Buying a house, here's how to beat reatlors at their game.

[sstearns2]

HUH? Show me one year in the past 40 years when housing has decreased by 20%... It doesn't exist, and there have been a lot tougher times than what we're going through right now. i.e. current times aren't tough.

2007.

 

[WhiteCloud]

Having bought and sold dozens of homes over 30 years I can tell you that you have to know what you're doing with home sales or you can lose a lot in actual money or in unrealized profits. There's nothing wrong with becoming a realtor (real estate salesperson) to be involved in your own transactions and get a percentage of the commission. The thing is that, as a real estate professional, you are held to a higher level of responsibility in the sale than a typical homeowner. In short.....you have to know what you're doing. Without some experience you can make mistakes and be liable for all sorts of stuff that a typical homeowner is not responsible for. Good move to go with an experienced agent to lead the sale and assist for 1.5%. Put the relationships all above the table and you'll have no ethical problems.

 

[shroomwell]

Do a internet search, there are several services out there that will let you list on the MLS for a flat fee. This is the best way to go. Real Estate agents wil call you and ask for a percent of the sale if they bring in a buyer, so you can negotiate with them.

 

[atlcrashpad]

Smoking crack?

Pull out a calculator and type in this:

$220,000 X .06

As I said, Realtors make $13,200 on the sale of a $220,000 home.
Makes no difference to me who splits it up.

First, it is split between the listing and buying agent's companies. Then each half is split between the agent and their Broker in Charge (BIC). Agents must pay their own taxes and medical insurance (Not cheap). Agents/Brokers pay all of the adverts and MLS charges (again Not cheap). Sales don't come everyday and most agents burn out after a short period. Most agents work late hours and almost all weekends. It is a cut throat biz.

 

[pilot00]

In a sellers market, do for sale buy owner, you will sell in less than a month and you will save money on commisions. However right now is a buyers market. There are tons of inventory homes and few buyers. YOU HAVE TO LIST ON MLS TO SELL ON A BUYERS MARKET. Get a good realtor to list you. Do not go with a flat fee scam. I would not negotiate commision either. in there is a lot of inventory homes for sale and few buyers how are you going to get them in to look at your house. MLS is not enough and the buyer can be very picky about wich house he/she wants now. This is how realtors do it. Joe blow walks in and wants a house, tells the realtor what he wants. The realtor looks for houses in his price range AND SORTS them out buy buyers comp.. Not all houses are listed for 6%, 5%, or 4%. If you sign up for a deal with less commision you will get no showings. The realtor will look for a buyers comp of more than 3% for his company and show you those houses(6%+). I have seen buyers comp as high as 7% ( seller paying a total commision of 10%). The realtor wants as much $ as he can get and he will sort houses by how much he will make off of the deal (buyers comp), then show you those houses. If you want to list a house for 5% or less (2.5 seller, 2.5% buyer) go ahead, but you will not have very many showings and the house will stay on the market longer. It's all about the money for the agent. If you are looking for a house to buy, drive around and look for "for sale buy owner" or assist 2 sell deals. They are not listed on commision and there for you will probably get a decent deal. Make sure you have all of your finances in order and the deal should go through O.K. Real estate is a scam. Commisions 10, 15, 30 years ago were at 6%. Houses have increased in value greatly over the standerd inflation rate over the years so the agents are geting more money to do the same amount of work.

 

[pilot00]

Realtor's do make good money in a seller's market as long as he/she is putting long hours and some sort of effort. The average agent makes $30,000 per year but a lot are makeing $125,000+. In a buyers market sales slow up, good agents make less, and the weak ones eventually quit and change jobs.

 

[atlcrashpad]

Pilot00,

Very well put. I've seen a lot of 7% and that is Neg. Usually the 10% is lots only, not houses. I'm no expert, so do your homework before you buy or list. Good Luck....

 

[Victor Meldrew]

Realtor's do make good money in a seller's market as long as he/she is putting long hours and some sort of effort. The average agent makes $30,000 per year but a lot are makeing $125,000+. In a buyers market sales slow up, good agents make less, and the weak ones eventually quit and change jobs.

These must be very poor average agents. 2 very good friends are realtor's and consistantly make over mid 100k per year. I did my license a couple of years ago and sell part time and I make more than 30k a year extra on top of my airline pay. Just don't know if I could be a realtor full time though!

 

[JetPilot_Mike]

What is a good place to search for forclosures/repos? Most sites I have found on the internet charge a fee.

Is there a generic site that lists MLS, or should I just go through a real estate companys website (ReMax).

Thanks.

 

[atlcrashpad]

VA, FHA, and HUD repo's....
Try seaching them.

 

[sstearns2]

Thought you guys might find this interesting. It's a NY Times article from 1984. Keep in mind that the peak is much higher this time than it was in the early 80s or early 90s with all the banks offering zero down interest only loans and option ARMs this time around. We are just getting the end of paragraph four right now. Inventories are near or beyond record levels and growing fast here in southern California and many other places.


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E3D71538F93BA35751C1A962948260

THE DAY LOS ANGELES'S BUBBLE BURST
By BENJAMIN STEIN ; BENJAMIN STEIN'S LATEST BOOK IS ''FINANCIAL PASSAGES.''
Published: December 8, 1984

My pal Jerry P. just bought a condominium in Century City, in Beverly Hills, for 60 percent of what it sold for in 1980. Down the street from me here in the Hollywood hills, four houses have been on the market since 1981. The asking prices now are about one-third less than they were three years ago. Up and down Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, apartment houses that were converted to condos lie empty, boarded up, not one unit sold, in bankruptcy, with banks holding title.

The Southern California residential real estate boom began in about 1974. It was not just a boom. It was a superboom, with miserable bungalows in Santa Monica running up from $40,000 in 1974 to $400,000 by 1980. Two-story colonials in Beverly Hills went from $200,000 to $800,000 and then over a million. One-bedroom condos in Hollywood were built and sold for $100,000 - what a house in Beverly Hills had been five years before. Every day, home buyers would look at the prices and say, ''It can't go on.'' But every day, for five years, it did go on. Middle-class families were priced out of the market, and the brokers said, ''But the rich will always be able to buy.'' Ordinary rich people were squeezed out of the market in some areas, but the brokers said, ''Never mind, the music business people will buy anything.'' The music business fell into a depression in 1979, and the brokers said, ''The foreigners are buying. Compared with Paris or Teheran, real estate in Holmby Hills is a bargain.''

Everyone wanted to get in to the game, get the down payment on a house, somehow struggle with the payments for a year, then sell out and get rich quick. Inflation pushed housing prices into the stratosphere. But even when inflation stopped, brokers said, ''The prices have nothing to do with inflation. Everyone on earth wants to live in L.A. The price will go up forever here, no matter what else happens in the rest of the country.''

Then the music stopped, some afternoon in 1980. As if a spell had fallen over the city, suddenly things began to stay on the market for three months, six months, a year, two years. Buyers disappeared. Asking prices stayed high, but nothing sold.

The great Southern California real estate boom was over. Prices had gotten so high that they could no longer be justified by inflationary expectations, or the influx of foreigners, or the climate, or for any other reason.

Now, four years later, those brokers who are still in the game tell sellers to expect that their houses will be on the market for two years. Other brokers have sold their BMW's and are now working as ''financial planners'' or public-relations people, dreaming of the days when they worked for 6 percent of infinity.