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I was selling my farm in 2 parcels.........
A guy was selling his farm that I wanted to buy.........
An older lady in town was selling her house to the guy selling his farm to me
Realtor did a great job getting all the sales done and only charged each seller a flat $2,000 for commission.
Ok, I am a Dufus.
But what does one mean by the term "the short bus"?
This is a new one to this old broad.
Well, after GOOGling it, all I have to say is it isn't very nice, much nastier than I perceived, and something I hereby resolve to quit using due to multiple crude connotations that I really don't intend and would be ashamed to be thought to embrace.
Well, after GOOGling it, all I have to say is it isn't very nice, much nastier than I perceived, and something I hereby resolve to quit using due to multiple crude connotations that I really don't intend and would be ashamed to be thought to embrace.
Very noble of you to take that stance.
I wasn't offended by your comments directed to me/us when you used it, however.
Well, after GOOGling it, all I have to say is it isn't very nice, much nastier than I perceived, and something I hereby resolve to quit using due to multiple crude connotations that I really don't intend and would be ashamed to be thought to embrace.
Glad you realized that; my son rode the short bus for a while and I was getting offended. Great thread, though!
Location: Mokelumne Hill, CA & El Pescadero, BCS MX.
6,957 posts, read 22,311,234 times
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I'll weigh in our OP's characterization of immoral. He breaks the contractor's law in Minnesota, and (without looking it up, in CA his acts would constitute a felony) and has the temerity to throw all of us in a pot called immoral.
I will give him this, his photobucket pages are full of nice jobs he has worked on.
Everytime I read one of these posts about how real estate is so easy.. anyone can do it.. in hot markets homes sells themselves... blah, blah, blah.. it makes me want to scream. I would say 25% of my transactions are easy. The others involve some sort of complication (or multiple complications) that has to be worked out to my client's satisfaction.
Take the one I'm working on right now.. a sewer line issue.. hours, (actually just this one issue on this transaction has taken a couple weeks) of dealing with the camera scope company, the buyer's agent, the city, the water company, the title company, the lender everyone needing answers and solutions and we are a week away from closing. Multiple visits to the house, inspections, second opinions, the list goes on and on. But you know, thank goodness I'm there for this client to help him through all this because he would have gone insane by now (his words not mine). And sometimes we even save them money.. to the tune of $3000 on one issue that came up that he was prepared and willing to pay for. But through good negotiation skills, I was able to save him that money. Of course, the easy thing to do would be to just give the buyer what they want and I wouldn't have to spend the time and effort on it.
So, for the person that comes along to read this post at some point thinking all real estate agents are worthless, not necessary, overpaid, or unethical.. not all real estate agents are like that. There are good ones out there that will make one of the most stressful times of your lives easier. All industries have bad seeds and that's too bad. Asking for a recommendation from a friend that had a good
experience would be a great place to start.
To the poster that said most people do this because of the lack of education requirements.. that's an eye opener. I am very well educated and have a Master's Degree. I chose real estate as a career because I realized after a couple transactions of my own dealing with incompetent agents that I really loved the process, the search and making the match and also loved that I'm my own boss. I don't understand where people get the idea that this is a business that is easy to get into. It's actually time consuming in this state to get licensed and it's pretty darn expensive maintaining a license/business.
And to the OP: it's never ok for someone to take advantage of another person and treat them poorly. I'm sorry that you were treated that way. If you feel you have been harmed, you can always file a complaint with the real estate commission in your state.
Did not mean to insult you regarding education, and I will qualify that my experience with RE agents is in the Tampabay/Sarasota Fla area. So maybe Fla RE agents are different than those in your state. The agents in this area are a lot alike. They are phony nice, which puts people off. The women are mostly blondes driving convertibles and the guys are like used car salesmen. We had a huge RE boom here and when that happened, every person who wanted a "career" in which they could make lots of money, and who did not have much in the way of educational backgrounds, became RE agents because it was like a gold rush. My experience working with them at the law firm was exactly as stated. There may have been a few who went the extra mile to help their clients, but most were really only interested in the commission check. There were also quite a few that were just plain sleazy hustler types who also crossed the line into flipping.
We thought about selling in 2006. Talked to a couple of agents--one brought us an apple pie and kissed up to us, and the other kept talking about church and religion. We ended up shelving the whole thing. As far as fsbo, I really do not now anyone who has had a difficult time with an fsbo. And truthfully, when the market is hot here, all you have to do is stick a sign in the front yard and it sells. After a contract is in place there are usually two, three, four back-up offers. There is no inventory. People are now getting above asking without trying. These are not the high end luxury home sales--they are just average homes and a lot of people have waited for years to get out of these houses, so the profit margins are not high, and 7% for the amount of work it takes to sell now is just ridiculous. In addition, several people in my neighborhood were told they were asking too much by realtors who tried to get them to lower the asking price, and they went on to get asking price or over. This does not encourage sellers to have a lot of confidence in the agents.
When I bought, I picked a realtor, told him what I was looking for and got myself pre-approved at the bank. After he gave me a list of houses, my husband and I drove around and checked them out and omitted some. Then we spent one day with the realtor--went to 3 houses and made an offer that day. He literally had to do a couple of hours work to earn half of the 7% commission, and I think he should have been up front with us regarding the fact that sellers usually pay for the title insurance and not have played like them offering to pay half was a huge deal. It would have been morally the right thing to do. Looking back, I think I could have gotten a better deal on my own, as some of the neighbors said they were surprised we payed that amount (way before the boom). As far as the seller's agent--I never even met him, as he did not come to the closing, and I had to call him 4 times to come pick up his "For Sale" sign, and even then he only came because I said I needed the room in the garage and was tossing the sign. Sorry for the generalizations, but it is hard not to do that after working with the yahoos I've worked with.
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