Posted on 04/24/2005 3:47:55 AM PDT by TXBSAFH
Title Companies are not fast bucks...
No they aren't but they frequently catch the flak. a friend of mine went to a closing and found the lender fees almost 1K more then he was told in writing he blew a fuse. But fortunately he did this closing in the morning so calls (and legal threats)were made it was sorted out and they closed htat afternoon.
"80% of FSBO sellers will end up using the services of a realtor, and there is a good reason for it. We have the qualified buyers. The buyers who have the motivation and financial ability to purchase a home"
This is an old thread but I had to post because I'm a FSBO right now and agents attempt to ice you out by not showing your house or dissuading their clients from even seeing your house.
Agents have straight up told me that they will not show my house unless I agree to their unreasonable commissions. It's a sellers market in the Wash/Balt metro area...so I decided to sell my own house and not pay my part of the 3% commission customarily paid...so in effect I'm my own listing agent without out being listed on MLS...I do my own advertising, open houses, calls and appointments.
So, in the set up free market system, the buyers agent gets approx. 3%...and the listing agent (me) 3%... so a buyers agent would get 3% customarily....But due to resentment that I don't list with them the dissuade their client from buying or even looking at my house....
That's is not free market, that is monopoly. It is also violting an agents fiduciary responsibility to their client the buyer by not allowing them to look at the total market due to the uncustomary requirement that they be paid more than 3%, which is customary.
I look forward to your perspective on this and please explain why getting 3% from a MLS listed property with a sellers agent is different than my 3% from a for sale by owner property. It smacks of not only monopoly but possibly collusion.
The DOJ should launch a similar attack against PI lawyers and the 33% contingency fee. I can't beleive that all the PI lawyers in the county all woke one day and independently decided to set the fee at 33%.
So is paying an actor millions of dollars to do a film or television show.
Unless you sell in southern California, where a 1200 sq. ft. dump nets close to a million.
Excuse the typos please, in a rush today.
Don't apologize, my wife is a real estate broker. I used to be in commercial real estate because I went into partnership with an industrial park owner where I had my machine shop. If I hadn't had the money to carry her the first 2 years,....well, you know.
Geez, I can't believe on FreeRepublic, I'd hear the class-envy stuff.
I don't think it's class-envy, it's just ignorance about what lies beneath the surface of any human endeavor. People wonder why I charge $300-600-1,200, to play the Scots Bagpipe at an event. After years of instructions, paying my way to Scotland, room and board at the school, years of practice, a $2,000 set of pipes and $1,000 in a kilt and tunic, I expect to get paid. I expect people to pay the piper. If a person can get a piper for free, fine, he or she is probably worth the cost. As am I. The same goes for realtors.
regards....Buck....;^)
If you had a $500,000+ house, from listing to close, took only 90 days, 6% might be too much. However, if you had a $250K "fixer-upper", that took 6 months just to find a buyer, 6% should be written in stone.
This isn't true. Agents do not do the same work that they did 20 years ago. They do more. Lawyers, the Federal Trade Commission and other gov/pvt groups have all discovered the real estate industry. As an agent, make a mistake and you'll wind up in court a lot faster than you would have , "twenty years ago".
"And if I were to find out a broker blackballed showing my house because of itI would sue. And bring it to the attention of the proper authorities."
I am a broker, and I work with buyers.
So explain to me what law, regulation compells me to show your house, if your offer of commission is too small for my effort?
I don't know of any, so by my way of thinking each agent that "blackballs" your property isn't doing anything against a law.
It has been my experience that fsbo (discount commission, too) types of individuals are very difficult personalities to work with. An example is your quick threat to sue somebody.
So what person in his right mind desires to put up with way more hassle, for way less pay?
A surprisingly large number of buyers know these things, too. They just want to buy a nice house for a reasonable price. Not interested in reorganizing the RE industry, over some seller's resentment.
It just gets old, real old, after awhile, the way people act and talk about real estate. I always say give it a few months and try it yourself, and then let me know. There are always people willing to try it, but it's interesting that there are the same # of people leaving it. If it was such a money maker, people would never leave.
Playing the bagpipes ?? You are worth every penny !!!
I know, I was a landlord for 12 years. Most of the properties I owned were with partners, but I did the "management". I've been called a slumlord many times, especially by the people I gave a break to while they were unemployed and couldn't pay the rent. Another, older ,landlord told me to just take it in stride, it wasn't personal. "As long as the rocks the tenants threw didn't hit me, I was doing a good job". Meaning that; if the rent wasn't enough the tenants wouldn't throw rocks and if the rent was too much, the tenants would aim to hit. When my wife went into real estate sales, she took that philosophy to heart. She does well, I'm her "gopher" and her clients are happy.
Playing the bagpipes ?? You are worth every penny !!!
Doctors and lawyers, I double my fee, for military, I always play for free.
Posting listings on the Internet costs virtually nothing other than having someone drive by and take a photo. More and more people are selecting their homes on the Internet. Commissions of 6% to 7% for homes that sell in days is outrageous.
Where I live, the commission is negotiable. 4% seems to be the average.
When I go to sell, I'll probably do it myself. I have waterfront and I don't need to "give" $30K or more to someone else.
This discussion, as far as I'm concerned, is over. As the saying goes: There's no there there.
If you contract with someone to sell your home then you are to blame if you get skewered.
""A couple call a carpenter to fix a squeaky floor in their home. The carpenter arrives and goes to the sqeaky spot and rocks back and forth. Squeak... squeak... squeak... He walks 15 feet, bends down, and hammers one nail into the floor. He walks back to the spot where the sqeak was, rocks back and forth, and there is sweet silence. The couple is overjoyed and extrememly grateful until the carpenter hands them a bill for $150.00. They protest that 5 minutes and one nail do not cost nearly that much and that he's ripping them off! He quietly answers that it may have taken him 5 minutes to hammer the nail into the floor, but it took him all his training and experience to know 'where' to put the nail. And that's what they were paying him for." They smiled and gladly paid him."
I do building maintainance and have 50 years experience, 40 of them as a contractor, provide $30k worth of tools and for the story above I can only charge $25 since the illegals have trashed the construction industry, that's all anyone is willing to pay.
What's your point, other than perhaps, trying to talk down to me?
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