Of course it's not "magic", but it's a starting point. I've seen where starting too high keeps potential buyers away.Quote:
Originally Posted by Danno
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Of course it's not "magic", but it's a starting point. I've seen where starting too high keeps potential buyers away.Quote:
Originally Posted by Danno
yeah, but it's those houses that make up for the pieces of shit that never sell, or the shitty sellers that make their lives hell, or the buyers who make them show 15 houses and never buy (I was one of those once).Quote:
Originally Posted by frorider
Oh, I get that. And I didn't mean to imply that the asking price isn't important. It's HUDGELY important in one's strategic thinking about how to sell a home. I just meant that to say "this house went for $30k over asking" and "that house went for $10k under asking" doesn't really tell you about which house is nicer or worth more, which realtor is better, which house was priced better, etc. Yet I hear people use it for that all the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Viva
Yes. And agents can be fired, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by frorider
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Originally Posted by neufox47
Then don't use one of us. Its a free country. If you think that you can effectively price, market, negotiate, and close a deal on your own, then go ahead. Have fun with the 100 calls from agents on your For Sale By Owner and I hope everything is smooth for you.Quote:
Originally Posted by narc
No - commissions are actually not fixed. Like everything it's negotiable. Some brokers may say that they won't negotiate, but that's their choice. You can offer an electrician $500 when he quotes $1000, just the same as you could tell a broker what % you'd pay to sell your house.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foggy_Goggles
Sometimes transactions are simple and in a hot market you could sell it yourself but what to do when their are hitches, bullshit, and 'what do we do from here?'s.
I'll give you a recent example of how my services helped a client more than pay for my commissions and the buyers. Hot product in hot area. We received 10+ offers. The highest at 10% over the asking price. Client accepted - moved out of town - two weeks later the appraisal came back WAY under the contract price. I wrote up a formal request for reconsideration of value listing off 7 or 8 specific points with evidence where value should have been added in to the subject appraisal vs the comparable sales. Appraisal reconsideration came back 7% higher than the original. More than paid for the 5% total commission I was charging and 75% increase in her net proceeds. Client was ecstatic that a couple hours of my work produced such a change in her bottom line.
its always the few "facktards" in any industry that give the rest a bad name.Quote:
Originally Posted by frorider
IMO the few bad ones are Re/Max agents.
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Originally Posted by guroo270
Beat me to it. Not shitting on your friend at all Guroo, but Jonesboro may as well be in another state in reference to Atlanta. 45 minutes south of where I am in-town on a good traffic day. And as mentioned, way outside the perimeter as well as south OTP.Quote:
Originally Posted by shredgnar
What do you call a stock broker, a Realtor & a lawyer at the bottom of the ocean? A good start. :smile:
First, the real estate brokerage business is line the majority of other professions; 70/30 rule (or, maybe 75/25). We have 30% of the agents doing 70% of the deal flow. There is a lot of chaff, and the chaff often times gives lame or unprofessional service.
On to "opinions." First, this is such a highly uninformed comment its absurd. Escrow officers only follow instructions. They have zero input on contracts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Viva
Second, where I live (SF, CA), my six year old can hand out flyers and get a property marketed & sold. But, if a seller wants a premium, get a decent agent to accomplish that.
Third, although the commission is paid out of the sellers proceeds, the BUYER always pays (just like the premium auction business). If a seller needs to walk with $1M, I need to list his property at $1,050M (5% commission). In a sellers market, this not terribly important as the property will likely sell for more than asking. But, in a buyers market, you see this more relevant.
Good agents are well worth their commission, lame agents generally cost their clients $. Select your agent carefully.
All of this is situation dependent. In some cases a broker can create huge value for you (and is worth every penny) and other cases the buy or sell is more transactional and the value isn't there.
I'm in Boulder, definitely a sellers market, and even so, I use my broker every sale. Best 2% I could ever spend.
Speaking of, if there are Boulder and Denver area broker mags, PM me if you are interested in a transactional buy arrangement. I'm looking for someone I can pay a fixed fee per contract to paper offers and answer a few questions. I'm looking for every edge I can get in a competitive market, and waiving the buyer's broker fee has piqued seller interest lately.
I think it depends on how complex on a situation you have. My wife and I recently started looking at condos, for the most part we've gone through open houses without our agent. She did take us to private showing where it was fsbo and she asked a bunch of questions we didn't think to ask. She also picked up on some small changes/things that needed to be fixed that would affect the purchase price. The seller was kind of a prick and made a few comments in front of her about how realtors suck so maybe he was a mag. If I had a place for sell right now in metro Boston, the value of an agent would be to sift through all the bs and questions from moron buyers. My wife and I both work full time and I'm not in a position where I could spend a bunch of times running a sale of a condo/home.
Being a former Realtor I know everything about the business :tongue:
I think the debate should be about a fair price for the services rather than asking whether or not they're a value-add in the process. Not everyone needs a realtor, some are knowledgeable enough to buy alone. That's probably <10% of people though, and some of them will overpay for repairs and/or get a shitty inspector that doesn't keep the sellers honest.
3% commission in a fast moving market is a little high for a standard home. For a hard to sell property it can actually be a deal though. think luxury land parcels, remote properties, etc.
What do you guys think about paying 20% to 40% markup at a retail store to help pay for the goon standing behind the counter? Makes three percent for a competent agent who actually works hard and takes on some of your liability seem not that bad.
Also, it's been said, but like any profession there are some who work their asses off for you, and a lot who suck. Speaking as a real estate agent, I hate most real estate agents, especially when I'm working twice as hard as them for the same amount of money.
Some people are certainly savvy enough to represent themselves, but just because OP can doesn't mean everyone doesn't want or in some cases really need some help.
Either way, seems like one of these threads pops up about every month, maybe you guys should get together and just have one thread where you can discuss how worthless you think real estate agents are.
I would recommend this guy to anyone in the LA area.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/derek-huff-0336a2102
So, like a fill in your favorite profession thread?Quote:
Originally Posted by jvskinn
Actually I don't think one of these threads has popped up in a while. We've been quite busy discussing genital herpes, how to obtain police reports, and flippin' the bird to Benny.
This has been a welcome respite.
RE worth is volitile and can change in an instant, even tho I negotiated a discount which the agent agreed to cuz it was a sellers market with low inventory pre-the-world-falling-apart. I did the deal & very soon after had sellers remorse so I was lamenting to a friend from back home maybe I had not asked a high enough price to which buddy replied "no man everything is for sale right now & prices are dropping ... you did great!"
Thanks foggy! I may convert that to my signature.... :fm:Quote:
Originally Posted by Foggy_Goggles
Here's what I tell my clients about asking price (which is, unequivocally the price a ready, willing and able buyer is willing to pay at that point in time), and this is very different from any sort of retail environment:
In any real estate market - good, bad, buyer's, seller's, hot, cold, economic downturn or boom times - the concept above will always, absolutely correct an asking price that is not exactly the price that it would end up selling for without any contingencies. And how often does that happen?
If your price is below "market value" i.e.. the price a ready, willing and able buyer is willing to pay at that point in time, more buyers will show up, make offers and ultimately bring the sales price to actual market value. In a hot market like Seattle or San Francisco or many others this usually happens quite quickly and the seller is pretty much in control of the transaction. Buyers will ditch their contingencies, not ask for concessions and close quickly.
This is what some in this thread seem to be referring to as 'underpricing'. In my mind there really is no such thing, only strategic pricing (as has been mentioned). Brokers use this concept to increase the eventual price that a seller gets. That's their job as seller's agent.
Some sellers have a tough time with this concept because they're fearful that someone will only offer them the asking price. Well, guess what? If that's what happens that's what the property is "worth"!
On the other side of the coin, a property on which the asking price is too high, the market will also correct it (downward) and this usually takes much longer.
Unlike a retail product the price of any piece of real estate that is sold anywhere is fluid and market-dependent. You can't just mark up your product by 100%+ (whoever said 20%-30% doesn't have much grasp of most retail) and wait for someone to walk in the door and take it home.
The notion that we have no incentive to increase a seller's yield is absurd. It pays many dividends in the form of referrals and future business to have happy and loyal clients.
timing to move a property is also affected by the asking price
pretty sure I mentioned that..... ;)
Most of these "Realtors" couldn't balance a checkbook and are hacks who couldn't sell used cars. Less than 5% have a clue.Quote:
Originally Posted by oftpiste
yes, but in different terms I thoughtQuote:
Originally Posted by oftpiste
i was trying to emphasize that the house's value, as defined by how much the market thinks it's worth (which I think was your overall takeaway), is not necessarily a fixed number
(maybe not worth noting in the end...)
it's a fluid thing that you wade into in your daily business...the "same" house in different neighborhoods or different times has differing values
not envious of staying on top of that at all -- it appears somewhat nonsensical from the outside and is tied into people's emotions about a place & money in general
Not in my experience, not at all. But then people say that same crap about lawyers, and that is also a huge fallacy on that score too. But it seems to make people feel better to act like 95% of the profession they don't like is made of bottom feeders, so knock yourself out.Quote:
Originally Posted by VTeton
All true!
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Originally Posted by acinpdx
I think the number is considerably higher than 5%, but I won't argue that there always have been and still are an awful lot of people making an awful lot of money who really suck at being real estate agents.
Many of those really good at getting people to sign contracts but that's about it, and that does not a skillful broker make. They're the ones who inspire people to start threads like this, and that's not great for the good ones.
Of course, I'd make the worlds shittiest car salesman.
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Originally Posted by VTeton
Heh, I missed his used car comment. And from my perspective, a good realtor shouldn't be good at selling used cars (or rather, that is an unrelated skill). I don't see a realtor (either as a buyer's or seller's agent) as a salesman at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by oftpiste
Tell me of another business where one can basically reinvent themselves....regardless of their previous profession or misdeeds (minus hard felonies)?
Hence, low barrier to entry gathers a lot of people that are lazy, dumb, unethical, in-between-careers, etc.
Snowboard instructor.Quote:
Originally Posted by esseff
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Originally Posted by esseff
Heh. In my town, backduring the 2008 RE crash there seemed to be a pretty serious shake-out in the brokerage ranks. And coincidentally, there were hundreds of yoga class ads and flyers showing up all over the place around that time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Viva
not enough room for the list. are you really asking this as a serious question? think for more than a moment and I'm sure you will come up with many. like, virtually any profession there is?Quote:
Originally Posted by esseff
QFT! One of the bigger earning realtors in town casually let this roll off his tongue:Quote:
Originally Posted by VTeton
"Ahhh... a real estate license... a law degree in seven days..." Classic!
At a party once I heard a realtor say there were something like 700+ licensed real estate agents in Teton County.
I always heard a lot of Barbers were ex-cons.Quote:
Originally Posted by esseff
say the average house is 250,000 a 3% commision isn't that much once you figure it fees to the firm and taxes, the take home is less than 2% it's not really a ton of money unless your doing big volume
the problem is once houses (like where I live) sell for 1 million or more the 3% fee is pretty stupid, which equals stupid money, then you have to listen realtors and all the bullshit they spew, I have yet to meet a realtor in summit county that isn't a complete moron, I have yet to meet a realtor where I live that doesn't have their head so far up their ass and completly detached from reality, this is where they get a bad rap, you figure a house here turns over every 6-10 years, thats alot of bs money for nothing, selling the same thing over and over
Yeah man, properties are being traded up to several times before a deal closes which allows the realtor to make multiple commissions and investors to profit tax-free from houses that are not yet technically in their possession. Basically, sellers are receiving less for their properties than what buyers are willing to pay, and the buyers (usualy Chinese investors) pay more than they would if the realtors weren't involved. All of these properties are worth millions. You can't get a condemned single detached house in Vancouver for anything less than a couple million. places on my block have been sold, torn down, rebuilt and sold again in the past 6 months, and they were decent houses to begin with.Quote:
Originally Posted by XXX-er
http://i.imgur.com/SCyathZ.jpg
That's a pretty anomalous set of circumstances right there. Can't really blame agents for it, especially if buyers are pushing the whole thing as it appears. I've heard things were crazy there, but is it really that bad?
$50k of that agent's $75k in your example is not actually a commission but a finder's fee offered by crazed buyers. I'd take it too if the threw it at me like that after a conversation that involved me telling them they were likely not making a good decision.
Realtor here. Can you sell your own home. Absolutely. The reason we are not going anywhere is that selling, buying, and moving a home is an emotional and stressful process. We are there to guide people through the transaction and handle the moving parts. It is a huge financial decision for most people. A good Realtor is worth what he/she charges. I've saved clients tens of thousands of dollars, and made them even more money through investing in real estate on deals they never would have known existed.
The barrier to entry into this business is WAY too low, and the bad agents have really hurt the public's opinion of us. And as mentioned, 10% are doing 90% of the work.
The flat fee shops always open up in a seller's market, but as the market shifts back, they always seem to disappear.
Is that another way of saying 90% suck? I think we've gotten to the point where we can agree that 10% are worth their money. I've worked commission sales jobs and understand that there is little correlation between how hard you work for a client and the resulting commission (at least in the short term).Quote:
10% are doing 90% of the work
The incompetence I see, manifests itself frequently as a complete lack of professionalism. Every realtor should wake up everyday, look in the mirror and say "I am not a contractor, inspector, appraiser, mortgage broker, building inspector, expert on zoning regulations, a well driller, etc."
As a contractor, I've got to so many customer meetings were the new owners says, "My realtors said it should cost XXX" which is generally about 50% of estimated cost. I usually response by asking the client what led them to believe that the realtor had any level of expertise is estimating to cost of construction projects. The blank stare usually comes next. I follow up by asking if the realtor cashed their commission check yet. Then they start to get it.
^^^ the funneh! and the troo.
Clients do absolutely ask about what things cost, and having had some experience with many types of home remodeling (hands-on and contracted) I have a general idea, but am always careful to discuss things in terms of a range of pricing as opposed to a solid number, and couched with disclaimers. Pretty much always in the ballpark.
I think clients expect us to have some idea, but if only the 10% are knowledgeable and realistic that would indeed suck for most clients.
Seems like the part time job of choice for middle aged women.
I have great respect for great lawyers and great RE agents. Sometimes you feel bad for the people who hire these clowns. I don't go near SFH except for immediate family cause it's a shit show dealing with washed out used car salesman.Quote:
Originally Posted by Danno
I was house shopping in 2013.
One agent tossed my offer in trash and didn't show to client. She told other brokers, who know me, I wasn't a good fit for neighborhood. She was looking for a buyer who would tear down and spend 7 figures because existing 5k sq ft house was ugly.
Another local broker ignores calls/emails from other brokers because he always wants both sides of deal. Breach of fiduciary right there...
I offered $1,000 below actual sales price on another property and broker didn't even respond to offer, sold couple weeks later.
I did learn that you just need to stoop to their level. In SFH market, I always offer buyer commission to listing agent... Like crack, they can't resist.
FIFYQuote:
Originally Posted by Beer Drinker
What professional / profession can you have unlimited earning potential with peoples most expensive asset and not have a resume?Quote:
Originally Posted by oftpiste