Does Auckland really need all these realtors?

NOTICE : I guess the consequence of a thriving housing market is that more people are flocking to real estate as a career, but with the news Auckland has an agent for 250 people, we reached the saturation point.

Stuff reports that 44% – or 6515 – of New Zealand real estate agents are working on Auckland's oversized and overvalued market. This is not surprising given that home prices in the city have exploded in the past four years.

But do we really need it? And would real estate agents fail if the profession suddenly ceased to exist?

I recently bought a house from one of the largest real estate companies. Both agents were both kind and helpful, but I really struggled to see what they were doing outside me asking me to remove my shoes when I was going home.

They certainly have not sold me home. . The TV is flooded with real estate programs where the agent walks around the property selling his features to a client – the magnificent view, the Italian marble worktop or the well-tended garden.

The agents of the house around. It was only after we moved in that we discovered that the bathroom had underfloor heating or that there was a rainwater tank that we could use for water the garden. These are not big points, but since the house was lit for a long time, they made good selling points.

These agents were not alone. I visited countless open houses on the North Shore and, to my knowledge, only one agent showed us around the house. Most simply opened the door, asked for your email and left you there.

Once we made the offer and they had a sniff of a commission, the agents jumped to life. But they did not sell us the house.

I am sure that behind the scenes, they made a lot of contracts and sales commissions, but they had just come from Jordan Belfort's sales school

. Stuff reported an agent saying that the North Shore was among Auckland's most competitive markets and that the agents had to really "go up the game", tips that were clearly not passed on to those who sell the houses.

Mark Longley is editor of Newshub Digital.