Does the world really need real estate agents and hasn’t the Internet replaced the sweet-talking middleman yet? Wired Magazine asks a question of whether your regular homeowner/homebuyer can beat the pros. According to the studies, cited in the articles, real estate agents will hold out for better deals when selling their own houses, and will advise their customers to sell their property as soon as decent (but not necessarily the best) offer comes around. The article also provides an insight into wording of the real estate ads:
“Fantastic,” meanwhile, is a dangerously ambiguous adjective, as is “charming.” These words, it turns out, are real estate agent code for a house that doesn’t have many specific attributes worth describing. “Spacious” homes, meanwhile, are often decrepit or impractical. “Great neighborhood” signals to a buyer that, well, this house isn’t very nice but others nearby may be. And an exclamation point in a real estate ad is bad news for sure, a bid to paper over real shortcomings with false enthusiasm.
