Posted on 08/22/2007 5:32:12 AM PDT by Hydroshock
I am not real familiar with them, but was told they can save you thousands in commission costs.
http://www.catalisthomes.com/
I do see a lot of those.
Mortgages were being used to fiance very expensive automobiles. Congress changed the law to allow that kind of deception. It's all their fault. Not Bush's. Corruption in Congress is at an all time high.
All the BIG money floating around DC. Both parties stood in line with open hands, begging for donations.
Corrupt politicos, greedy lenders, shady lobbyist's. Foreign bank accounts. Illegal under the table property transfers. Cash hidden in freezers of refrigerators. A financial Coup D'etat took place in the last eight years.
Auto financing can easily be used by organized crime. To hide illegal pay offs. Money laundering. Yada yada. It's easy to take $ 48,000 out of refinance deal and steer a pigeon to to a car dealer. Mark up a bogus contract. Sell used cars as new. Whatever . . .
Hide $ 20,000 - $ 35,000 in mortgage paper or straight loan paper.
Bingo ! You just laundered drug money !
But I will say it in short hand. Mortgage securities tranches. Multiple sales. Figure it out for yourself.
A new state-of-the-art mono-rail train was ready to take it's maiden voyage. All 5 cars were full of politicians, the press and foreign dignitaries.
The excitement was in the air as this train could cruise at over 135 mph.
As the train, which was powered by powerful magnets, was twenty minutes out of the terminal going thru a mountain pass, the train suddenly ground to a halt.
The head of the transit company was frantic...as this was proving to be most embarrassing. He called for somebody on the train to help him out of this predicament.
As word spread through the train, a frail old man of 70 appeared in dirty overalls and a greasy face. They begged him to do something....anything to get the train started again.
The old man went to the 'locomotive' and after just a few minutes pressing his ear to the skin of the huge car...took out his hammer and banged on the side of the car...once...twice...THREE TIMES!
Suddenly the train's engine came to life, purring like a cat.
The executive...obviously relieved...asked the old man how much? The old man said "$5,075."
"$5,075! For just two minutes of your time? That's ridiculous. Please break that bill down for me, sir!"
The old man said...it's $75 for the service call and $5,000 for the repair". The exasperated executive screamed, "You only banged a hammer and you want five grand? That's robbery! How can you justify that?"
"Because I knew WHERE to hit it!"
Today, anybody could take a bunch of pictures of their house and write a description and list it on an e-bay style listing and call it “houses for sale.com” or something. Direct buyer to seller and omit the exorbitant 6% commissions we are being gouged.
No, please explain it to me.
Math is hard, so let me go slowly for you.
I lend $100,000. You don’t pay me.
I foreclose on you, spend $20,000 to do it, and end up with a house I sell for $65,000.
I lost a boatload of money.
Math is hard, I know...but try it.
These same folks who complain about the money Realtors get paid as “too much”, scream bloody murder when an illegal undercuts their hourly wage by a buck or two.
Good Lord, you’ve been hitting that bong for far too long.
I use new math.
Realtors fighting illegals over flipping jobs...that is something I’d pay to see.
Hint: The mortgage was sold and sold again and sold again on Wall Street. Hidden in tranches sold to foreign buyers. Those securities were bundled into tranches containing hundreds of mortgages from subprime, to Alt-A to prime paper. All sold as A +. Do your math again. Congress knows everything that I know. The game is over. Some very smart people know everything.
I know it was sold again and again - but whoever owns the paper at the time of foreclosure still gets stuck with the house.
I can see how that might make an original lender or whatever not care about foreclosure, but they do have to answer to those investors. I’ve also had loans declined because the INVESTOR that the lender sold to wouldn’t buy it - this was 2 years ago while subprime was buying anything.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007; 4:41 PM
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- At the North Carolina offices of mortgage lender HomeBanc Corp., Archie Clark is the only employee left. But in a few days, he'll be gone, too.
"It's pretty much a ghost town over there," Clark said. "Somebody went in and took the furniture from the lobby. I don't know who did that. I put some of the other stuff in the back and locked it up."
Realtors fighting illegals over flipping jobs...that is something I’d pay to see.
I do believe I would pay NOT to see that.
I was just spouting off. It was just a throw away, tongue in cheek line, and you don’t have smilies on Free Republic. Hard working people who know there stuff all have value. Last Realtor I had was a great guy.
My beef is not with Realtors, some of whom are good folks, but with a system that results in such a huge commission for selling someone else’s hard-earned property.
My only reservation with Realtors is that most I’ve dealt with are overbearing to the point of being pushy. I feel very uncomfortable with really pushy people and sales attracts them, home sales doubly so. There is another broad brush.
I profess complete ignorance about the difficulties and intricacies of the Real Estate profession. You bring up good points, but my only question would be, is the value he is doing really worth $140,000 a year? Says who?
What is a customer getting for his 6% commission, that he could not do himself by listing his home on a website FSBO? If he is foolish and doesn’t take good pictures, freshen the looks of the home to sell, or price the home right, then it will sit, as well it should. If he does all those right, the house will sell. Escrow is needed. Title is needed. But a realtor to bring the 2 together for a 6% commission is not needed today.
Maybe Realtors don’t realize how much dang money 6% commission is.
On the Median priced home in California of $450,000 that is $27,000. Are you telling me it costs a Realty company $20,000 or more to sell that house? Break that down for me because I can’t see it. Why does a Realtor need to charge $27,000 to sell a $450,000 home. Does it cost more to list a $450,000 home than a $100,000 home?
If a Realtor sells a million dollar home, that one sale takes $60,000. Why?
This is worth repeating.
Why does a Realtor have to charge $60,000 to sell a $1,000,000 home.
I realize in the old days before the internet, when the Real Estate industry had all the listings and a seller had no way to get exposure to the market except by taking out adds in a local paper — which is minimal to say the least — then the Real Estate industry could maintain their monopoly on not letting buyers have access to sales listings, keeping it all to themselves.
With the advent of the internet, there is absolutely no reason a seller shouldn’t be able to list his home online for complete exposure to the entire home-buying market.
I am ignorant to the complete tasks and duties of a Realtor, but it seems to me a Realtor is 20% worthwhile advisor and 80% middle-man skimming the cream off the top of home-owners hard-earned net worth.
I may be wrong, but that is how it seems to me and how it always has seemed to me. Once upon a time, the Real Estate industry had a monopoly on sales and could set an exorbitant 6% fee for the sale of a home. I see no reason that has to go on today with the ease of use and exposure provided by the internet.
No, we are not all lawyers and do not know all of the requirements needed to sell a home. An adviser would still be needed to list and process all of the documents and requirements in the home selling process. But I am pretty sure there are people who are willing to do that for a flat fee or at least for far less than for $60,000 on a $1,000,000 home.
I have no axe to grind with Realtors. I’m not calling on them to lose their lifestyle or jobs. I’m saying that the fees are excessive in today’s market and that homeowners need to wise up and find a way to keep more of their very hard-earned net worth and not squander many tens of thousands of dollars just to find a seller and transfer their property to someone else. $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 or more is serious money — a homeowner’s money — he could really use toward retirement or health care, college expenses or other necessary uses.
The days when the Real Estate industry had everyone over a barrel, able to charge a HUGE 6% fee on a home sale needs to end sooner than later, and the advent of the internet will probably affect that change. I’m sorry for Realtors who won’t be able to make easy 6-figure salaries anymore, but maybe they just aren’t worth that kind of value to the entire buy-sell-transfer a home process today.
Did you ever stop to consider that?
80% of Realtors make less than the average. Which means only 20% make really good money. That means that 10% is REALLY good at what they do, and probably do earn every dime of their money. The others might charge 6% as well, but if they only sell one house every 2 months, that’s not really much at all...
True, but all sellers are still paying 6% of their hard-earned property net worth to somebody. More than that. Since 6% is levied on the selling price. As in my example, fully 34% of my home’s appreciation was taken by the Realty company when I sold my home. Whether that 34% was directed to a less successful seller or a more successful seller didn’t matter.
I was the one who set the selling price “to sell” on the advice of my Realtor in 1996. It is not as though I set a selling price of $124,000 and the realtor got me a bid of $135,000, thereby earning a nice fat commission on the sale.
The fact is, had I a system to have my home listed far and wide, I likely could have sold that home for the price of $124,000 — which I set — and saved most of that $7,440 fee.
My home sold in less than 60 days because I priced it right, and invested a good sum to freshen it with paint/carpet/linoleum etc. to make it appealing to a buyer. Can you break down how much of that $7,440 fee in 1996 dollars was actual paid by the Realty company for their listing, paperwork, legwork, etc. Did it cost them even half that amount in 1996 to list my home and sell it in less than 60 days? One third?
I can see a homebuilder getting thousands on the sale of the home he built, but why does a seller’s agent get $5,000 profit on the sale of a $124,000 home. Seems pretty unfair to me, all because Realtors have had a monopoly on the listings all these years.
Now fast forward to 2004 and homes were selling in days for over asking prices. Who the hell needs a Realtor during these times? Homes were flat selling themselves, yet Realtors were still raking in $30,000 fees on half-million dollar homes for a few days work.
Nice work if you can get it.
You may say, that makes up for the year long listings during market downturns. Well, how about we pay 10% commission in bad years when Realtors have to really work to sell few homes, and 2% commissions in good years? Then I could at least wait for the low commissions to sell my home.
So far, I am NOT SEEING the justification for charging $30,000 to list and sell a half-million dollar home. I am just not seeing the $25,000 in expenses Real Estate companies have to incur that justifies a nice $5,000 profit from the deal. Or is it a $5,000 cost and an obscene $25,000 profit. Or somewhere in the middle.
Because I am just not seeing any cost structure from Realtors that supports billing 6% on the entire value of someone’s home. I just can’t see it. It seems very excessive and exorbitant to me, whether it is taken in by a successful 6-figure salesman or by a struggling one.
How can you justify taking $30,000 to sell a $500,000 home? I can’t see it.
Uh, capitalism. You don’t have to justify any fee or price as long as people are willing and able to pay.
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