealt with a half-dozen realtors during the past seven years, while selling two homes and buying three others. Last year, for instance, we sold a home in the $500,000 price range in the town of Newcastle, east of Seattle. It wasn’t a perfect home—a typical suburban place with too much garage, not enough yard—but a very nice one, including a full theater room and a fantastic home office. We wanted to sell to make a move to Port Townsend, a little town in the northwest corner of Washington. One realtor we used to sell it was utterly incapable of articulating how our house differed from nearby, newer ones that basically were thrown up overnight and had cheap interior finishings. Another was clueless as to how to market a house in our price range, printing a cheap single-sheet black-and-white information flyer. (Our experiences were generally better on the buy side, except for one seller’s agent who sought to discredit a skilled building inspector we hired who found that the foundation of a circa-1880 home was a rat’s nest of rotting wood, faulty concrete, falling insulation and, well, rats’ nests.)
But the real knock on realtors is a bit of simple economics that many people don’t understand. Whether you’re buying or selling, they rarely work in your interest. For the buyer, a realtor may seem like a dream—a “free” home-finding chauffeur, who then negotiates the best possible price. But the service isn’t free—the sellers have likely factored the buyer’s agent’s 2.5 percent or 3 percent of the take into their price. Moreover, it’s in the buyer’s agent’s interest to have you pay the most that you’re willing to pay. After all, the higher the price, the larger their commission.

I am all for it. I wonder how many folks actually use these. I built a small store that grew into over 100 thousands items. Its crazy how fast it grows!. Anyway. I agree!