At the end of the day, it's all a bit of a laugh for the agents when the market is going up.
If it is going down, like we haven't seen in a generation, then people will start asking the probing questions when money is lost and lives are disrupted by being ripped off.
Maybe regulation will finally happen if a few hundred thousand people are foreclosed on.
There should be a government body who has a register of buyers who are allowed to bid at an auction for example. These buyers must show loan pre-approvals and funds available to prove they can bid to pre-nominated amounts.
Instead we have an industry where you can get your mates to register and place dummy bids. On a sale or purchase of the most expensive thing you will ever buy, that you may be paying for the rest of your natural life.
I know there are plenty of good agents, but I think the culture and the 'that's how we do it in this industry' attitudes need to be erased with a few criminal convictions and jail time for some of these saturday morning suit wearing cretins.
