Debra Kamin
speaker
405 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard 5 Jun
Debra Kamin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So basically, in real time, for all these people following him on Instagram, he's discovering all these layers to the real estate industry that he didn't know existed.
So he gets the home on the market, he stages it, he takes photos, it's ready to go. Buyer's agents in Boulder know about his house.
And one day, one of them gives him a call and says, something's happening that you need to know about. Agents representing buyers at my company are talking to each other in text and in person saying, we're not going to sell this guy's house because he's not playing by the rules.
There's a word for this in real estate. It's called steering. You're either steering buyers towards a certain home or away from a certain home, and you're not allowed to do it, but it happens all the time.
There's no hypothetical. They gave the explanation in text messages that I saw when I was reporting. Wow. They told this other agent who wanted to bring buyers, why would you take buyers to a house with a seller who's working against the system, who's undermining the way things have been done? It was a boycott.
So Mike does find a buyer. There's a couple in Florida who sees the house on Zillow. They make an offer. He actually offers to pay a commission to the agent who's representing them. But in the end, he actually pulled out of the sale because Mike decided, after seeing so much of the inside workings of the real estate industry, that he wants to start a business to try to fix it. Wow.
So rather than moving his family to Costa Rica, which was his dream, he's now going to stay in Colorado for the time being and work on this startup company that he's created. Wow. to try to change real estate commissions. Fascinating. And he told me about how it's not that he's trying to take down the real estate industry.
He believes that real estate agents are very important and sometimes are really useful.
His message, though, which has been echoed by many other people I've spoken to in my reporting, is that you should be able to determine how much you want to pay for that service. And the industry gets on allowing those conversations to come to the surface. Sounds good. All right. Great to meet you. Bye. You too. Bye.
If you talk to economists and analysts in the industry, they will say the settlement was a massive breakthrough moment. If you talk to agents, many of them will say the settlement changed nothing. There is a huge gap in understanding. And in the middle are agents on the ground just trying to make money and home sellers and buyers just trying to navigate the process.
There's no clear communication here about how it's supposed to work.
Yes and no. The Justice Department has been investigating the National Association of Realtors for years. There's been a back and forth with them for a very long time. The settlement was brought by private home sellers.
It wasn't, but the DOJ was absolutely investigating NAR, and they continue to investigate NAR. Commissions and the conversations about commissions are a huge piece of that investigation. But the Justice Department has a lot of other things on their plate right now.
The government is very busy and working with many fewer staff than they used to. So it's really anyone's guess how high of a priority this is and if there's going to be further enforcement. Is there an appetite for it? Yes, definitely.
If I've learned anything in the last year from reporting on this, it's that buying and selling a home is really scary and really overwhelming to the vast majority of people. Mike is an anomaly because he decided to just go with his own and kind of figure it out as he was going along. For most of us, it's really scary. I've sold a home. I remember sitting down with my agent.
I had no idea what the stack of papers was in front of me, and we just agreed to whatever she said because we trusted her.
I did not ask about the commission. I'm willing to say that to you, Michael, to your face. I did not ask about the commission. I think we paid 6%. I honestly don't remember. If it happened to me, it can definitely happen to anyone who's listening to this. It is not a problem to pay 6% as long as you know what you've agreed to. Which probably means asking.
My number one piece of advice is to understand... Even if you're told you cannot negotiate on commissions, you can negotiate on commissions. And if the agent doesn't want to, you have the right to go find another agent. You also absolutely have the right to know what you are paying for and to ask the questions, okay, you're going to charge me this much money. What are you doing for that money?
Just like you would with any other transaction.
Since August of last year, correct.
Showing 381–400 of 405 · page 20 of 21
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