Posted on 08/22/2007 5:32:12 AM PDT by Hydroshock
Funny, this seems like the same thing they said after the dot com bust, where the “good” people were happier because all the people who had no business being in IT/web design/computers were fired. The sad thing is, that some of those “good” people ended up losing their jobs too as investments dried up.
If you want to sell a house yourself, do it. There’s no reason not to. If someone chooses to pay a Realtor, that’s their choice too.
When I bought mine, the buyer's agent I had was a knowledgeable and thorough fellow. He steered me away from a few nightmare properties and some real weasels of salespeople.
Here in Southern Oregon specifically, there are some real scammers in the real estste business and little disclosure. There is a lot of houses here that should not be sold. The building codes are so lax and the enforcement is nil.
Now I can't speak for the thousands of other municipalities in the country, but I suspect there is one hell of a lot of cheatin' goin' on out there since it involves lots of money.
I see that in the rental market as well. People suing tenants hoping to bully them into paying for maintenance they neglected for years.
When it involves lots of YOUR money, do a credit and criminal check on the seller and make them pay for it. Hell, they do it to you.
I own rental properties and the filth I see out there in the property management business make me sick.
I guess my realtor, whom I only saw once when I signed the contract which expires on September 1st, was one of those who rate “a little r”?
Moving from flipping houses to flipping burgers will take jobs from illegals. Jorge will be displeased.
“The cyclical process of weeding out fly by night mortgage brokers, Realtors, flippers and home builders”
Yeah, but it was a hell of ride for the past 20 years or so.
Oh yes. We were very fortunate when we bought our house 16 years ago. We’d looked at a few with other realtors but when they realized how much money we actually had to bring to the table ($0) and what our limit was, they would never return our calls. We weren’t terrible risks, both employed long term, decent credit, just a young couple with not much money who wanted to own a home. We lucked out, called about a house that we wanted to look at and an older gentleman met us here. Million Dollar Club several times over. He only showed us homes within our price range, didn’t push us to try to find a higher priced house, set us up with NCALL, put a lot of effort into finding a bank that would finance for us, explained PMIs and escrows and all that stuff. We got the exact house we wanted, at the price we wanted.
I referred many people to him. My mom’s coworker was recently divorced, worked FT for the state but didn’t have any down payment and wanted her own little home. No one would give her the time of day but he did. Found her the nicest little rancher, just what she needed. I know that just about everyone I referred to him ended up with a house. He’d call us up day or night when he found a house that fit our criteria and meet us anytime. He was wonderful.
“returned to selling Used Cars and scrap metal...”
Scrap metal’s gone through the roof! Used to be you had to pay someone to haul off a junk car, now they pay you!
Thanx!
Not capitalism when there is a defacto monopoly in place. In the old days, the Realtors owned the listings. In fact, they still do. If you want to sell your home, you have to list with a Realtor so potential buyers can view those listings.
Imagine a system where you can’t viably sell your car with an ad in the paper, but you have to sell it to a used car dealer who will low-ball your car’s value. Or if you had to sell your car for consignment on a used car dealer’s lot for a 20% consignment fee. That is still the Real Estate industry today.
With e-bay and Craig’s List, you can easily sell your car on the net for reasonable market value, with low fees instead of letting a used-car dealer low-ball your car’s value.
I am saying, let’s bypass the archaic monopoly of the Real Estate industry and list homes on the internet, like e-bay. From links posted in this thread, it looks like that is beginning to happen. When listing homes on the net becomes typical, the average home owner will no longer have to fork over huge fees in the form of a 6% commission, to sell their homes.
That is really capitalism. Just buyer and seller. No middle man. Am I missing something here?
Many sales involve a buyer's agent and the commission is split between the two agents.
Not everybody charges 6%. We charge 4 and in some cases a little more or less.
We do free financial planning for our clients. They often don't know how to project the numbers.
Last night I did an offer for a smart middle aged couple. We went through about 35 pages of paperwork. I'm in Calif and you can imagine how much of a morass the system is here. Also, we're a very litigious state. At the end of the evening, they were glad I was there. Of course, I'll get 2.5% from the selling agent. I have a lot of work to do for the due diligence of a 4 plex. So I earn my money and I get paid for what I do and for what I know that keeps my client out of trouble.
Anyone who can do their own sale and sleep well, I have no argument with them. But things have changed and it's become a mine field. I read most of the loan and RE threads here and we haven't even scratched the surface of the fraud and deceit out here.
We believe in service and ethics above commission. We do no marketing and get all of our transactions from repeat and referral. We're swimming in transactions generated by our planning and clients who want to invest in RE.
When I entered the business, many agents were talking about these downturns, but they all work under the traditional business model.
You don't have to list your home with them. 74% of clients start on the internet. With places like craigslist, realist, and others you can list your home there.
In the long run and it's already started, this will diminish the power of the associations.
As I said in my other post, it is the lawsuits and complicated regulations that keep us in business and will probably continue to do so in the future.
The net opens up the competition and if you don't have a business edge or good reputation, you probably won't last long.
That is really capitalism. Just buyer and seller. No middle man. Am I missing something here?
People sell homes on their own all the time. However, just the buyer and seller thing doesn’t really work. You still need lawyers, bankers, etc.
I don’t think housing prices will soar, I think they were artificially high. I think people were foolish to put up with the outrageous prices in the first place. People have to learn to think for themselves, and realize what they are capable of affording, after all, who would purposefully put themselves in a situation where they couldn’t afford a home and risk losing it. People lose cars foolishly, but a home? People need to think and realize that is not even an option.
They need to get rid of another 1 million before I would be happy.
They need to get rid of another 1 million before I would be happy.
Don’t hate the player hate the game.
It's better use of everyone's time if you know the price range and possible loan situation before they go out.
Since most relators don't do both the clients may go to a bank and wind up later with another agent.
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