another realtor rant...

Yep I’ve sold 5 and bought six over my lifetime and I vividly remember when I had some concern over buying one of them about something and inspection etc, the realtor, sister-in-law basically told me no worries, we can get your earnest money back no problem if you change your mind.

 

Im not understanding how the contract was worded?? Nothing prevents you from taking multiple contingency offers... gives you as the seller leverage.
Also I wouldnt be signing or agreeing to any offer that didnt have a definitive proof of funds.
And yeah the losers that put money down are going to lose the funds & any court costs if they back out. Tis why its called "real" estate...

 

One of the offers I got was for a VA loan and asked for $3000 from us for closing and $550 for a home warranty, but was the higher offer even after those concessions. I was put off by the possible 8+week wait for closing- if a deal falls thru for whatever reason I want it to happen fast so I can move on. No way am I spending a dime on a lawyer to maybe get a couple grand back. The other offer was at asking, but conventional loan and they had 50% down. Thought about countering on them to get closer to the other offer, but in the end decided to at least give a few more bidders a couple days to get in. I'm possibly over thinking, but this is the first and hopefully last time I'm selling a house so I want to get what I can.

 

Thats the quality of service you get from Zillow.

 

These people were well vetted as to their ability to finance the properties, they just got cold feet. And I'm not quite understanding the part where you mention multiple contingency offers. These were the signed contract documents from the individual that gave us the best offer. We looked at multiple offers and chose the best one. But deep inside every real estate offer is an out-clause for the buyer, I simply didn't know that as a non-realtor. As I said, sure you can fight it but in the long run you'll loose.

 

This is hilarious.

Yeah I guess in this market showing homes and writing offers on homes that have 25 other offers and negotiating like crazy to get your offer accepted over 24 other well qualified offers seems like no work on our part. Then when you loose to someone paying cash to your 3.5 % down on your FHA loan you have to start the process all over again. Yeah its real easy. lol

 

ftfy

 

If it were so difficult and time consuming, why not charge an hourly rate? No realtor will agree to one because their effective rate on a sale can exceed $1k/hr. Complaining about that is, well,... rich. I'm not going to subsidize the unpaid work realtors choose to do for others with my equity.

 

I'm hiring. Are you scared of dogs?

 

We would gladly agree to the hourly rate. Then you would complain even more.

 

I am semi retired so I spend enough time with my own dogs.

 

No doubt some of you guys are total pros and earning your $$, but you have a LOT of bad/lazy apples dragging your rep down.

 

Does Zillow not just pull in whatever garbage is in the MLS?

 

A lot of "realtors" out there do it as a side hustle. And are mostly incompetent. They do one, or two sales a year. Barely enough to keep license current.

Then you have a few "professional, full-time, realtors" who actually know their shit and rely on their income as the only means to support themselves. Big difference in buying/selling experience.

 

To me Zillow is in the same category as Bring A Trailer. It gives people unrealistic expectations of what their crap is actually worth. Sadly I fell into the Zillow (and California) trap when I first started to get rid of my houses last June. I had huge numbers in my head as to what I'd get for all these properties. And then I got people that cherry-picked one low Zillow number in the entire neighborhood and think that's what they'd get my house for. Of course I was looking at the one high number thinking my house was worth that. Bottom line, fuck Zillow and BAT

 

I have multiple 1st time home buyers that have been looking for months with no luck. The way the market is here in NJ, I don't think any of the sellers here are even considering a buyer who is not putting at least 20% down, waiving inspections, appraisals and offering well over asking price.

 

Two sides to the equation. The current market supports the seller while the actual listing agents basically do very little if anything to effect the sale or increase the value of such sale.
Where as putting together an offer to purchase for first time buyers or newer buyers can be a challenge more as a result of the newer buyers limited financials, I would argue.

In both instances I see little to no direct value added for seller or buyers. Otherwise you would be closing the deals vs. simply writing and submitting offers. If you can’t close the deals, what value do you add?

And for the buyers who have solid financials and adequate cash etc. What value do you add with these buyers? Are you able to obtain a lower price for them by negotiating or do you simply just draw up the offer and transactionnels per usual etc.

 

Yeah, the whole "Zestimate" is pulled out of their ass, in my case they were WAY low (like 40% low), but the basic listing (details, pics and description) is clearly pulled directly from MLS. Looks exactly the same on Zillow, Realtor.com, Coldwell Banker etc. So I am sticking with my original "realtor sucks" theory...

 

My neighbor sold his condo $420,000 last month. His realtor worked about 5 days to do the listing and receive the offers (they got 3). So, no matter how you put it, making $21,000 for five days work with a high school education and a few months to get your license is a ridiculous amount of money, even if she worked 12 hours a day, which she didn't. Put it anyway you like, that's over $350 an hour...

 

First of all, that commission gets split between the seller’s agent and the buyers agent, so cut that in half off of the top, and then the brokerage get’s anywhere from 10-50% normally. Then how about all of the time to build a business, relationships, pay brokerage fees, wear and tear on vehicles, licensing fees, MLS fees, continuing education fees, time spent researching properties, and gaining expertise, so that you can answer questions on the spot, etc... That’s not even considering all of the time spent with others who won’t buy anything. You can say that you want to pay hourly, but I guarantee you that 99% of people would disagree when it came time to start looking to buy or sell a house.

I’m a realtor, and I hustle my ass off… I’ve had a bunch of different careers, and while this isn’t a bad gig at all, easy is definitely not the word I would use. There are a lot of realtors out there who have no clue what they’re doing, however. It’s fairly easy to get a license, and any brokerage will take you on, since it’s 100% commission. But that doesn’t change the fact that a good realtor is more than worth the 2-3% commission they get.