Posted on 09/11/2019 10:04:03 AM PDT by C19fan
On a recent weeknight, Dahlia and Adam Brown came home to a spacious Colonial on a quiet cul-de-sac in Marietta, Georgia. The Browns both work demanding jobs and have two young sons. They bought the house in June using Knock, a company that’s trying to revolutionize the real estate industry with a “home trade-in platform” making it easier to buy and sell at once. That solution was ideal for the Browns, who are just as busy as most couples, but are more introverted, making the idea of prospective buyers tramping through their private space seem excruciating.
Across town, Martha Seay was overseeing movers in a rambling brown ranch-style house nestled among tall hickory trees. The day before, she had closed on the sale of the house, where she and her husband had raised their family, to Zillow, the massive real estate company. The next day she would leave for Florida’s Gulf Coast, where they had just bought a retirement home.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
I always rolled my eye when I was in the housing market and see real estate agents pull up in fancy cars for doing nothing.
I have bought all 3 of my homes without an agent and sold my prior 2 homes on my own.
No agent is worth 3-6% of the value of any of my homes.
I've seen/heard too many friends engage in an auction process with too many buyers, won't happen with me.
We're going to enjoy the house for at least 3 years after we finish our remodel. A new elementary school across the street from our house opened a month ago, so I'm not worried about demand drying up. We're in an ISD that in the past 3 years has added several thousand new students, and a mixed use development a mile away is less than 50% complete.
I'll be ready to move by then, if only to get away from the ever increasing congestion.
Do you remember Travel Agents? I do. Even used one or two many years and years ago. The internet has made them obsolete.
Real Estate Agents aren’t quite there yet. They still have a useful role in buying and selling.
But it’s quite clear the internet is a predominate player in the real estate market.
I bought a house in 1982. Paid 37,000. Sold it 18 months later for $45,000.
The guy I bought it from didn’t use a realtor. He should have.
Ever buy a new car?
True but I do not need a person to go to a dealer with just to look around.
Many people die in homes- Homes are deadly- We need sensible home controls now- who are these cretins trying to make home buying easier? Do they not care about people’s lives?
We need red flag laws to identify potential home buyers who may kill someone in their home at some point in their lives, and a national registry to record who owns what, and universal background checks on potential buyers
in other words- we need to arrest home buyers and take their homes away for crimes they ‘might commit in the future’- We need to arrest them for thought crimes-
We need to Safe-ify America- Stop home buying in it’s tracks!
Agreed. We hired an agent only because we did NOT want a sign out front, & emphasized ONLY pre-qualified applicants were to come, ESCORTED by the agent.
Isn’t that what an agenr’s commission pays for?
Instead, the agent sent unescorted looky-loos to our door with no proof whatsoever of financial viability.
It was obvious the agent was giving out our address. We fired her immediately & listed as a FSBO.
This process is MUCH harder than most realize, with many pitfalls.
We fended off even more door-bangers demanding to stroll thru at all hours.
Worse, accusations of racism from a-holes who didnt understand “prequalified” has nothing to do with racial screening.
The lesson I learned is that if you stay in a home for more than 10 years, you’d better plan to pay a lot to upgrade a home if you want to sell it, because peoples’ tastes change a lot over time.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have sold our current house after 5 years, instead of 18 years, we had to pay a lot to get the house ready for sale.
Well, you still need to at least go to the dealer, though, and they are the third party.
Sure. No it won’t. You need an attorney! You need a title search! You need an inspection when you buy.
In California all you need is an escrow company and a bank. In New York you also get to throw in the lawyers along with the real estate agent. What mess.
The houses in my FL neighborhood are now 13 years old. I don’t think we have more than 5 original owners left on my block of 25 houses. Part of that is the housing bubble crash, of course. But it’s mostly the habit people have of house hopping. It’s very American. My friends in Europe mostly live in the same house/apartment for decades and think the idea of only living a house for 5 years is crazy. Ha ha.
I know someone who bought in CA in the 70s for $37K.
In 1990, when panic-buyers were bidding up asking prices just to get in, & $300K seemed high, his house appraised for $500K.
He still lives there, & I don’t even wanna know what it’s “worth” now..
Due to continuous residency, though, his property taxes have risen gradually & aren’t *as* high as would be had the house flipped repeatedly.
OTOH, has anyone seen what’s happening with RENTS in CA?
Predatory landlords are turning apartments into AirBnB, “dorms” & “hostels.”
They’re renting out BUNK BEDS — 4 or more bunks to a
room, 20 or more in an apartment, with shared bathrooms & kitchens, & “social rooms.”
BUNKs by the month cost what a 1 or 2 BR did a year ago $1000 up.
A 1 or 2 BR apartment will cost $36-48K per year.
Getting in requires 1st & last month + deposit.
I’m hearing of employed people literally being priced out of their apartments & evicted, sleeping on the streets or in their workplaces, while struggling to hold onto jobs that pay LESS THAN RENT.
Unless that agent can get you more than you ask. Also, the people buying the home know that you aren’t using a real estate agent and want you to cut them in on the savings.
What you are describing is exactly what is wrong with the California housing market.
And the reason why tens of thousands are homeless and sleeping in the streets of Frisco and LA.
I’ve been in my home for 19 years. I have $300,000 equity in the thing, but I’m not going anywhere.
But to get top dollar for it, I would probably have to put $15,000-$20,000 worth of upgrades.
Selling a house would be great, until you realize you have to buy another one.
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