Looking for a real estate broker (Lancaster, Warwick: condo, co-op, 2nd mortgage)

[Cleanmaxx Brian]

Hi All,
I am planning to put my home in Wantagh on the market in a few weeks.
What are the going rates these days? Does anyone still do the 2% thing anymore? I thought ABBEY did it but I can't even find their web site. Must mean they are out of business!

Any recommendations are welcome.

Off to stage!

Brian

[Elke Mariotti]

Originally Posted by Cleanmaxx Brian

Hi All,
I am planning to put my home in Wantagh on the market in a few weeks.
What are the going rates these days? Does anyone still do the 2% thing anymore? I thought ABBEY did it but I can't even find their web site. Must mean they are out of business!

Any recommendations are welcome.

Off to stage!

Brian

Rates are negotiable.

With selling brokers/agents generally expecting at least 2%, you can figure out if listing agents want to work for nothing and throw in $$$$$ for advertising, etc. on top of that
Remember Foxtons? They had a 3% deal going, and now they're gone...

[Cleanmaxx Brian]

OK...so then the next question is what should one expect to pay? 4%?

I am a photographer and want to do my own pictures. Is there anything else I could do to help the agent?

I plan on pricing real aggressive as I am looking to sell fast. (My neighbors won't be to happy!)

[Elke Mariotti]

Originally Posted by Cleanmaxx Brian

OK...so then the next question is what should one expect to pay? 4%?

I am a photographer and want to do my own pictures. Is there anything else I could do to help the agent?

I plan on pricing real aggressive as I am looking to sell fast. (My neighbors won't be to happy!)

sorry, it's negotiable, but only one on one , not on this forum
There are other things that could help, but that depends on the agent's approach.

[NSHL10]

Brian,

Did you find a place in PA? What area?

[Cleanmaxx Brian]

Originally Posted by fopt65

Brian,

Did you find a place in PA? What area?

Well not yet...selling I think will be the hard part so that is what I am doing first. I think finding a home will be a breeze as I we looking for something new or very close to it.

As for area, Lancaster county. Manheim Township, Warwick, Penn Manor, or Hempfield school districts...

Thanks for asking...it amazes me how many people remember I was looking! This is a great bunch of people

[Elke Mariotti]

Originally Posted by Cleanmaxx Brian

Well not yet...selling I think will be the hard part so that is what I am doing first.

Smart move!

[AndreaII]

Originally Posted by Cleanmaxx Brian

I plan on pricing real aggressive as I am looking to sell fast. (My neighbors won't be to happy!)

I don't want to discourage you, but this is just a warning that pricing aggressively without giving your property away may not be the solution to selling it at this point. I have my house on the market and it's priced very aggressively (it's been up for about half year), and my neighbors are shocked to say the least at our very current low price, and still after 144 showings (yep, 144!!) and multiple lowball bids, and after accepting a few of these lowball bids, the bids we've accepted vanish. We haven't found one sincere buyer yet. I'm not lowering the price anymore. We've been lowering quite often - rather large chunky amounts, and are at the "bottom" of the local market now. Doesn't seem to matter much how low the price goes at this point, these people just keep throwing out ridiculous bids lower and lower and they disappear anyway.

My realtor is totally disgusted with the attitude of these "buyers" (they seem more like game players than anything), hardly any houses are under contract in Stony Brook, and yet people keep looking at my house. She reports that many foreigners want to move here - keeps getting phone calls from people who can't speak our language, she can't understand them on the phone because their accents can be cut with a knife or can't understand them because they can't speak English - they want our University Hospital and our University and our school system, and according to her are trying to steal houses at outrageously low prices only someone with a gun to their head would take. Basically, bottom feeders. She has also told me to expect a lot of disrespect from buyers in general, not necessarily the foreigners - there's that feeling of empowerment and entitlement these people have because of the state of the economy. As if now it's their turn. In reality, it's no one's turn.

My realtor's office is also keeping track of the people who have thrown out all the bids to us - even the ones we haven't accepted. None of them have any deals anywhere else. Feels like they're waiting for me to keep lowering the price to see just how low the price will go, and then maybe they'll consider it. The price is staying where it is, and when the time is right it will either increase, or I'll just take the house off the market.

Another problem that's come up are multiple bids at the same time on different houses from these buyers. They try and play one seller against another to see which seller will crack first. Real nice - again bottom feeders. Not sure if it's successful or not - hasn't worked on me and won't.

Another trick is after you've accepted a low bid, then they turn around and lower their accepted bid by another 7% to see what you'll say, and they blame something for their reduction - the latest is the stock market going down (it's going down for all of us, me too, not just the buyers), or maybe they don't like a tree, or maybe they don't like the color of the road, or maybe they can hear wheels spinning on cars from 2 miles away, in short they lie. You get the idea. That's the signal they're definitely not serious - that's when it's time to cut the gamers loose.

Something I wasn't aware of until today because it came up with us accepting yet another low bid that will probably fall through (you get used to it after a while), is that there is a certain amount of cash they have to put down when signing the contract; if it's not up to a certain amount when they sign the contract, the buyers can turn around and say they didn't qualify for a mortgage, thus letting them out of the deal with no penalty to them after they've tied your house up, and then the entire downpayment is refundable to them despite them having signed the contract, and you've just lost X amount of weeks fooling around with more phonies. Not to mention the fact, and it's a big one, if they have the correct amount of $ down, you the seller legally get to keep the downpayment if they back out. I said this very badly because I'm not exactly sure of what it's all about. Perhaps one of the realtors can explain what I'm trying to say, and I hope they do, but I don't have enough information to expound. I think it's a very important point for a seller.

Oh, and in this market filled with phony buyers, if you accept a bid, your realty office may post it in their office, and then the chance of other realtors showing your house goes down - they assume it's sold. Very wrong assumption in this very weird market. You will lose time and $.

My theory of why my house isn't selling is composed of several parts: 1) So-called buyers are testing sellers to see what price they will turn away and not respond to, and also want to see what price a seller will take. Once they find out, they disappear. 2) People are scared to buy now - they're afraid they're going to lose their jobs. A real concern, fanned to death by the media who isn't helping our country's moral one bit. 3) People who are trying to time the bottom of the market - most of them will fail more than likely. Like trying to time the bottom of the stock market. It can only be seen in hindsight.

Sorry for this being so long, but really, if you can wait until things begin to turn around, you'll be better off for it. You won't have to deal with all of the phonies out there (plenty of the bottom feeders will never own a house - they're just flirting with the idea that's sprinkled with plenty of wishful thinking - hope springs eternal and all that), it can be very stressful and aggravating, you'll have to keep your house looking fabulous all the time (that can be quite a chore), and worst of all you'll have to deal with a lot of offers where only .1% are actually real. You get your hopes up, and then, your realtor will call with the continuing news that they've vanished back into phony buyer hell.

Hope this gives you a more realistic view of the mess everything is. In defense of all realtors out there, no one has ever seen a real estate mess like this before nor have had to deal with it. It's a first.

[LIgirl74]

Originally Posted by AndreaII

I don't want to discourage you, but this is just a warning that pricing aggressively without giving your property away may not be the solution to selling it at this point. I have my house on the market and it's priced very aggressively (it's been up for about half year), and my neighbors are shocked to say the least at our very current low price, and still after 144 showings (yep, 144!!) and multiple lowball bids, and after accepting a few of these lowball bids, the bids we've accepted vanish. We haven't found one sincere buyer yet. I'm not lowering the price anymore. We've been lowering quite often - rather large chunky amounts, and are at the "bottom" of the local market now. Doesn't seem to matter much how low the price goes at this point, these people just keep throwing out ridiculous bids lower and lower and they disappear anyway.

My realtor is totally disgusted with the attitude of these "buyers" (they seem more like game players than anything), hardly any houses are under contract in Stony Brook, and yet people keep looking at my house. She reports that many foreigners want to move here - keeps getting phone calls from people who can't speak our language, she can't understand them on the phone because their accents can be cut with a knife or can't understand them because they can't speak English - they want our University Hospital and our University and our school system, and according to her are trying to steal houses at outrageously low prices only someone with a gun to their head would take. Basically, bottom feeders. She has also told me to expect a lot of disrespect from buyers in general, not necessarily the foreigners - there's that feeling of empowerment and entitlement these people have because of the state of the economy. As if now it's their turn. In reality, it's no one's turn.

My realtor's office is also keeping track of the people who have thrown out all the bids to us - even the ones we haven't accepted. None of them have any deals anywhere else. Feels like they're waiting for me to keep lowering the price to see just how low the price will go, and then maybe they'll consider it. The price is staying where it is, and when the time is right it will either increase, or I'll just take the house off the market.

Another problem that's come up are multiple bids at the same time on different houses from these buyers. They try and play one seller against another to see which seller will crack first. Real nice - again bottom feeders. Not sure if it's successful or not - hasn't worked on me and won't.

Another trick is after you've accepted a low bid, then they turn around and lower their accepted bid by another 7% to see what you'll say, and they blame something for their reduction - the latest is the stock market going down (it's going down for all of us, me too, not just the buyers), or maybe they don't like a tree, or maybe they don't like the color of the road, or maybe they can hear wheels spinning on cars from 2 miles away, in short they lie. You get the idea. That's the signal they're definitely not serious - that's when it's time to cut the gamers loose.

Something I wasn't aware of until today because it came up with us accepting yet another low bid that will probably fall through (you get used to it after a while), is that there is a certain amount of cash they have to put down when signing the contract; if it's not up to a certain amount when they sign the contract, the buyers can turn around and say they didn't qualify for a mortgage, thus letting them out of the deal with no penalty to them after they've tied your house up, and then the entire downpayment is refundable to them despite them having signed the contract, and you've just lost X amount of weeks fooling around with more phonies. Not to mention the fact, and it's a big one, if they have the correct amount of $ down, you the seller legally get to keep the downpayment if they back out. I said this very badly because I'm not exactly sure of what it's all about. Perhaps one of the realtors can explain what I'm trying to say, and I hope they do, but I don't have enough information to expound. I think it's a very important point for a seller.

Oh, and in this market filled with phony buyers, if you accept a bid, your realty office may post it in their office, and then the chance of other realtors showing your house goes down - they assume it's sold. Very wrong assumption in this very weird market. You will lose time and $.

My theory of why my house isn't selling is composed of several parts: 1) So-called buyers are testing sellers to see what price they will turn away and not respond to, and also want to see what price a seller will take. Once they find out, they disappear. 2) People are scared to buy now - they're afraid they're going to lose their jobs. A real concern, fanned to death by the media who isn't helping our country's moral one bit. 3) People who are trying to time the bottom of the market - most of them will fail more than likely. Like trying to time the bottom of the stock market. It can only be seen in hindsight.

Sorry for this being so long, but really, if you can wait until things begin to turn around, you'll be better off for it. You won't have to deal with all of the phonies out there (plenty of the bottom feeders will never own a house - they're just flirting with the idea that's sprinkled with plenty of wishful thinking - hope springs eternal and all that), it can be very stressful and aggravating, you'll have to keep your house looking fabulous all the time (that can be quite a chore), and worst of all you'll have to deal with a lot of offers where only .1% are actually real. You get your hopes up, and then, your realtor will call with the continuing news that they've vanished back into phony buyer hell.

Hope this gives you a more realistic view of the mess everything is. In defense of all realtors out there, no one has ever seen a real estate mess like this before nor have had to deal with it. It's a first.

I too can vouch for what AndreaII is saying. Althought we haven't had our condo on the market for 6 months, we've been listed for 4 months. Normally units in our development sell within 30 days. We have had these crazy offers. We had one person who wanted us to be the 2nd mortgagee in the amount of $80k for her as she had bad credit and could only get approved for so much and a family member decided not to co-sign the mortgage for her. We then had a an offer that we decided to accept and the buyer's realtor said "the buyer didn't realize they couldn't afford an additional $100k as they were in the process of going to contract for a co-op that was $100k cheaper than the condo". Our last offer was an incredibly insulting offer and the buyer started arguing with our agent that the market is tanking, etc., etc....he low balled the price about $35,000 or more. Yes, the market is hurting but not as bad as some other states. I have to say, this is my first time as a seller and it's not a pleasant experience. I think some realtors are even unsure what's going to happen today and that's the scary part. When we first listed, we had people coming to our condo every 2 days to see it and that went on for about 2 months...The last time we had a showing was 2 weekends ago and it was each on Fri, Sat & Sun. It's amazing b/c you will think these buyers are so interested and then you will never hear from them again. Sometimes I think they are all not serious buyers. Just beware that it's a very strange market to be selling in. Try to keep your head up when selling b/c it gets quite frustrating and depressing after a while.

[S.I.B.]

Originally Posted by LIgirl74

I too can vouch for what AndreaII is saying. Althought we haven't had our condo on the market for 6 months, we've been listed for 4 months. Normally units in our development sell within 30 days. We have had these crazy offers. We had one person who wanted us to be the 2nd mortgagee in the amount of $80k for her as she had bad credit and could only get approved for so much and a family member decided not to co-sign the mortgage for her. We then had a an offer that we decided to accept and the buyer's realtor said "the buyer didn't realize they couldn't afford an additional $100k as they were in the process of going to contract for a co-op that was $100k cheaper than the condo". Our last offer was an incredibly insulting offer and the buyer started arguing with our agent that the market is tanking, etc., etc....he low balled the price about $35,000 or more. Yes, the market is hurting but not as bad as some other states. I have to say, this is my first time as a seller and it's not a pleasant experience. I think some realtors are even unsure what's going to happen today and that's the scary part. When we first listed, we had people coming to our condo every 2 days to see it and that went on for about 2 months...The last time we had a showing was 2 weekends ago and it was each on Fri, Sat & Sun. It's amazing b/c you will think these buyers are so interested and then you will never hear from them again. Sometimes I think they are all not serious buyers. Just beware that it's a very strange market to be selling in. Try to keep your head up when selling b/c it gets quite frustrating and depressing after a while.

would you mind telling us where your condo is? Just curious...