How buying and selling a home could soon be as simple as trading stocks

On a recent weeknight, Dahlia and Adam Brown came home to a spacious Colonial on a quiet cul-de-sac in Marietta, Georgia. The Browns both work demanding jobs and have two young sons. They bought the house in June using Knock, a company that’s trying to revolutionize the real estate industry with a “home trade-in platform” making it easier to buy and sell at once. That solution was ideal for the Browns, who are just as busy as most couples, but are more introverted, making the idea of prospective buyers tramping through their private space seem excruciating.

Across town, Martha Seay was overseeing movers in a rambling brown ranch-style house nestled among tall hickory trees. The day before, she had closed on the sale of the house, where she and her husband had raised their family, to Zillow, the massive real estate company. The next day she would leave for Florida’s Gulf Coast, where they had just bought a retirement home.

After a divorce, I bought a cheap house in preparation for retirement for $56,000. It took weeks to get financing. I had to do stupid stuff like give them a letter stating how I would pay for my other house (rental) if it became vacant. It was the stupidest exercise I could ever imagine. What was the most aggravating thing was that with my credit I guarantee I could go to a car dealership and walk out with a $60,000 vehicle in an hour.It was ridiculous.

3 years ago we built a retirement home by the lake. And moved. But we decided not to sell our family home of 34 years. But to rent it. Extra monthly income is nice.

And while our home was nice and needed no major repairs, it did need quite a lot to get it market ready.

New paint, new carpet in the bedrooms, getting rid of the popcorn ceilings, and more. All told - about $8,000 worth of cosmetic work.

When it was all done, it was so nice we wished we could stay. And maybe one day - we will move back “home”.

Considering each house is different and the considerable amount of red tape involved, I seriously doubt buying/selling real estate will be like buying a stock. But I do believe the current model of real estate agents is obsolete with information so easily available. Agents used to have a decisive as they had a monopoly on the listing information. Housing is the only object I know about where one needs a 3rd party to shop and complete the transaction.

What I find ridiculous in house purchasing is all the crazy extra crap you have to pay for. I don't remember all of it, but a $240M house includes something like $20M in closing/purchasing costs. There's a good 20 different fees/other, and they vary like crazy between banks - I had loan closure disclosures from both USAA and Fairway, and it was amazing the differences. Appraisal fee, title endorsement, recording, settlement, survey, origination, etc etc fees, were COMPLETELY DIFFERENT between the lenders. The total costs came out to ± a couple thousand, but all the different fees were completely different - both amounts and what fees were even line-itemed. It would be amazing to have a home purchase where all the extra $$ weren't involved - you had a simple sheet with the purchase price, costs of building/pest inspection, .gov fees, and that's about it. All the fees should be standardized and simple, like buying just about any other random item from someone. Even a vehicle purchase is simple - purchase price, sales tax (bullshit on a secondary sale), and title transfer. Not too difficult.

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