The Real Deal?

I hate playing "gotcha" with the New York Times, I really do, because it's a great paper that I've been reading for twenty years or so.

But some things are hard to ignore. So here I go:

Two articles, a week apart, seem to make the claim that New York's real estate brokers have it rough:

That 6% is Getting Harder to Earn March 30, 2008.

Who Asked You? March 23, 2008.

In both articles the primary point of view represented is that of the broker! Especially brokers from The Corcoran Group.

Now it's clear to me that the Times or its real estate section has some kind of relationship with Barbara Corcoran (that's un-substantiated, but hey, this is a blog!), and I'm sure she gives them a lot of great quotes, but bias is bias.

As I wrote in the comments section following the first article on the Times Web site, it has seemed to me since I moved there in 1993 that New York's high real estate prices have mostly to do with all of the non-essential folks that make money on apartments. Everyone who's ever lived there has a horror story.

In addition, the Times has a columnist who's made a good chunk of his recent career by demonstrating from an economic standpoint that brokers work against their customers' best interests. Am I missing something?