Time to take a wrecking ball to realtors’ fees in America

DEATH, TAXES narand extortionate realtors’ fees: for decades these have been the three grim certainties of American life, and one of them is avoidable. Every time a home changes hands, realtors (known as estate agents in Britain) charge a staggering 5-6% of its value, two or three times more than they can get away with in any other rich country. As the internet has allowed would-be buyers to browse properties from a sofa, agents’ fees have tumbled elsewhere—but not in America, where they have been set in concrete for nearly a century. Why?On October 31st a court in Missouri gave the obvious answer: because of anticompetitive practices. Ruling on a , a jury found the National Association of Realtors () and a handful of large real-estate brokers guilty of conspiring to keep commissions high. They awarded homesellers $1.8bn in damages. It’s a start.