In many parts of the US they rank somewhere above used car salesmen but below the politicians and bankers. I’m far from alone in hoping they’ll be comprehensively destroyed by the internet just as travel agents have been.
It gets better (worse?).
When I was a kid there was a real estate agency near us. Whose name was “The Real Estators”. Whose sub-head was “member of NAR: REALTORS (r)”
Some Googling just now finds many outfits named “real estators” or “real estaters” all over the country. These seem to be independent outfits, not some sort of franchise.
Gaah! What are these buffoons doing to our language??!!?!111
“Real”, with respect to real property, is a recognized legal term in the USA, which is distinct from the usual usage of the word “real”, meaning not imaginary or fictitious.
*
“Each U.S. State except Louisiana has its own laws governing real property and the estates therein, grounded in the common law. In Arizona,real property is generally defined as land and the things permanently attached to the land. . . which also can be referred to as improvements, include homes, garages, and buildings.” *-- Wiki
Below politicians? That’s not possible. I’ll buy that they are probably below bankers.
Wow, you must have had some horrible experiences with real estate agents. The nature of being a real estate agent has changed due to the internet, but they are not becoming extinct. Most people still need advice and assistance from someone who knows a market, the selling/buying process and the paperwork. I would opine that there are far fewer sleazy, lazy and uninformed RE agents than politicians, by a long shot.
But yeah, as for the Realtor (R) thing, it always seems as a bit of an affectation. But I understand why, as the NAR doesn’t want the term to become separate from the NAR, as with Kleenex or Q-Tip.
I’m not a fan myself, though “rent-seekers” is about as far as I’d go in the name-calling direction. The first time I bought/sold a house, I was in a market where the for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) thing was popular. We paid a small flat fee to MLS-ify our house and then a larger flat fee (~$700) to a real estate attorney who drew up the documents and walked us through the closing.
When I went to buy a new house in another market, the seller had an agent and we used a buyer’s agent. The commissions were thousands of dollars and I didn’t see any value added to the process.
When I asked (politely) what value the agents were adding, they both mentioned (a) helping us find the “right” house via knowledge of the local market and (b) lots of handwaving about how complicated real estate transactions are and how many ways they can go south.
I didn’t buy either explanation. There was no moment where some vague “market knowledge” helped us pick a house. And yes, there’s some risk involved in the purchase process, but IMHO, it’s not because the transaction is complex but mostly due to the enormous amount of money involved. Things can go south in all sorts of weird ways, but those things are extremely rare, at least as far as I can tell.
In my experience, most of what a real estate agent contributes to a transaction comes directly from information asymmetry (e.g., in many places you can’t get a house listed on MLS without involving an agent). That’s why I perceive real estate agents to be rent seekers as a class.
On the other hand, naturally, many individual agents do try hard to help their clients, and some people actively want an agent’s help.
It was once pointed out to me that this profession is one of the few routes to the middle class available to women without a college degree. (Men have traditionally had more blue-collar options, but of course this has been in a state of flux for a long time). I don’t think we (as a society) should prop up the real estate profession for this reason, but I try to remember this when I complain about real estate agents.
But why do they insist on putting their photos on their business cards? That is so tacky. Can you imagine a doctor or minister or someone with class doing that?
And on their yard signs as well? I find it insulting, as they seem to be saying “I’m counting on you being shallow enough that you’ll call me based on my awkwardly-posed Adult Yearbook Photo.”
I’ll call you if I’m interested in the house, not because I’m going to see your face on your card/sign and say “Gee, I normally wouldn’t have trusted a thing you say, but now that I see that you look like an aging Trapp Family kid, I’ll put my housing future in your hands.”
All of the doctors’ business cards on the racks at the clinic I go to have their pictures on them. The business cards are provided by the hospital they work for, so maybe they have others, but if I need a card, those are the ones I’m handed by the nurse. I don’t see anything odd about it.
That’s weird, there are tons of dypthongs in English. They’re not always spelled as two vowels, but this paragraph alone contains several dypthongs and tripthongs.
He didn’t have his photo on the business cards, granted. But leaving a cousin’s house after the bris of one of his (the cousin’s) sons–for the uninitiated, as it were, a bris is that particular celebration and ceremony with one blissfully clueless 8-day old Jew as guest of honor–I found my way to the door by following a trail of the mohel’s business cards.
[minor ETA] “diphthong”
