Posted on 08/22/2007 5:32:12 AM PDT by Hydroshock
WASHINGTON - Plummeting stock prices. Mortgage lenders filing for bankruptcy or shutting down. Layoffs at homebuilders and banks. Soaring foreclosures and loan defaults.
Damage from the nation's slumping housing market is evident throughout the economy and permeates financial markets. Add real estate agents to the growing list of victims, although they know few tears will be shed for them.
The National Association of Realtors expects membership rolls to decline this year for the first time in a decade. The group ended 2006 with nearly 1.4 million members almost double the roughly 716,000 it had in 1997 but expects 2007 to close with 1.3 million, a drop of more than 4 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
lol...You're probably right. Fact is we've been hearing the reports for several years now that this country will grow by tens of millions in the next decade. There too many people now, and most of them don't own homes.
I think there is one set up. Some have suggested hiring a realestate attorney to draw up the papers for your sale, give him 500 or a 1000 bucks and sell it yourself. I don't trust realtors at all, for good reason.
They only thing realtors have going for them is the MLS. That's it, IMO.
Ping me in a couple of days, I gotta get a picture of another pair of signs on a building that will have you ROFL. It’s almost too perfect a picture of the collapse to be believable.
And while I’m on the topic...
My home appreciated only $2,200. So in actuality, that 6% commission of $7,440 was 34% of my appreciation. I put in a down payment, the house appreciated, and I lost a full one-third of my appreciation to the Realtor who sold the home. That is a very excessive fee in this day and age of computer buying and selling.
You don’t pay 6% for legal advice or for accounting fees. You sure as heck don’t pay a 6% fee to list and sell your car. Folks would scream bloody murder for being charged $2,400 to resell a $40,000 car. So why do we continue to accept such gouging on the most expensive asset we own?
A specialized Realtor Listing which ONLY Realtors have access to amounts to a monopoly today. The Realty trade is obsolete but refuses to go away due to the fantastic money involved.
We definitely need a means to list homes on the internet ourselves and cut out these middle-men who are taking 6% of our total home values.
Not to mention: Phony appraisals, loans intended to result in foreclosure, loan servicing scams, illegal foreclosures, organized crime, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud buyers, and then, finally, the old Wall Street pump and dump. Stock of banks and lenders manipulated by greedy insiders.
Houses not selling for 50% of value in some cities
Small wonder . . . Why did the ponzi scheme last so long ?
A case of fairweather vs. professional. The fairweather realtors and loan officers are gone. Professionals remain.
I think that is the wave of the future. Eventually, all homes will be sold by the owner, listed on the internet, with some fundamental help from a real estate attorney at a far more reasonable fee than 6% of your entire asset’s value.
I think Realtors should be thinking about another profession in a decade or two.
I think the creative money artists have moved onto cars now. All those ‘cash for your home’ signs are turning into ‘cash for your cars’.
I think they put them in car donations then for tax write offs.
Profession?
In the last 2-3 years, the unemployed children of more than one of my friends all “went into real estate.” So far no sales - who wants to buy a house from a 23 year old?
Living off their wife and/or parents.
IMO weeding out that demographic is probably a good thing.
I was one year old then.
;-)
Sure enough. But tell me - isn’t every realtor a “rookie” at first? Give me a good, experienced 28 year old over a rookie 45 year old any day of the week.
Nice broad brush there, FINF. Let me also say that priests are going to have to stop diddling their altar boys, lawyers will have to stop chasing ambulances, and pro-lifers will have to stop bombing abortion clinics.
Well who don't. That's nothing new.
And the fact of the matter is, almost 70 percent of all those that got into the RE game in the past several years and got licensed never sold a home. They found out there was too much competition after they were licensed. You had a bunch of people with a RE license but never even sold a home, or maybe sold one home. After splitting their commissions with the "office", they found out they couldn't pay the bills.
Like the mortgage/lending industry, getting your RE license for most was just a scam when they knew damn well there were already way to many RE agents.
The kids I’m talking about are airheads everyday of the week.
SaveSix...Help-U-Sell...Assist-to-Sell!
Go for it.
Let me ask you this.
You have a job. You’ve been doing it for a decade. You’re one of the best at your job there is. You make $140,000 a year doing it and treat your clients and co-workers fairly.
Suddenly, some shmuck, who’s never worked a single day in your industry, says you make too much money and should continue doing the same work you’ve been doing for 10 years, but now only do it for $30,000 a year.
What would you say to them?
Sacramento has been hit the hardest. It’s also mostly one subdivision in this report...
Why would a lender INTEND a borrower to end up in foreclosure? Lenders DO NOT make money reposessing a house! They lose their shirts!
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