The reason
Most of what I know I learned in other people’s living rooms.
Not in offices. Not on calls. In living rooms, after a death in the family, after a divorce filing, after a layoff that showed up three months before anyone admitted it was a problem, after a notice appeared on the door. Those are the rooms where houses actually get sold in this business.
And almost every time I walked in, the homeowner had already been failed once. Someone had come before me, handed them a single option, and called it advice.
I don’t think the people in this industry are bad. The incentives are. A cash buyer gets paid when a house is bought at a discount, so a cash buyer shows you one option. A listing agent gets paid when a house goes on the market, so a listing agent shows you one option. Both are honest about their own option. Neither is honest about the alternative, because the alternative pays them nothing.
One more thing, because it explains the rest. At 28 I lost about $450,000 of my own money and another $180,000 that belonged to other people. I know what it feels like to sit at a table where the numbers don’t work and someone across from it is doing fine either way. It’s the reason I don’t steer anyone toward the option that pays me better.