Upsold: Real Estate Agents, Prices, and Neighborhood Inequality

by Max Besbris

What do you want for yourself in the next five, ten years? Do your plans involve marriage, kids, a new job? These are the questions a real estate agent might ask in an attempt to unearth information they can employ to complete a sale, which as Upsold shows, often results in upselling. In this book, sociologist Max Besbris shows how agents successfully upsell, inducing buyers to spend more than their initially stated price ceilings. His research reveals how face-to-face interactions influence buyers’ ideas about which neighborhoods are desirable and which are less-worthy investments and how these preferences ultimately contribute to neighborhood inequality.
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Stratification defines cities in the contemporary United States. In an era marked by increasing income segregation, one of the main sources of this inequality is housing prices. A crucial part of wealth inequality, housing prices are also directly linked to the uneven distribution of resources across neighborhoods and to racial and ethnic segregation. Upsold shows how the interactions between real estate agents and buyers make or break neighborhood reputations and construct neighborhoods by price.

Employing revealing ethnographic and quantitative housing data, Besbris outlines precisely how social influences come together during the sales process. In Upsold, we get a deep dive into the role that the interactions with sales agents play in buyers’ decision-making and how neighborhoods are differentiated, valorized, and deemed to be worthy of a certain price.

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction

227 pages, Paperback

Published September 5, 2020

Reviews

[Mădălina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having worked in real estate and currently studying the social aspects of it, I have enjoyed reading this book. It does not paint an optimistic image on the future of affordable housing or on how realtors act on your best interest. However, it was an interesting read because it gave an insight on a highly competitive market - New York - and also on the true motivations of realtors. The realtors are passionate about their job (and the commissions, even if they never say it!), and despite the very basic training received when applying for a license, they manage to understand their clients & their needs. Most of the time, they dictate and even change their clients' preferences & have a high influence their final choice. Does this sound good? Not really. Scary? Definitely! Nevertheless, it gives the reader a clue of what is going on and how everyone, at the end of the day, can be "upsold".

[Kaarthika Thakker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought it was a really fun and important read.

Most importantly, evidence that the worst ppl in ny don't take the buses:

“At one open house one of the buyers asked if they should look in Chelsea, a cross-town neighborhood on the West Side. Sarah raised her eyebrows and her voice went up as she said, “What? Why? Are you going to take the 7 to the 6 every day? Why would you want to be around all that construction at Hudson Yards?” Sarah was referring to the trains the buyers would have to take to get from Chelsea to their work (she did not mention cross-town buses) and to a massive new residential and commercial development on the West Side.”

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

So people have to be taxed and they have to pay outrageous student loans in order to keep in business bureaucrats like Max Besbris. In here, he will remember how unequal the American towns are today, compared say with the grand equality of 19th century Boston or Chicago, where there were no poor neigborhoods. As for New York, it's the migrants of Europe who forced at knife point the owners to build disgusting homes because it helped with remembering the countries of origin.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent thorough research on a timely topic. Recommended for all sociologists, urban planners, or anyone with an intersecting interest in social justice and urban development/real estate.