The spreadsheet looks clean.

Purchase price, projected rents, estimated expenses, net operating income, cap rate. Every number in its column, every column adding up correctly. The investment makes sense on paper.

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You read the headline. Something about commissions being eliminated. Or sellers no longer paying buyer's agents. Or the whole real estate industry changing forever.

Then you went to buy a house in Union or Washington, signed a buyer representation agreement, and it all looked... mostly the same.

That's because most of what you read was wrong.

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