爲什麼房產經紀人令人又愛又恨

Over the past month or so I have been spending a lot of time with everyone’s least favourite professionals. Our house is up for sale and alternative homes are being sought for various members of the family, which means that every day I speak to assorted estate agents, either to discuss progress in hawking our place, or the possibility of paying an unconscionable sum to buy someone else’s.

近一個月來，我花了很多時間和人人都不待見的一種專業人士打交道。我們要賣掉房子，各個家庭成員也在找不同的新家，這意味着每天我都要和各種各樣的房地產經紀人交談，或者是討論賣房進展，或者是討論要不要支付不合理的大價錢買下別人的房子。

Until this exhausting, exciting and thoroughly unsettling process began, I would have told you there were four things wrong with estate agents. For a start, they charge too much. If they sell a house for £1m they stand to gain about £20,000, a pretty steep return for taking some photos and showing a few people around.

這個過程令人精疲力竭、興奮不已，同時又十分焦慮不安。在此之前，我可能會告訴你房地產經紀人有“四宗罪”。首先，他們收費太高。如果賣出一套100萬英鎊的房子，他們就能坐收2萬英鎊，不過是拍拍照片，帶幾個人參觀，這樣的回報也太優厚了。

Second, they are untrustworthy snakes, always keen to assure buyers there is “a lot of interest” in some pokey basement, while at the same time telling sellers that a mingy offer is the best they will get. Third, they tend to be dim: flogging houses requires no particular qualifications and attracts those too thick to get into the City or the law. And finally they butcher the language with their dumb, transparent euphemisms.

第二，他們都是不值得信任的小人。他們總是信誓旦旦地向買家保證，某個狹小的地下室“有很多人感興趣”，然而同時他們又告訴賣家，房子頂多能賣少得可憐的價錢。第三，他們往往不怎麼聰明：賣房子不需要什麼特定資歷，這吸引了那些笨得去不了倫敦金融城(City of London)或者法律界的人。最後，他們經常說一些自以爲圓滑其實輕易就可以識破的蠢話，簡直糟蹋語言。

It took me a couple of weeks of dealing with these loathsome types before I realised something was wrong. They weren’t being loathsome at all. Not one of the dozen or so I’ve met from various firms has been more than slightly aggravating. On both buying and selling sides they have been civilised, bright-ish, borderline trustworthy and some of them have been downright agreeable. They have been on time for every appointment. They have not tried to push properties at me that are obviously hopeless.

我和這些本來應該讓人生厭的傢伙們打交道了幾周才意識到有點不對勁。他們根本就不令人生厭。我遇到的來自多家公司的十幾個經紀人，沒有一個讓人感到哪怕有點討厭。不管是在買家還是賣家一方，房地產經紀人都禮貌、聰明、幾近可信，其中有些人還相當討人喜歡。每一次會面他們都能準時到場。他們也沒有試圖向我推銷顯然沒有希望的房子。

The outfit selling our house appears to be doing the job according to my instructions. As for the language, it is true that a house I was interested in with a “large private garden” turned out to have a medium-sized yard that looked like Steptoe and Son had just moved out, but mostly estate agents play no more fast and loose with words than other professions.

幫我們賣掉房子的經紀公司看起來是按照我的要求工作的。至於語言，的確有一棟挑起我興趣的帶有“私家大花園”的房子，其實只帶有一箇中等大小的院子，看起來就像英國情景喜劇《斯特普託和兒子》(Steptoe and Son)的主人公們剛剛從那裏搬出去那樣。但在大多數情況下，房地產經紀人並不比其他專業人士更愛打馬虎眼。

The only real duplicity is over the photos. The camera never lies — except when it has an ultra wide-angle lens attached. In the sales document for our house a two-seater sofa looks long enough to seat eight comfortably.

唯一真正存在欺騙的地方是照片。照相機從不說謊——除非用了超廣角鏡頭。在我們的房子的銷售材料上，一張兩座沙發看上去坐8個人都有餘。

Even though estate agents may be less bad than we think they are — and less bad than last time I had anything to do with them 15 years ago — this doesn’t answer the central question. Why do estate agents still exist? Travel agents are gone — or going. Estate agents, who were hated long before Tim Berners-Lee gave up train spotting to invent the world wide web, were always going to be the first to go, come the internet age. Instead the reverse is happening: as I cycled through Islington on my way home the other day I counted 17 estate agent shop windows in one street.

儘管房地產經紀人沒有我們想得那麼壞，也沒有15年前我打過交道的那些經紀人討厭，核心問題還是沒有得到解答。爲什麼現在還有房地產經紀人？旅行社已經消失了——或者至少正在消失。在蒂姆•伯納斯-李(Tim Berners-Lee)放棄數火車，發明萬維網之前，房地產經紀人早就遭人怨恨了。隨着互聯網時代的到來，房地產經紀人本應是第一批消失的人。然而事實正好相反：有一天我騎自行車穿過伊斯靈頓(Islington)回家，我數了數，在一條街上就有17家房地產經紀人門店。

It makes no sense. In the old days you needed them to tell you what was for sale. Now the internet does that. Google Earth tells you what the place looks like from the outside; the seller can take their own pictures; and videos to show what it is like inside. Even pricing could now be done by an average eight-year-old, who could look up what the neighbours’ places went for and adjust accordingly.

這沒有道理。過去你需要房地產經紀人告訴你有哪些房子正在出售。現在通過互聯網就能知道這些信息。Google Earth會告訴你一個地方的外觀是什麼樣的；賣家可以自行拍攝照片；還有視頻能向你展示房子內部的情況。現在一個8歲的孩子就能做好定價，查一下鄰居家房子標價多少，相應地調整一下就行。

The only bit that would be hard to do yourself is show people round, as most sellers are out in the day, and in any case it’s not nice to listen to prospective buyers’ plans to rip out the yellow lino and the William Morris wallpaper that you have so very recently and lovingly installed yourself. But even this function could be easily disrupted: there could be an Uber of house-showers, who could let prospective buyers into properties, charging not £20,000, but about a tenner an hour.

這份工作裏唯一難以自行完成的部分，就是帶人看房，因爲大多數賣家白天都在外面。而且，親耳聽到可能的買家計劃把你最近剛剛滿懷愛意地親手裝上的黃色油氈布和威廉•莫里斯(William Morris)設計花樣的牆紙撕下來，在任何情況下總不是一件愉快的事情。但即使是房地產經紀人的這項職能，也可以被輕而易舉地顛覆：可以僱傭一個Uber司機帶人看房，他可以讓可能的買家進入房屋，這項服務不需要花費2萬英鎊，一小時大約只需要10英鎊。

Despite all this, when our house is sold, I will hand over a king’s ransom to the agent with only mild resentment. The reason they exist has little to do with logic. It is because when buying and selling houses people are at their most irrational. Houses are not only where we live, but where all our money lives too. They are by far our biggest and most emotional asset, and even the sanest people become unhinged when it comes to buying and selling. They change their minds. They dither. They are gazumped. Chains break and everyone gets stuffed.

儘管如此，當我家的房子賣掉的時候，我還是會向房產經紀人支付大筆佣金，頂多有些不滿而已。房地產經紀人存在的理由並非關乎什麼道理，而是因爲人們在買賣房子的時候是最不理性的。房子不僅是我們生活的地方，也是我們大部分財富的歸屬。房子是我們最大，同時也承載最多情感的資產。即使是最理智的人，在買賣房子的時候都會失常。他們會改變主意、猶豫不決或者變卦擡價。一旦買賣的鏈條斷裂，每個人都會遭到生硬的拒絕。

If animal spirits move markets, the animal spirit in the property market is like a maternal Canada goose on the rampage to protect her young. It’s too frightening out there to do it on one’s own, and we are grateful for the services of the nicely turned out young men and women who stand at our side.

如果說動物精神能夠左右市場，房地產市場中的動物精神就像是橫衝直撞、護雛心切的加拿大雁(Canada goose)。自己做這樣的事情太可怕了，我們很感激有這些衣冠楚楚的年輕男女站在我們這邊爲我們提供服務。

And this, I think, is why we really hate estate agents. Because they are doing something we could do for ourselves if we trusted ourselves more, if we were not so afraid of such ginormous sums, and if we were more level-headed about the places where we live.

我認爲這就是我們討厭房產經紀人的真正原因。因爲如果我們更相信自己，不那麼害怕龐大的金額，對我們生活的地方保持更冷靜的頭腦，我們本可以自己完成他們所做的事情。