What questions can R.E. Agents legally answer? (investment, condo, property)

[Greatday]

"Let the customer set the limits".

If the customer says they want to live in XYZ Parish, then, it is certainly permissable to find out the Parish boundaries and look for properties in that area.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by Greatday

"Let the customer set the limits".

If the customer says they want to live in XYZ Parish, then, it is certainly permissable to find out the Parish boundaries and look for properties in that area.

And not near ZYX synagogue?

[middle-aged mom]

Originally Posted by olecapt

And not near ZYX synagogue?

Absolutely. So long as it is client specified and not the agent deciding and steering the client towards/away from......

Buyers are allowed to seek/avoid homes anywhere they please.

Compliance with the FHA is not difficult when you empower the buyer to set the limits.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by middle-aged mom

Absolutely. So long as it is client specified and not the agent deciding and steering the client towards/away from......

Buyers are allowed to seek/avoid homes anywhere they please.

Compliance with the FHA is not difficult when you empower the buyer to set the limits.

Don't show me any neighborhood more than 10% hispanic or black..

[Greatday]

Originally Posted by olecapt

Don't show me any neighborhood more than 10% hispanic or black..

You may run afoul of the law

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by Greatday

You may run afoul of the law

Then one cannot follow the direction of the buyer can one?

This is, as GD knows, the exact subject of the the famed letter. And it remain unresolved.

Any case law on the subject GD?

[garth]

With all of these limitations placed on how a real estate agent can assist a client, where is the value to using an agent? It seems to me that the service has been eroded over the years yet the cost relationship has remained the same.

A client may not know the area, or often knows very little, and depends on the advice from a "professional." The client has their own career focus and is rarely involved in a real estate transaction, at least nowhere near as often as a Realtor. They're not walking the streets each and every day of their career with an eye to real estate and neighborhood issues.

On the other hand, a real estate agent is supposed to have knowledge of the areas they serve. They're walking the streets each and every day of their career and see how neighborhoods change over time. It's part of their job. Yet, that "professional" is restricted from providing valuable advice to the client, based on their knowledge, observations, and experience.

It seems that the stock answer expressed in this thread is to make the client do their own research when they have a question and then provide the answer to the "professional." They are told to go look up the demographics for themselves. They are told to seek out the crime stats for themselves. They are told that the agent cannot comply with their directions to not see communities near whatever quality the client finds an unsatisfactory quality for their family and investment. These are all issues that are freely gathered and published by the government, provided by various agencies without restriction, and which affect the desirability and value of a property to that client.

Yet, the client remains unfamiliar with a community. It's a difficult if not nearly impossible job to try to work through all of the info, find the sources, and come to an educated conclusion when the client doesn't know a single thing about the area. This is especially true when it's a major metorpolitan area where the client has a choice of buying anywhere in a 30 mile radius. The job can be daunting for someone who is not a "professional" in the industry and remains tied to the repsonsibilities of their own professional life.

It seems to me that the value to using a real estate agent has been severly eroded since the agents are restricted so severly. It's almost like it's come to a self service industry with a full service price. Basicly, all that remains is an agent's skill in determining value and in negotiations, which may or may not have value depending on their experience, ethical standards, and motivation. Until that point, the discussion seems to indicate that all other value had been erased and that the agent has become just a "gateway with a key" to the MLS.

For me, it all comes down to life choices that anyone is allowed to make. No matter how distasteful an agent might find someone's request, it should come down to two choices for the agent. Those choices are to not work with the client or comply with their directions. Anything else is doing a disservice.

However, I also realize that these two choices are seriously affected by various regulations that have developed over the years. That's what brings me back to the value of using a real estate agent. In my mind the value has been eroded since they feel that they're restricted from complying with a client's legal and legitmate directions, and yet the clients are still paying premium prices for a restricted or lesser level of service.

If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will tell me where I'm wrong. However, I can't imagine how the value can be defended since agents are restricted from helping their clients to the extent described.

[Greatday]

Originally Posted by olecapt

Then one cannot follow the direction of the buyer can one?

Sure they can - to a point

If a buyer tells you to do something that would violate law, a) you are under no legal obligation to follow that instruction, b) if you do, you are liable for the legal consequences

[Greatday]

Originally Posted by garth

With all of these limitations placed on how a real estate agent can assist a client, where is the value to using an agent? It seems to me that the service has been eroded over the years yet the cost relationship has remained the same.

A client may not know the area, or often knows very little, and depends on the advice from a "professional." The client has their own career focus and is rarely involved in a real estate transaction, at least nowhere near as often as a Realtor. They're not walking the streets each and every day of their career with an eye to real estate and neighborhood issues.

Let me give you what is perhaps the most infamous of instructions given to an agent - and, it is something that still happens today:

Seller to agent - Don't go showing this house to any Blacks - we don't want their kind in this neighborhood.

What would you, if you were an agent, do in this situation? Would you follow those instructions?

[garth]

Originally Posted by Greatday

Seller to agent - Don't go showing this house to any Blacks - we don't want their kind in this neighborhood.

What would you, if you were an agent, do in this situation? Would you follow those instructions?

Of course that's inappropriate. It's no different than putting a shirt out for sale. The seller is placing his home on the market, just like a shirt is hung on the store rack, and it's available to everyone with the ability to buy it.

However, I wasn't writing about a seller in my post. Maybe I didn't make it clear, but I wrote about a buyer and their need for help from the "professional" they hire and the requirements that the "professional" follow the buyer's direction. There's a difference.

Here's the bottom line for a buyer. Although a request may be distasteful depending on an agent's leanings, I still see legitmate reasons for someone saying, "Don't show me _________ neighborhoods. Just fill in the blank with whatever group or quality you wish.

I can also include other requests such as, "Don't show me neighborhoods near the Indian reservation," Don't show me neighborhoods in sight of the new Buddhist Temple," and/or "Don't show me anything near the State Prison." Although questionable in one way or another, people can have reasons for making these directions. Avoidance of issues like poverty and crime, the sight of architecture elements they find ugly, or problems associated with relatives of felons entering their community on the way to visit their incarcerated family are legitmate reasons for giving certain directions to a real estate agent that the agent might find themselves unable to follow.

As a benign example, someone may not want to live in a neighborhood with strong Norwegian connections. They may not want to deal with the inconvenience of a May 17th Norwegian Independance Day. They may not like the look of the viking statue in the town square, they may find Scandavian architecture and their vibrant colors not to their liking since they prefer a CC&R community where everything has to be some shade of tan, and they may feel isolated because of a lack of activites related to their cultural heritage. These are all reasons to direct an agent to avoid a particular suburb or nearby town by saying, "Don't show me a house in a Scandanavian community.

There is no law whatsoever that dictates someone has to spend their money with a blind eye towards such factors. Buyers are allowed to discriminate because the health and welfare of their family and investments trumps the interests of anything and anyone else, including sellers. Just like people have a right to live where they want, they have the same right to not live where they want. An agent has the obligation to service those decisions, otherwise they are providing a substandard or lower level of service.

For example, I live in a town where the town blows a siren each night at 6:00. It's on top of the Fire Department building. Why do they do that? It's history. A hundred years ago, the siren was sounded 1 hour before sunset as notification to the local Indians. They had to be out of town before the sun set and had an hour to head out.

Is such a thing something that someone of Indian heritage might need to know about? Do you think they might want to request to not live somewhere in earshot of the daily siren or to not see houses in the community that exercises such a historical event on a daily basis, even if it no longer has the same meaning? Of course they do. I don't see anything wrong with their direction and that the real estate agent follow the direction.

A buyer new to the area or who doesn't live their life day in and day out in the real estate section of the local newspaper, needs the help of the industry "professional" to fulfill their requirements. An industry "professional" will know about things like the siren and the historical connection, the cultural leanings in local town, the high poverty/high crime area, the areas affected by the prison traffic, and other such things. To fail to follow the client's directions to avoid such areas does them a disservice.

That's why I don't see compliance with such requests as inappropriate, even if some requests may be individually distasteful to some. If the agents remain unable to comply with such directions from their client, through their own personal beliefs or because of current regulatory requirements, they are providing a restricted level of service. Yet, their rate of pay fails to reflect the fact that they are withholding service, for whatever reason the service level was withheld.