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[quote=Anonymous][quote]This rule change will do nothing to deter Steering; theoretically it would only aggravate it. The solution is the untying of seller/buyer broker fees. In no other industry of competing interests is one party’s representation compensated by the adversarial interest. [b]Imagine your soon-to-be-ex paying your divorce attorney[/b]; that would not even be allowed, not without highly specific circumstances. In the allice-in-wonderland-ian theme park of the real estate industry, it’s a perfectly normal arrangement worth spending millions to force consumer participation.[/quote]

[quote]This happens all the time.  Usually when one party has all the money.  [/quote]

That would be an example of the "specific circumstances" . The point is, it is never ideal be represented in an adversarial situation by adversary-funded agent. In the divorce context, if both parties can afford a lawyer, there is no rule that one party offer the lawyer compensation, as is the case with real estate.

[quote]That is often the situation in homebuying situations.  [/quote]

Most often, yes.

[quote]My spouse is a realtor, and I suspect that in the relatively near future, buyer agency will be pretty uncommon (as it was 30 years ago), since few buyers will be able to afford to pay for representation (sellers can usually only afford it because they can pay out of the proceeds of the sale).[/quote]

Buyers not being able to afford to pay for representation is feature of the US real state industry practices not present in similar countries where the costs are much less. The remedy is not to offset unnecessary inflated prices through subsidies. That is simply waste, by definition. The remedy to make buying more affordable - to eliminate unnecessary costs- includes allowing the market to adjust to equilibrium.

[i]"The most obvious and first-order concern is a massive transfer in wealth away from consumers. Commissions in the United States are two to three times higher than in other developed countries such as Australia, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In 2019, realtors collected roughly $100 billion in commissions, indicating that [u]U.S. consumers annually would pay about $50 billion less in fees if U.S. realtors charged commission rates in line with international norms[/u]. (Alford & Harris)"[/i] (emphasis mine)

Let’s start there: buy lowering the cost of purchasing to the worldwide industry norms. Let's reform to truly allow services providers (attorneys, etc..) to compete for services by offering competitive prices without industry interference (seller/buyer "tying", anti-rebate advocacy, steering, minimum service requirement advocacy, etc...). If prices are still too high, we can address this by considering a subsidy structure by weighing our options.

[quote]I don't think this will ultimately be good for buyers.  It will save sellers some money over the long haul, but there is a cost to that for both buyers and buyer agents.[/quote]

What evidence is there that things would be worse for buyers? There is already massive a cost, with empirical data suggesting the social waste of the current system estimated to be in the billions (“between $1.1 and $8.2 billion” Hsieh & Moretti; “The cost of all this to consumers amounts to tens of billions of dollars a year.” Alford & Harris https://www.cato.org/regulation/summer-2021/anticompetition-buying-selling-homes)

Regarding buyer agents, things would be worse for buyer agents relocating to the UK, Australia, or Canada where the US real estate industry isn't perverting market conditions. The remedy for that isn't to distort the market making if favorable to agents at the expense of the consumers. In that case, if buyer agents do not like the compensation in an open competitive market framework, they should be free to change profession.

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