Sebastian König for BI
Last summer, when I told my then-girlfriend that I had just hired a real-estate agent to help me buy an apartment, her response annoyed me: "Sounds like a scam."
I didn't understand her suspicions. She had never purchased a home, and as a lawyer, I just assumed I knew how the system worked: The buyer has an agent, but the seller pays a commission (typically 6% of the sale price) that's split between their agent and the buyer's agent. So it's like I get free help to guide me through the morass of homebuying.