[squozzer]

As someone who has bought a couple of houses, a buyer's agent mostly provides convenience because they can access the property just as easily as the listing agent.

While agent fees usually run in the thousands of USD, probably the larger source of tacked-on fees is on the mortgage side, especially when the buyer does not have the 20% down.

So not sure if transferring more of the fee load to buyers will help move real estate. After all, except for strong seller's markets or when shopping for a specific type of home, the seller usually has more incentive to sell their home than a buyer has to buy it.

Regarding selling, I'm not sure this development is the realtor kill-shot - I would argue outfits such as Opendoor (convenience) or even Redfin (eliminate realtor fees) probably will inflict more damage to a realtor's income.

Because selling a house is a 100x greater PITA than buying.

[bluedevil2k]

Convenience shouldn’t cost 3% though. When I was looking for a house I was able to find houses I liked on search engines and then call the aeller’s realtor directly to set up a viewing. When time came for an offer, paying a real estate lawyer an hourly fee ends up saving $10k+.