Realtors rewarded for overbidding on housing market

Real estate agents often receive a bonus when selling a house. They receive that bonus on the amount that was outbid, TV program Radar reported. According to the consumer program, real estate agents deliberately offer a house below the appraised value, so that there is a lot of interest and consumers start bidding against each other. "As a result, they get a maximum bonus in addition to the brokerage they are already asking," according to the program.

Radar went undercover at eleven realtors in Arnhem, Den Bosch, The Hague, Haarlem and Utrecht and also discovered that realtors share houses via a joint WhatsApp group and negotiate bids among themselves. One realtor told the program: "They just get 1 percent on the total purchase price and another 10 percent on what is above the asking price."

Homes are also placed in a mutual database before they are put on the housing website Funda. According to Radar, this gives real estate agents a "big advantage" over the consumer and thus sidelines home buyers without a realtor.

Almost all realtors investigated by Radar are members of trade association NVM. It has a special code that realtors must adhere to, which should prevent unfair competition. The NVM could not be reached for comment.