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Old 03-15-2012, 05:52 PM
 
2,635 posts, read 3,520,352 times
Reputation: 1687

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Quote:
Originally Posted by stealthology View Post
I was at a Chamber meeting a few months ago where I met a couple who did commercial real estate, and they recommended I buy a townhouse (instead of condo) ASAP instead of waiting towards the end of 2012. Is their advice sound?
Two questions to ask a real estate agent:

"Have you ever made a recommendation other than 'RIGHT NOW is a good time to buy _______!'?"

"Have you ever had a client who later went into foreclosure, and did you return your commission?"

Getting market advice from a Realtor is like asking a crack dealer if it would be OK to let his addicts go into rehab. I bet the agents you spoke to also knew the PERFECT townhouse for you. They don't care about you, your family, or your needs. They look at you and all they see their 3% commission. There is a special place in hell for agents who sold during the bubble.

Buy a house when you're ready, and buy the home that best fits your needs.
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Old 03-15-2012, 06:00 PM
 
Location: Richmond va
1,570 posts, read 4,631,776 times
Reputation: 676
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smoke_Jaguar4 View Post
They don't care about you, your family, or your needs. They look at you and all they see their 3% commission. There is a special place in hell for agents who sold during the bubble.

Buy a house when you're ready, and buy the home that best fits your needs.
Werent they just doing their job? They didnt hold a gun to anyones head and tell them to buy a house I dont think this is true of all realtors; some are quite good at their job and work for you to get you the best deal.
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Old 03-15-2012, 06:11 PM
 
314 posts, read 402,394 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Smoke_Jaguar4 View Post
Getting market advice from a Realtor is like asking a crack dealer if it would be OK to let his addicts go into rehab.
I don't know. My dealer did ask me to go to rehab.
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Old 03-15-2012, 06:33 PM
 
Location: D.C.
2,867 posts, read 3,591,627 times
Reputation: 4771
88-92 recession was caused by the commercial real estate guys, overbuilt and got sloppy. This past recession was created by the residential side, in much the same way. 93-95 saw mechanisms created in the CRE side to protect it from another crash. This current recession tested those mechanisms for the first time. They held well, which is why you're seeing a CRE bubble forming locally. Residential is simply going through their 93-95 phase, but on a much larger scale due to far more actual pieces of inventory in the equation.
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Old 03-15-2012, 06:36 PM
 
2,635 posts, read 3,520,352 times
Reputation: 1687
Quote:
Originally Posted by Teebyrd86 View Post
Werent they just doing their job? They didnt hold a gun to anyones head and tell them to buy a house I dont think this is true of all realtors; some are quite good at their job and work for you to get you the best deal.
My wife went through Realtor school in 2006 and signed on with a local brokerage. There was an enormous amount of pressure agents to CLOSE NOW AND CLOSE BIG. Realtors directly profited from the stampede mentality they fostered on their clients:
"You need to buy NOW because the market is rising!" (circular logic)
"You need to buy the biggest house you can afford!" (Setting people up to later fail)

After seeing that meat grinder, she got out before closing any sales. Perhaps I'm being too hard on them. After the bubble popped a lot of them were forced out; Many had bought into the lifestyle they were selling and spent on conspicuous consumption rather than saving their money. Too many have brought multiple properties that were over-leveraged.

The bottom line is that Realtors are ultimately salesmen. A salesman's job is to convince you to buy something. And like any other salesmen (ie, cars), you have to take their buying advice with a grain of salt.
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Old 03-15-2012, 09:02 PM
 
2,737 posts, read 5,472,585 times
Reputation: 2305
Smoke_Jaguar4, legally (though I am not a lawyer) I believe that in Virginia, if you sign a contract for buyer representation, the agent MUST look out for your interests (or else you have a potential lawsuit against him/her). If you haven't signed such a contract, any prospective buyer should be aware that any other agent represents the interests of the seller (and him/herself). I realize the OP didn't sign any agreement, but my point is that I believe that some of your statements are too broad, not only because some agents are better (and smarter) people than you are giving them credit for (as others have pointed out), but also that some are compelled by law to behave differently.
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Old 03-16-2012, 05:05 AM
 
12,906 posts, read 15,718,276 times
Reputation: 9401
My father was a realtor in the 80s and 90s. He did okay at it but, part of his problem was that he was too much of a nice guy.

Anyway, his job was NOT to tell people that something was not a great buy or maybe wasn't in their best interests. His job was to sell houses, period. It was the only way the he and his broker made ANY money. It was against anything he was ever taught to advice people to shy away from something or give anything but positive advice about what he was doing.

Back at that time, there were no "buyer's agent" agreements so I'm not sure how that works.
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