The cost of buying and selling homes is too high

THE STAKESTVGDP are high. Along with getting married and choosing a career, buying or selling a home is one of the biggest decisions most people make. In America, especially, the sums are vast. In total the country’s residential property is worth $34trn—as much as the value of all its publicly listed firms—and last year people traded properties worth $1.5trn. Yet compared with other industries and other countries, buying and selling property in America is cumbersome—and extraordinarily expensive. In an industry crying out for technological disruption, the only revolutionary change over the past decade has been the rise of celebrity estate agents who star in reality shows including “Million Dollar Listing” and “Flip or Flop”.The scale of the commissions extracted by the real-estate industry in America is jaw-dropping. Fees run at 5-6% of the value of a property, three times the average level in other developed countries (see ). In total they amounted to $75bn last year, or 0.4% of . Other marketplaces—for shares, groceries, advertising and romance—have been transformed by technology. But in property the old ways persist. America still has 2m realtors.