BUYER BROKERS

In response to consumer pressures, the real estate brokerage industry has lately tried to develop a system whereby real estate BUYERS may be represented by their own agents or brokers who supposedly will not share any “divided” loyalties with the Sellers.

Yet, the created system that seems rigidly in place continues to compensate those “buyer agents/brokers” with them sharing a percentage (commission) with the listing agent/broker based on how MUCH the Buyer is paying for the property! That is a blatant conflict of interest, yet none with whom I have spoken about that issue is willing to back down from it. If an agent or broker creates a fiduciary relationship with a Buyer, and that agent or broker is going to be compensated with a commission that is a percentage of the selling price, then where is the incentive for the buyer agent to try to push the selling price DOWN?

The Seller of a piece of property intends to get AS MUCH money as possible for the sale. The Buyer, on the other hand, seeks to pay AS LITTLE as possible for the property. Is that not obvious? If so, then why should not a Buyer’s agent or broker be compensated on the basis of how LITTLE the Buyer pays? There is a fairly simple way to do exactly that!

Consider, first, that MOST residential real estate is listed with a broker under a listing agreement, so these provisions ought to be contained therein. A listing agreement is a legally enforceable contract, so prospective Sellers OUGHT to get competent legal advice from a lawyer before they sign ANYTHING! Most listing agreements traditionally provide that a Seller will pay a sales commission of six percent of the SELLING price, even though the listing (“asking”) price might be higher. And, if an “outside” agent or broker is involved, most listing agreements provide that the specified sales commission will be evenly split with the “selling” agent or broker.

I have proposed the following compensation structure instead: that the “buyer” agent or broker be compensated, first, by getting THREE percent (“half”) of the initial LISTING price, so that the “buyer” agent or broker is not penalized at all by how “low” the actual sales price might go. THEN, I would add on top of that a further provision that the buyer agent or broker be paid, ADDITIONALLY, TEN PERCENT of all dollars by which the actual selling price is UNDER the listing price! That would build in a positive incentive for the buyer agent or broker to try to PUSH the actual selling price DOWN!

AND, I would add to that a further provision that the buyer agent or broker be compensated at a fixed rate of $25 per hour (to be credited against the final commission due) for all time spent “searching” for desirable properties and viewing them, so that there is minimal DISincentive for the agent or broker to slight the Buyer’s needs in that regard. And, if the Buyer walks away, his/her agent is still compensated for all the time spent without needing to put any pressure on the Buyer to accept something less desirable.

And, it should be worth it to prospective Buyers to know that the “buyer” agent or broker is totally in one’s corner.

By now, the reader knows that I have spent a lot of my time thinking about ways to avoid Conventional Wisdom. Doing something because it’s always been done that way is absolutely the WRONG reason to do something! In my discussions with most agents and brokers, I get the feeling that they resent my implications and that their “good intentions” should be sufficient to allay such concerns. Yet, the rancid conflict of interest under the conventional system is still present and most agents and brokers just can’t see it. Why tolerate any of that?

TIRE TAX

The increasing use of electric vehicles is certainly beneficial to the environment, especially in urban areas.  The environmental costs of individual 3500+-pound automobiles idling at traffic lights and parking places is staggering, not to mention (but briefly) the FACT that the internal combustion engine is woefully inefficient as a means of transportation.

HOWEVER, those electric vehicles are, arguably, not paying their “fair share” of highway costs, which are funded primarily with taxes on hydrocarbon fuel sales.  This electric vehicles are not consuming hydrocarbons, yet they are using the highways.  To be sure, they are putting a much lower burden on those highways than fueled cars, but that electricity has to be generated somewhere, and if it’s generated with hydrocarbon fuels, then we are back to where we started.

And more and more vehicle types (including heavier trucks) will be converting to electricity as time passes.  Many vehicles are powered by propane, too, which may or may not have highway taxes imposed thereon.  And some Diesel-powered vehicles can run on used cooking oil.  The singer Willie Nelson brags about his Diesel-powered bus running on used cooking oil!  The exhaust supposedly smells like french fries!  What’s not to like about that?

Anyway, I think it’s time to take the highway taxes COMPLETELY off fuels and impose them on TIRES instead, because EVERY vehicle uses tires, even if it runs on electricity or even sea-water, as the “hydrogen” crowd likes to say.  (They don’t ever explain how that “sea-water” might be converted to hydrogen using lots of ELECTRICITY generated somehow!  There is no free lunch!)

And, those tire taxes can be imposed in a graduated fashion based on tire size: heavier vehicles use larger tires, while lightweight vehicles can use smaller tires.  Highway wear and tear is usually a function of vehicle weight.  Heavier vehicles create the need for more highway maintenance.

But, no politician I know of wants to pick up that cudgel and go to war.  Advocating ANY taxation is usually punished by voters.  It does not matter whether or not it makes any sense.  I have written to both my state and federal representatives about this issue, and I have NEVER gotten any reply at all!

Honestly, I cannot find anyone who will even take issue with my thinking.  I have never even seen this issue discussed anywhere.  But, I think I am right.

THE BILLY-GOAT AND THE TROLL

Fear. Real Fear. Five years old and pure terror!

I was five years old and enrolled in Foster Jennings’ kindergarten in Weldon, North Carolina in the fall of 1951. I loved going to that first “gathering” of kids, just like me. Every day. We had a great time coloring with crayons, playing games, singing songs, reciting our ABC’s, and listening to great stories that Miss Jennings would read to us out loud.

One of those great stories was the tale of “Billy-Goats Gruff,” about the troll who lived under a bridge that the three goats central to the story needed to cross. I vaguely recall that the troll wanted to eat the goats! He was really evil and dangerous! It was exciting!

However, one day Miss Jennings announced that THE TROLL was coming to see us! I could not  believe my ears! The fucking TROLL? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? (I didn’t really think “fucking.”  I didn’t know words like that at age 5, but if I had known them, I would have DEFINITELY thought “fucking”!) I was terrified, but I said nothing.

A few days or weeks go by. I can’t remember how much time it was. Then, one day, Miss Jennings says, “The TROLL is coming next week!”  Fear. There is nothing like Real Fear to get one’s attention, especially if five years old and consumed by pure terror!

God-DAMN it! (I didn’t know that word, either!) The abject fear gripped my little five-year-old body like a monster and shook me to my core! But, I said nothing. I really was terrified though, yet no one else seemed at all disturbed by this coming disaster! I never said a word.

Then, the following week, Miss Jennings reminds us that “the TROLL is coming tomorrow!”  

Jesus Christ! (I knew those words, but not in that context.) I went home and brooded about the coming disaster about which NO ONE ELSE seemed to worry! How DARE my parents expose me to such dangers? But, again, I said nothing. I don’t know if I seemed distracted or worried, but my parents did not comment. I was sure that TROLL would eat me alive since there were no billy-goats around. If that bastard (I did not know that word, either!) was hungry, he was surely gonna chew on ME! I dreaded going to kindergarten the next day.

THE NEXT DAY: I am sitting at my little desk. My friends are all around me, seemingly unconcerned about the coming blood-fest! Miss Jennings goes to the window: “Oh, children,” she says, “the TROLL has just arrived!”  Oh, my GOD! I am gonna DIE!

I catch my breath, almost quivering! The door slowly creaks open, and in walks a North Carolina State Highway PaTROLman!

DIALECT

After years of thinking about it, I am now starting to write about “what I know,” as the well-worn injunction to new writers goes.  So, I have lived in the American South my entire life, most of it in rural areas or small towns nestled in rural areas.  I have been surrounded by “bubbas” most of my life, and I can emulate their persistent, shared “dialect” pretty closely, I think.

For example:

“I told you not to come in this house with your muddy shoes!”

Becomes:

“I done tol’ y’all don’ be comin’ in dis heah house wit’ yaw muddy shoes!

However, even though those folks may SOUND like that, they don’t necessarily hear THEMSELVES like that!  None of us do!  What we likely think and hear is the first version, even though we may sound like the second version!  It reminds me of the fatuously persistent question of whether we dream in black-and-white or color!  When I dream, I am not at all conscious of “color” (unless the dream is somehow ABOUT color).  Most dreams are like experiences of reality, which in my opinion has no color!  It is an irrelevant quality of those realities!  I don’t usually even notice color in my day-to-day stroll through reality unless I am specifically looking for it.

Therefore, I think it is pretentious and vain to try to write in dialect.  And, therefore, I am going to avoid doing that.  I decided to try to write in “proper” English and let the reader imagine whatever dialect (s)he wishes!  I watched a lot of TV as a child, and I remember the first time I heard a Southerner being interviewed on TV, and how odd their accent sounded.  I had become inured to the accents of trained TV personnel who sounded “normal,” in contrast to the Southern “rubes” being interviewed!  

Yet, those “rubes” sounded exactly as I do!  I have been told I have a pronounced “Southern” accent, despite having a law doctorate.  I well remember the CBS-TV legal reporter Fred Graham, who had a pronounced “Southern” accent, and how quaint it sounded, though he was very knowledgeable and obviously well-accomplished.  Graham, born in Little Rock, Arkansas and a graduate of Yale, Vanderbilt law school, and Oxford, died at age 88 in December of 2019 from the horrors of Parkinson’s Disease.  He had been very good at his craft, nor did he speak in dialect!

I am not going to start dreaming in Technicolor ® either!