[Porsche-O-Phile]

Jake, while it certainly sounds like you take your job seriously and I applaud you for it, the brutal reality is that what you're describing only proves my point. A service-oriented activity such as you describe will always have appeal for the right kind of client (the kind that likes to be doted on and wants everything done for them, and is willing to pay for it). There's nothing wrong with that. It's exactly like a travel agent. There are still travel agents around and there's still a certain type of client that will always support them (the same type I'm describing).

However the reality is that more and more people are becoming empowered by technology and they don't NEED this type of service. I'd even argue that most of them (speaking for myself) don't even particularly want it. I get a certain amount of satisfaction in researching things for myself, learning about how things work and figuring out the particulars of processes, procedures and established methods of doing things as part of an ongoing life-education process. A lot of my peers feel the same way. We don't need people wiping our butts for us - be it government or someone trying to sell us a "service" for several thousand dollars.

From a seller's perspective I can see a little more value in having an agent. You don't have to deal with the prospective pool of buyers directly. There's inherent value in that. I've sold several cars private party and it's always a headache. Between the flakes, the idiots, the dreamers, the tire-kickers and the time-wasters, I can certainly understand the desire to pay someone else to not have to deal with that kind of B.S. directly. However, is it NECESSARY? Hell no. And at the end of the day, who pays for this? That's right - the BUYER, not the seller anyway. And what's the benefit to the buyer exactly? (*cricket* *cricket*) Yeah, that's right.

I'm sorry if it sounds harsh, but I resent people expecting that they're somehow entitled to skim 6% or 7% (or more) off the top of what I'm paying when all I get out of it is the privilege of (generally speaking) listening to a lot of B.S. sales pitches and drinking a lot of RE-office bad coffee - and correcting the mistakes the agents are making on their boiler-plate forms that they supposedly deal with all the time (I've done paperwork now more times than I can count and it never ceases to amaze me how many times I end up fixing math mistakes, misspellings, etc.) These are CONTRACTS guys! WTF am I paying you for?!?!

I don't mean to bash all agents - I'm sure there are some really great and committed ones out there and perhaps you're even one of them. I just can't stand the defensiveness a lot of them have regarding what they do and why they ought to be paid a king's ransom for doing what appears to me as quite little, involving only the most minimal amount of specialized knowledge. I have no problem paying someone for a service - with the caveat that I want them earning it and justifying to me that the service they're providing is worth it. I haven't gotten this impression yet.

And please don't try to justify the cost as "well, I'm just trying to make a living and cover my overhead". That's your problem, not mine. YOU decided to go into that career, not me. It's like me deciding to hire 50 people full-time, get a fancy office downtown with nice modern furnishings and then inflating my fee by 5000% to "justify" it to my client because I "have to cover my costs". Is that really fair?

The free market will eventually fix this problem, it's just a bit maddening it hasn't yet. But it's starting to...