In all this anger at "the financial industry", where's the outrage against the Realty industry? [View All]

I haven't heard word one about them in all of this and I'm of the mind that the Realty and the National Association of Realtors have had a large role in how screwy the housing market has been for the past two decades.

First off, 7% commissions are absolutely insane, even though they are the industry standard in the communities I've bought and sold houses in. That hugely artificially inflates the cost of selling and buying homes.

Secondly, there are certain markets where the Realtors play a strong hand, right along side the banks and the loan servicers, in amplifying home prices. I once almost moved to Eureka/Arcata California and was shown houses by the realtor. At the time, you couldn't get anything decent for less than $400K and nice stuff was $600K+. Now, I'm a doctor but getting into a market like that is pricey if you don't have another overpriced house to sell. As I almost signed a contract up there, I asked the realtor how realistic was it to get a house even if the payments might have been out of my comfortable bracket. Frankly I said, I can't afford these kind of houses but I'm not willing giving up a decent situation back in Michigan for something that is less quality. The realtor said look, we'll get you into whatever you want. I said, but what if my financials don't qualify. He just reassured me that banks would lend and that I shouldn't worry about it. Needless to say, I just didn't feel comfortable buying on thin air so I backed out.

I feel as much as banks lent out money when they shouldn't have, it was the Realtors who not only helped inflate home prices institutionally by way of crazy commission fees but also by the practice of encouraging and convincing people to buy homes they really couldn't afford.

If I were in a position to do so, I'd take a strong look at reforming the Realty industry to help control artificial home price inflation.