A new report from the Consumer Policy Center , “Junk” Fees Charged to Both Home Sellers and Buyers: An Overview, is taking aim at the administrative, transaction, technology and brokerage fees charged by many real estate companies in addition to their regular commissions. The report, authored by Consumer Policy Center senior fellow Stephen Brobeck and fellow Wendy Gilch, says these fees generally range from $400 to $600, sometimes exceed $1,000 and are charged to most home buyers and sellers. The accompanying press release goes even further, reporting fees as high as $2,500 and estimating that consumers pay nearly $2 billion a year. Those claims are getting attention, as they should, but after reviewing the report, I think its strongest conclusion is considerably narrower than its headline suggests. Undisclosed or poorly explained fees deserve scrutiny, but this report does not establish how frequently they are actually being charged nationwide.To its credit, the report openly acknowledges its limitations. The authors say they could not find a publicly available source of national data on brokerage administrative fees and describe their work as more like an investigative report than the scholarly research they have published in the past. Much of the evidence comes from conversations with industry members and comments posted by agents, brokers and mortgage professionals on Reddit, Facebook, TikTok, Quora and other social media platforms. Hundreds of comments ...