In yesterday's USA TODAY there was an interesting article about why General Motors went bankrupt.  There were seven reasons given, but one caught my eye.  GM "drove incentives into the ground."  Long after discounts and cash back, etc. were necessary, GM kept them up, keeping their prices well above the competition, but offering discounts to sell cars.  GM, according to USA TODAY, for years concentrated on the "deal," not the product, and sold non-competitive cars for competitive prices by discounting. Once the market changed drastically toward higher quality, more efficient cars, GM had lost the ability to produce them. As a consequence, no amount of discounting and incentivizing could move relatively low-quality product.

That situation immediately brought to my mind the notion that for many homesellers the fee an agent seeks is the sole determining factor in choosing any agent.  The "deal"(commission), not the "product" (marketing the property) became the driving force in the decision-making process.  Agents have brought it on themselves, failing to differentiate their services from those of their competition.  My father-in-law once had a sign in his lumberyard: "Fresh oats $10 per bushel; oats that have already been through the horse $1 per bushel."  You can't sell lower quality for higher prices for ever, even with discounts and incentives. Eventually people figure it out, and they stay away in droves.  There have been some examples of that in real estate as well as the auto industry.

"Marketing" has been a buzz-word for a decade or so.  The Internet has made it even buzzier.  More websites, more prospects, more offers.  Six websites, six offers (Sorry, I got carried away). 

A good agent not only markets a property.  Ask any seller who has had to negotiate their own contract and take it to closing.  Once the offer is presented the fun begins.  It doesn't end until closing; and sometimes the closing doesn't happen.

Agents are still racing each other to the bottom.  General Motors has blazed the trail for them.  Good luck in bankruptcy.