Well.
I’m a real estate attorney with my own investment property portfolio who works closely with realtors as they get deals done, and am a former professional rider who has sold self trained horses for more than I paid for houses, so perhaps I am qualified to weigh in.
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Of COURSE you are going to pay commission on each horse. Do you think when people sell a house to buy a different one the realtor should just do one of the deals for free?
When my clients sell one house and then buy a second one I charge my attorney fee twice, too.
Put another way, if you only want to pay the seller side commission when you are selling and not the buyer side when you are buying, then sell your current horse and don’t buy the replacement horse. Ta da, no buyer side commission.
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$200k equitation horses are a significantly more niche skill set than $200k houses. How many $200k equitation horses are there in this country? And how many $200k houses?
How elite and fancy is a $200k horse vs a $200k house?
Are you buying a $200k houses and inviting the mean kids from high school over for dinner to show them you made it or is nobody in $200k equitation horse circles going to be impressed by a $200k house?
I think we can all understand that navigating the upper upper tiers of the equitation sport pets industry is a much more specialized skill set than selling a $200k house that is less than half of the median home price nationally.
$200k horse are a lot fancier and more specialized than $200k houses.
3.Listen. I’ve ridden, trained, and made money off of high dollar luxury sport pets myself so this isn’t a judgment, but it never hurts to go through life with a little perspective on social utility. For something like HOUSING, which is something that literally everyone needs and which people depend on to live in and shelter themselves and their families, I can see an argument that commissions ‘should’ stay reasonable, as there is a greater social benefit in keeping commissions lower so that housing can be more affordable for all.
Similarly, when I have a first time home buyer taking out a loan to buy a $50,000 house in Niagara Falls, I don’t charge my $50 gas and travel fee to go drag their deed 45 minutes one way to Niagara County to record it. You know, as a member of society who understands that housing is a basic need, I can cut 'em a break, and if everyone who worked in real estate did that too, the world would probably be a better place.
I don’t really follow the same logic on purchasing $200k luxury sport pets for teenagers to ride around in a sand ring.
If you’re already buying $200k leisure time toys for your teenager, and this seems like a worthwhile expenditure for which to open the checkbook and let the hundys fly, don’t suddenly start sharpening your fiscal pencil when it comes to paying the trainer who is making this experience possible for you.
When your teenager is pulling up to the barn in whatever car he probably drives on break from whatever school he probably attends after whatever vacation y’all probably went on together, don’t suddenly start trying to cut back when it comes to paying the trainer. I mean, right??
(Do not under any circumstances respond to this paragraph with a tale of the sacrifices you have made so your son can have a succession of $200k animals. Let us return to the theory that sport pets aren’t inherently evil, and it sure is fun to ride 'em around, but it never hurts to go through life with a little perspective. That $60k in sport pet play time money for you is your trainer’s livelihood.)
- The last option, if you don’t think whatever the trainer is doing is worth the money they are charging, is do it yourself. Go find yourself a horse. Have your son call around, or whatever. No big deal, right? (You can also skip paying $200k for a horse altogether if you just train it up yourself as well instead of paying for someone else’s work product but I digress.)
I can tell you that when I set prices for my bookkeeping work, I calculate by taking my hourly rate and estimating how long I think it would take THE CLIENT to do it, and then add a premium for how important it is to the client that it be done correctly.
So for example, for my attorney trust account clients who face suspension or even disbarment if their IOLA accounts get fkd up, I calculate how long it would take THEM to reconcile IOLA every month (probably several hours) and how stressed THEY would be about it (extremely), add an “accuracy and peace of mind” premium, and this is how I end up charging $300 for stuff that takes ME about 30 minutes with HGTV on in the background.
If they want to complain that it only took me 30 minutes and I was watching HGTV the whole time they can do it themselves, and I have never seen clients happier to pay me $300 the very second the invoice drops in my life. 
