Do listing sites create a real estate ‘resort fee’ problem?

Anyone who has checked out of a hotel in the last 10 years knows the feeling. The room was $200 a night. But your bill says $241. The extra line reads “resort fee,” and it covers a pool you never used and a gym you never found. Nobody lied to you. The number was printed somewhere, in gray, on a page you did not read. You still walk out feeling handled. Real estate just got its resort fee moment. On Thursday, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker sent a letter to the chair of the Federal Trade Commission asking him to investigate what they called deceptive practices in the online real estate marketplace, a letter HousingWire obtained and verified. They named three practices. Read them closely, because they are not three separate complaints. They are one complaint, written three ways. 3 separate practices to investigate, per letter First, the “contact agent” button on a listing site that looks like it connects a buyer to the listing agent but can instead route the inquiry to a platform-affiliated buyer agent who sends a share of the commission back to the platform. The buyer is never told. Second, platform-affiliated agents who are expected to steer buyers toward an in-house or a...