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I plan on putting in offers at amounts I am willing to pay, if that turns out to be low ball then so be it, the seller does not have to accept it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seller7
The truth is most lowballs don't work. Sellers have to get to the price themselves. Unless I am within a few percent of a sellers price, I won't bother offering. That's what agents should say when people want to put low offers in, show the data that shows they don't work (if that is true in your area)
I don't understand how anyone trusts an agent to find the right homes to show. That's what the internet is for.
Some sellers do need listing agents to sell their house because they will never price it right. Of course then they also have a scapegoat when they don't get the price they want. Scapegoats are priceless to make yourself feel better.
It was either you or the brandon that posted their discontent with realtors posting properties on the MLS for flat fees. You were going on about how your going to vote it down and its wrong and on and on. How is that not kicking and screaming?
It would be impossible to find at this point, if you are denying you said it then I suppose I have no issues. If I can post something on the MLS for a flat 500$ fee and hire a real estate attorny for the rest then I am a happy camper.
I am looking at who is going to cut the check. Most home prices get artificially inflated to account for the RE agent commissions. And it ain't small amounts either.
Exactly. If agents are getting X% on average, and if most transactions in an area go through agents, then the price level of real estate is inflated by about X%. And no matter who writes the check, we must follow the money, and when we do, we land at the pockets of the buyer.
By the way, many have wondered why we haven't gone the way of travel agents what with the age of the Internet. The main reason is quite simple: Homes are sold between people and people are emotional and irrational, if not downright crazy, when it comes to the purchase and sale of this asset. No computer or app has ever been invented to grease this squeaky bearing. And none will, at least not in any of our life spans. We provide the sanity and the buffer that allows the transaction to take place. Most would blow up if it weren't for the indirection we provide.
Is it worth 5-7%? Apparently it is, as we continue to be voluntarily and freely involved in almost all the real estate market transactions that take place.
We could be dumped, but we aren't dumped, and we won't be dumped. Because it's big money, it's complex, and above all, it's psychological and hyper-emotional.
Commission payments?
In their infinite wisdom, CFPB has ruled that sellers pay commissions and buyers' agents' commissions are none of the buyers' business.
It would be impossible to find at this point, if you are denying you said it then I suppose I have no issues. If I can post something on the MLS for a flat 500$ fee and hire a real estate attorny for the rest then I am a happy camper.
I used to believe Entry Only listings served to drag buyers' agents into undisclosed dual agency. They can, but it is up to the agent to work through the transaction.
Actually, next year, I expect to offer Entry Only listings. I pitched my first one a couple of days ago. It will be another FSBO @20%--25% overpriced.
T
I don't understand how anyone trusts an agent to find the right homes to show. That's what the internet is for.
/QUOTE]
Who knew?
All along, I've been thinking that agents help uncover and show buyers the houses that will work, help guide them through the negotiation and contract, then make sure the closing details are all in place.
A buyer starting out their home search can do all of this themselves online....Research demographics of different neighborhoods, school reports, housing prices, virtual tours, comps of sold houses, property taxes, commuting time, local news sites. Combine that with driving around neighborhoods, looking at the outside of prospective homes, heck even park your car and take a short walk around the neighborhood. Combine this with open houses, they are in a good starting place before even contacting a buyers agent.
If buyers would do this themselves without going on a tours with agents walking into random houses seeing how they make them "feel" and complaining about paint colors, they would save themselves, the agents and the sellers who they bother on their leisurely tours a heck of a lot of time and energy.
I plan on putting in offers at amounts I am willing to pay, if that turns out to be low ball then so be it, the seller does not have to accept it.
I don't disagree, go for it.
I look at the last ten or twenty comps in a town and see what their list price was, and what it sold for. In my area, it's 2-3% difference. That's what a buyer can expect to get from a seller. That's not from their original list price, that can be whatever percentage. But the seller has to get there themselves, that's what the data shows me.
So from now on, for us, no more "lowballs" (I hesitate to call them lowballs but that is how they are perceived).
If sellers can't honestly take the advice of their agent or spend an hour on Zillow seeing what their homes are really worth, I am not going to be the one to convince them.
It seems so simple that there could be another way for buyers and sellers to touch base with each without using agents anymore, especially with the internet.
But the MLS is hanging on.
This is the logic IMO
Buyers have nothing to lose by having a buyers agent.
If you are trying to sell, you need to be on the MLS.
You need to at least pay a buyers agent and possibly a listing agent as well, unless you use a flat-fee MLS service.
Anyway, I think it all starts with the fact that buyers don't have anything to lose by having a buyers agent.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the industry over the next ten or twenty years.
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In 2010 we tried to help a family friend to find a Buyer's Agent. We thought we had found one, but they really were not. The person misled all of us as to their true role as a . . . you guessed it, plain old real estate agent, with all of the attendant attributes (as listed in the posts above).
Far as I can tell, they don't exist any more. A lot of real-tors apply the term Buyer's Agent to themselves, when they are not Buyer's Agents at all.
Somewhere in the past, Buyer's Agents went extinct. I think that they were all 'killed off' by the conniving and tricksy RE 'agents.'
Someone above mentioned RE Agents and used car salespeople as the lowest of the low. To me, from my experiences, used car salespeople are paragons of virtue when compared to experiences with RE agents in the past five years.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
In 2010 we tried to help a family friend to find a Buyer's Agent. We thought we had found one, but they really were not. The person misled all of us as to their true role as a . . . you guessed it, plain old real estate agent, with all of the attendant attributes (as listed in the posts above).
Far as I can tell, they don't exist any more. A lot of real-tors apply the term Buyer's Agent to themselves, when they are not Buyer's Agents at all.
Somewhere in the past, Buyer's Agents went extinct. I think that they were all 'killed off' by the conniving and tricksy RE 'agents.'
Someone above mentioned RE Agents and used car salespeople as the lowest of the low. To me, from my experiences, used car salespeople are paragons of virtue when compared to experiences with RE agents in the past five years.
You are historically incorrect. The RE agents all started as agents of the seller and sub agents of the seller's agent. The buyers agent is a relatively new concept. There was an attempt to create a separate niche - even including brokerages doing only buyers but it has waned in popularity in recent years. I expect there are still some around.
It is not a particularly natural thing. The skill is much the same on the listing and buying side. We do more buyers than sellers...maybe 2 to 1. So I guess we are simply good old real estate agents. We never dual agent except perhaps in a family situation. We don't like the obvious conflict of interest.
In fact in the western part of the country RE Agent do practice law. The industry claims not but it is simply because a part of the RE law practice has been declared not practicing law. Our RE lawyers are in fact specialists with relatively high prices. You can get a contract reviewed by a lawyer but it will cost over $100 an hour. In much of the west an experienced agent is probably a much better bet than a regular lawyer to review a contract. The neighborhood counsel just does not get enough exposure.
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