Lawrence Yun
speaker
33 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard 11 Nov
Lawrence Yun’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 Nov 2025 with 1.
Appearances
It's not even a big deal.
I mean, you know, you go from 40 to 50 years, and what it means is you pay something less.
From 30, some people had a 40, and now they have a 50.
All it means is you pay less per month.
You pay it over a longer period of time.
It's not like a big factor.
The real estate profession is one of the most competitive out there. It's almost like economic textbook definition of perfect competition.
Lawrence Yoon, Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors.
Well, for homeowners, it is great news. I mean, people have seen the home price rise roughly 50% from pre-COVID days. But for the real estate professionals, the past two years has been quite difficult. High mortgage rate along with record high home prices. and limited inventory has restricted business opportunity.
Home sales essentially trending at 30-year low levels, even though their past clients are all happy, super excited about having been a homeowner.
The real estate profession is one of the most competitive out there. It's almost like economic textbook definition of perfect competition. You have so many new entrants every year, roughly 200,000 new people, entrepreneurs trying to test out their skill set. And then you have roughly 200,000 realtors who gave their best, but they said, no, it's not for me.
And then, of course, you had all different companies. business models, full service, limited service, discount brokerages. And great thing about America is that Americans can do it by themselves if they want to. So I thought the market was competitive, but I guess the lawyers can always convince few people to get the verdict they want.
Again, as an economist, I look at the competitive nature, the free entry and exit of the people in the profession. The only other industry that is more competitive, more dynamic than the real estate brokerage industry is in the restaurant, constantly coming in, constantly going out. So let's say there was a couple of unhappy consumers of a restaurant.
They may bring a lawyer to sue the restaurant to say, look, what they promised did not match the expectation of it. But to make it into a class action lawsuit, to have all the restaurants across the country be impacted, is that a fair judgment? When we take survey of consumers, recent home buyers, recent home sellers, every year, we have been doing it for 40 years, the numbers barely budge.
Essentially, 70% say they really enjoy working with a realtor.
The survey was commissioned by NAR. So when the consumers essentially say that they are happy, what was the key reason? And they say it's the trust factor. I don't have to get down to all this paperwork. I trust what my realtor is relaying that information.
You know, one can talk to any homeowner, just knock on the door, say, did you buy a home with a realtor? Who was the name of the realtor? Were you satisfied with the service? I'm pretty confident the result will be very, very similar.
The realtors are quite optimistic about the new rules. They don't agree with the verdict, but given that the verdict is in place, sometimes life is never fair on every angle. But entrepreneurs always adapt to new rules. They're explaining to their clients. Buyers are understanding they have to sign the form. And for the home sellers, it is irrational.
to ignore offers that say you have to pay buyer agent because those offer may be high price or all cash that doesn't involve some complication later. So the process moves on. But at the moment, the market is primarily determined by economic factors, inventory availability, mortgage rate, job market situation.
We are in the very first innings. There will be a lot of trial and errors and there will be a lot of new companies trying to see what type of new model will best fit under the new rules. We don't know what the numbers are. NAR never collects data on the commission rate, and the reasoning for that is that we don't want to set a focus point.
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