Brokers aren't as necessary to real estate as you might think and forces beyond their control may soon spark changes in brokering. Stephen Dubner explains.

In the bestselling book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt pick apart much of what could be called the conventional wisdom on a variety of modern realities, including real estate.

Levitt, a University of Chicago economist, and Dubner, a former editor and now regular contributor to the New York Times Magazine, contend that real estate brokers only work as hard as they have to in selling other peoples' homes, especially if that work gets them a relatively tiny boost in commission.

This contention has become perhaps, Dubner said, the most controversial one in Freakonomics. Dubner, in a recent podcast interview with The Real Deal, explained in depth why brokers do what they do and why their business is so, as he put it, inefficient.

To listen to the entire interview, click one of the links below.

Author:  wwwtherealdealcom

Duration: 16:58

Published: 2006-05-09

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