patrick.net

PumpingRedheads says

Housing: at some point ppl who need to sell houses will have to sell them. .or lose them.

https://patrick.net/post/1344883/2022-04-30-housing-prices-peak-2?start=3679#comment-2001017

See above link. Housing already well below 20% of peak prices set in early 2022.

And rents are holding steady at 2022 rates ($2100 to $2200) for the same type of luxurious townhome within 2 miles of the best beach in the world.

The above link is like feeding red meat to a lion for the Logan M's at HousingWire and Wolfman's at WolfStreet.

Higher rates are finally having an affect, and notice the S&P 500 has barely gained about 5% (in inflation adjusted terms) since February 2020 ?

/

The Economist for Realtors.

Talking about you, Yun.

Is lying common practice in negotiations?

https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/17oa29o/is_lying_common_practice_in_negotiations/

I received an offer on my home after the first round of open houses that was over asking with a waived inspection & solid financing. It was the only offer I received.

My agent wanted to lie to the folks who made an offer and tell them we received multiple offers and to please submit best and final. I rejected that strategy & my agent insisted that it was common practice at his realty group.

I feel comfortable in my decision to not go through with that plan but was wondering if that strategy really is common place. It feels slimy to me.

Best response:
I was trying to buy a few years ago and had 2 different selling agents do this to me. I knew they were full of shit and didnt have other offers. Told my agent to tell them, congrats and the other ppl will love the house. Both agents begged my agent for another offer about a week later. Too late, I was pissed. Both homes sold for less than my original offer.

Delusional realtor:
https://www.reddit.com/r/realtors/comments/17vwn3q/paid_posters_on_reddit_against_realtors/

Paid Posters On Reddit Against Realtors

So I’ve been on Reddit about 90 days and I was initially baffled on how much negativity there was towards realtors and the work they put in. Then I started noticing a trend. Similar posts from different ID’s being posted all over. Deletes on comments that failed to sway opinion. People posting 1/2 stories that will sway public opinion against agents. My take..

There is an all out attack on realtors right now and it’s similar to the vaccine push that was happening during that chaos. Most of those people were paid by govt to post on social media, as we later found out in some good journalism articles. Seems they have moved their attention to NAR and Realtors these days and the NAR and Realtors aren’t ready for it. Someone is going after long standing industries and it seems govt or some heavy $$ is behind it. Thoughts??

I know a real estate agent well. Her quote: "I don't do anything, I turn on the lights and turn them off".
Another quote from a real estate agent: "I didn't invent the system, so don't blame me for it. It is what it is"

As I understand it, a seller/buyer has 3 options...1. Sell/buy without a Realtor 2. Sell/buy with a Realtor or 3. Sell/buy with a real estate agent. A Realtor is a real estate agent but a real estate agent IS NOT ALWAYS a Realtor.

There needs to be more competition between those 3 options.

gabbar says

I would go to the girl in the middle if I wanted to get any work done.

The other two look like they could do the job.

zzyzzx says

one needs interest rates higher than the actual inflation rate for it to work

Fiat money eventually fails.

Like I have said before, this system can't possibly last more than a couple hundred more years.

https://www.realestatenews.com/2023/12/11/nar-membership-falls-by-nearly-6-000-in-november

NAR membership falls by nearly 6,000 in November

The nation's largest trade organization is headed for its first yearly drop in over a decade.

zzyzzx says

https://www.realestatenews.com/2023/12/11/nar-membership-falls-by-nearly-6-000-in-november

NAR membership falls by nearly 6,000 in November

The nation's largest trade organization is headed for its first yearly drop in over a decade.

No shit. They fleece their members. Sell their info to the highest bidder. When i was in the industry the average broker made about $28k maybe up to $35k. Not median. So that means the top producers brought the average up big time for the house wife's and mimbos by a lot. That also doesn't account for fees and expenses IF they got a listing.

It's 1-2 deals a year for most. I paid $2k/yr to be a "member" of that shit. Mine fortunately was paid for since I didn't do sales, but needed my license and the boss paid it to make his life easier having a licensed broker run the show.

The numbers will keep dropping too. There are no houses for sale and way too many brokers still thinking they'll be rich. Areas in decline (cities) you won't be able to sell the listing. A lot of brokers will be quitting. You're better off managing a McDonalds for 80% of the brokers out there.

One of my broker clients (I'm not sure why some people call Realtors brokers) is going to kick off the new year with a new business model (he said it is new. I'm not convinced it is though). He will be offering service fees instead of a listing fee. There will be 3 different tiers. I think he said $2,500, $6,000 and $10,000 to be paid upfront. Each tier comes with better/more service(s). He will get paid whether the listing sells or not. I assume this is in response to the market he is witnessing. What, exactly, it means, I do not know.

https://babylonbee.com/news/its-a-great-time-to-buy-a-house-says-realtor-who-gets-paid-if-you-buy-a-house

'It's A Great Time To Buy A House,' Says Realtor Who Gets Paid If You Buy A House

GNL says

There will be 3 different tiers. I think he said $2,500, $6,000 and $10,000 to be paid upfront

It was something like $450 just to get it on the MLS for me, and that was all I needed.

GNL says

He will be offering service fees instead of a listing fee. There will be 3 different tiers. I think he said $2,500, $6,000 and $10,000 to be paid upfront. Each tier comes with better/more service(s). He will get paid whether the listing sells or not. I assume this is in response to the market he is witnessing. What, exactly, it means, I do not know.

When that hits the Internet, post the info here for our criticism.

Booger says

It was something like $450 just to get it on the MLS for me, and that was all I needed.

I have a family member who is a broker and that's about standard. I don't pay that but I do pay whatever real estate agent rents my place out 450-500. By that I mean they just show it and convince their client that it's for them.

Booger says

When that hits the Internet, post the info here for our criticism.

Reminds me of fizzbo farms in the 80s. "For sale by owner" - with assistance. As far as I know it never took off.

just_passing_through says

Booger says

When that hits the Internet, post the info here for our criticism.

Reminds me of fizzbo farms in the 80s. "For sale by owner" - with assistance. As far as I know it never took off.

Yeah, I don't think he's offering anything new.

just_passing_through says

Reminds me of fizzbo farms in the 80s. "For sale by owner" - with assistance. As far as I know it never took off.

Correct, the FSBO farms failed. Realtors will not show FSBO and the vast majority of serous buyers will call a Realtor.

HeadSet says

Realtors will not show FSBO and the vast majority of serous buyers will call a Realtor.

This is the real problem. Why the fuck would any buyer want to pay 3% extra to be driven around and shown houses is puzzling to me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/realtors/comments/18j6lm8/the_majority_of_yall_are_not_great/

The majority of y’all are not great

As a realtor myself for a couple years now, with parents who have been in the biz my entire life too, I’ve noticed how unethical realtors are. I really try to be the most honest realtor I can be to my clients and to other agents. I literally tell my clients now that I think it is a horrible time to buy (generally speaking-if they don’t have to), and let them make that decision themself. Here’s what I’ve noticed in lots of realtors:

They will push boundaries.

They will try to go after another’s agents client.

They will hide important details just to get a deal done.

They will treat other agents like shit and be the fakest nicest person to their clients.

They will actively go after a buyer's deposit when possible.

They lie about the current state of the market in order to get a deal done.

They will make decisions on behalf of their clients without even asking them.

They will bribe other agents to get their clients offer accepted.

They will display favoritism to other agents in a multiple offer situation.

A lot of y’all really just DO NOT KNoW HoW TO DO YoUR JOB, and will put your clients negligently at risk.

Money hungry mfs

Here is a particularly good comment:
We had a realtor tell my husband to fuck off over the phone after he said he didn't want to see a property that was an hour drive from his work. It pissed me off so bad I left a bad review and the guys boss apologized to us. It still pissed me off so bad we stopped house hunting and have just resigned ourselves to keep living in our current home.

zzyzzx says

Why the fuck would any buyer want to pay 3% extra to be driven around and shown houses is puzzling to me.

That is not how it works. The seller who listed has already obligated a 6% commission on the sale of the house. There is no 3% discount if a buyer shows up without an agent. If you are saying a buyer should only look at FSBO, understand the FSBO seller typically does not discount, he just wants to save from paying a commission. Otherwise, why not just offer "3% to the selling agent" to save work and draw more buyers?

HeadSet says

zzyzzx says

Why the fuck would any buyer want to pay 3% extra to be driven around and shown houses is puzzling to me.

That is not how it works. The seller who listed has already obligated a 6% commission on the sale of the house. There is no 3% discount if a buyer shows up without an agent. If you are saying a buyer should only look at FSBO, understand the FSBO seller typically does not discount, he just wants to save from paying a commission. Otherwise, why not just offer "3% to the selling agent" to save work and draw more buyers?

You get it. Also, regardless of how dumb realtors are, and they are, they're smarter with housing compared to the average buyer.

I also know multiple people that have a law license and failed the RE license exam multiple times. Not sure what it means, but I know what I know. One of them being my sister... You have to have some intelligence to get a license although I wouldn't doubt some women suck the proctors cock to pass the license test. Just saying.

It's a weird industry to be honest. I got out of it because I couldn't stand the people and the lying. Too many hands in the pot looking to make money as well. I don't say this lightly but I would have killed myself if I stayed in the business. My life is much better now. I don't care if people shit on Realtors, just understand it's generally a shit existence with no consistent income.

The comments here are priceless:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/writing-wall-100b-annual-real-130000835.html

Because realtors are horrible people:
https://youtu.be/F90RjeWcuck?si=hjO02xrOVT3PhUQv

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/08/national-association-of-realtors-president-says-she-is-resigning-after-blackmail-threat.html

National Association of Realtors president says she is resigning after blackmail threat

https://www.realestatenews.com/2024/02/05/nar-ends-january-with-1-515-million-members-a-loss-of-38k

NAR loses 38,700 members in January

zzyzzx says

https://www.realestatenews.com/2024/02/05/nar-ends-january-with-1-515-million-members-a-loss-of-38k

NAR loses 38,700 members in January

This is to be expected.
Sales down = less realtors.
Less realtors = less fees paying to the NAR.

zzyzzx says

Not sure where this is practice. It’s illegal and a breach of fiduciary.

I haven’t encountered this situation in my dealings in the last 15 years. Also, I’ve encountered both crooked and “honest” agents. Some of them would sell their mother for a commission. However, I get to decide who I want to continue to do business with.

Eman says

Some of them would sell their mother for a commission.

I know this nail technician who is taking exams to become a real estate agent. Single mom with two kids and two fathers. Seems like anyone can become a real estate agent and handle the biggest purchase. Unfortunately, the laws are also written to facilitate prostitution of mothers and daughters for a commission.

Recently put in an offer for a nice house at 3% below list. The condescending response from the realtor was typical. This is not the down market of several months ago. Pointed to a pending offer on another home that had since fallen through. Even pointed to a larger home with a higher list price that was on the market and had not received an offer, but that had a much lower price/sq.ft. WTF!?

Anyway, after we did a thorough walkthrough ourselves, and after working with our realtor to put in a bid, then came the, oh, BTW disclosures. Jumping Jiminy! We quickly bailed. What a fuckiing waste of time. The owners had been alleged to have committed fraud, neglecting to disclose to a previous buyer significant problems with the home. The industrious propsective buyer learned about these through earlier ill-advised social media posts by the seller, which blasted the builder. The prospective buyer correctly accused the realtor and his clients of fraud in an ongoing chain of e-mails that were supplied to us after we put in our bid. Regarding one of the problems not disclosed by the sellers, the realtor took the opinion that the prospective buyer should have noticed it during his walkaround. Not surprisnlgy, the home is still on the market, and I am of the mind that the comp pending offer was made by a stooge to prop up that market, but who knows? It did suspiciously evaporate after we pulled our offer.

Eman says

Not sure where this is practice. It’s illegal and a breach of fiduciary.

A lot of assumptions are made on the internet. Broker could have called the seller and said hey I got this low ball offer of X, you want to see it and just talk terms over the phone. That happens all the time. Seller probably said no. Likely just didn't SEE that offer. 150 days in any market unless massively over priced you WILL get an offer.

My guess is this is a dip shit seller that didn't remember the phone call and said fuck that price and said don't even waste your time sending it. It's then likely the buyer's broker just didn't tell him because the person was probably working another job or had a bunch of other buyers and didn't tell him the offer was rejected.

Gotta remember there are marketing tactics you can use to get new leads. Selling houses fast is one of them. 150 days on the market it would be insane not to present the offer to your client. Methinks this is bull and someone is angry about not getting a property. #lie

Al_Sharpton_for_President says

Regarding one of the problems not disclosed by the sellers, the realtor took the opinion that the prospective buyer should have noticed it during his walkaround.

Unless it's in writing, disclosures are complicated legally for seller and broker. We'd never tell sellers how to fill out disclosures. Other brokers might be bending rules or breaking law. We'd alway tell the seller if they didn't understand the line then fill out how you interpret it or call your attorney. We cannot give you a yes or no answer. Worked with over 1k home sellers, never an issue.

There are also grey areas. Failed sump pump and the basement flooded 2". You replace it with a new one and add in a backup. Is that still a flooded basement in theory? It wasn't a foundation issue, but mechanical. That's why we'd always tell clients to talk to an attorney if they weren't certain. If the attorney tells them something, then the liability is on the seller and attorney who gave that information. It wasn't our decision as brokers.

No lawsuits in 15 years that I managed the brokerage. No 1 star review type shit either. It's a massively simple business it's just most people are massively simple.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer/comments/1bsncva/real_estate_agent_threatening_with_litigation/

Real Estate Agent threatening with Litigation

https://www.reddit.com/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer/comments/1bruqv3/decided_im_not_ready_to_buy_since_my_current/

Decided I’m not ready to buy since my current budget can’t afford anything nice… agent is trying to talk me out of it

https://www.reddit.com/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer/comments/1bs0ul7/realtor_is_dragging_his_feet/

Realtor is dragging his feet

WSJ Opinion: The Realtors Still Need Market Reform

Despite a recent lawsuit settlement, the cartel keeps home prices high and damages the economy. REX founder Jack Ryan wants federal antitrust action.

By Allysia Finley

April 5, 2024 3:12 pm ET

Ask a Democrat to name the most powerful business lobby in Washington, and he might say the pharmaceutical or fossil fuel industry. A Republican might respond the climate lobby. Jack Ryan says the real answer is the trade group both parties are too intimidated to cite.

“People in Congress are terrified of the Realtors, because they probably have 10,000 in their district, and a lot of them make a lot of money,” says Mr. Ryan, 64, who is a real-estate entrepreneur but not a Realtor. The latter term is a registered trademark of the National Association of Realtors; nonmembers who use it risk an infringement suit. Realtors “work the PTA, the football games, the churches, the synagogue,” Mr. Ryan says. Little wonder the cartel’s rules, which hurt home buyers and sellers alike, have gone unchallenged in Congress.

Not so in court. The NAR has been hit by class-action claims across the country over a rule that requires seller agents to make a blanket offer of compensation to buyer brokers as a condition for listing a home on an affiliated multiple-listing service, a database of homes for sale. On March 15, the NAR settled the claims by agreeing to scrap the rule and pay $418 million to compensate sellers.

In Mr. Ryan’s view, the settlement is more a tactical retreat by the NAR than a victory for home buyers and sellers. The legal battle against the cartel is far from over.

Mr. Ryan likens himself to King David in describing his yearslong fight against the NAR—a somewhat incongruous metaphor given that, while not as tall as Goliath, Mr. Ryan stands 6-foot-4. After nearly two decades as a Goldman Sachs investment banker, in 2000 he went to teach at an all-boys Catholic school on Chicago’s south side—an effort, he says, to put his God-given talents to good use. In 2004 he won the Republican nomination to face Senate candidate Barack Obama, but he withdrew from the campaign after records from his 1999 custody dispute with his ex-wife were released to the public.

In 2015 he founded REX, a real-estate service company that aims to buy and sell homes outside the Realtors’ system—bypassing broker commissions that have averaged 5.5% to 6% for decades even as transaction fees in other industries have plunged thanks to innovation and competition.

“Why is it that every middleman’s fees are down but residential real estate fees?” he says. “And why is it always the same fee whether it’s a $300,000 home, a $3 million home or a $30 million home? And why is it the same if it’s a hot market or a cold market? And why is it that a first-year associate charges 5.5% and the 30-year grizzled vet who’s done 500 transactions charges 5.5%?” In most other developed countries, few buyers use brokers and overall commissions run in the neighborhood of 2%.

The U.S. is different because of the NAR’s Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice, which the association describes as its Ten Commandments. Its chief injunction is that Realtors “shall cooperate with other brokers.” Cooperation, Mr. Ryan says, is really collusion to keep commissions high: “There’s an artificial 5% fee tacked on the price of every home.”

Buyers often don’t need brokers, since they can search for homes online and tour them on their own. “When I was living in Malibu, there were people who were surfing all day and they seemed to be doing very well. And when I asked them what they did, they said they were real-estate agents,” he says. “They sold two homes of buddies of theirs and that let them make $120,000 to surf for the next year.”

Brokers can sometimes help buyers negotiate and close purchases, Mr. Ryan notes. But there’s a conflict of interest when the seller pays the buyer’s agent. There’s little incentive, then, for buyer brokers to negotiate a better deal for their clients. The system instead encourages them to steer clients to higher-priced homes. Buyer agents also steer clients away from homes that offer lower commissions. Thus commissions don’t come down.

At the same time, seller agents often don’t get the best deals for their clients because they want a quick commission. REX aimed to reduce these inefficiencies in part by using predictive analytics to match home buyers and sellers. It hired licensed real-estate professionals but paid them fixed salaries to eliminate conflicts of interest.

While sellers paid REX a 2% fee, they didn’t have to compensate buyer brokers. REX advertised homes on its own website as well as on better-known real-estate sites like Zillow and Trulia. But Mr. Ryan says REX would often get calls from buyer agents asking. “Are you going to cooperate?”

“They’ll say, ‘Hey, that house on 22 Greenwood, is it for sale? Are you going to cooperate?’ Cooperate means ‘you’re going to pay me the commission,’ ” he says. REX would respond that it didn’t pay buyer agents and “you have to get the money from your client, just like lawyers do, investment bankers do. . . . If you want to submit an offer with that fee included, we’ll consider it, but it’s going to be a lot less attractive than the person who makes an offer without that fee. Or you can talk to your buyer about paying you a fee for your work.”

Many angry buyer agents vowed never to show REX homes. Some buyers even reported that their agents lied, telling them REX homes weren’t for sale. Mr. Ryan has shared with the Justice Department hundreds of recorded phone calls between REX employees and Realtors, which he says provide evidence of illegal steering and price-fixing. The NAR has denied both allegations.

While REX initially grew rapidly, its growth faltered in 2021 after Zillow joined the NAR and began complying with an association rule for affiliated multiple-listing services that made it harder to find homes sold by nonmembers. After that, Mr. Ryan says, home sellers didn’t want to list their homes with REX because they worried few buyers would see them. “All of a sudden, our growth goes from around 100% a year to 5%. And you can’t fund yourself as a fast-growing company like an Uber or a Robinhood growing 5%.” The NAR “basically killed us.”

Mr. Ryan then channeled his energies into whipping up support and marshaling evidence for antitrust class actions against the NAR. His efforts, including speeches at antitrust legal forums and providing data to plaintiffs, paid off last autumn when a Missouri jury handed down a $1.8 billion verdict against the NAR and some brokerage firms. Afterward, payday-chasing plaintiff lawyers rushed to file lawsuits in other states.

But Mr. Ryan doubts the March 15 settlement will be enough to diminish the NAR’s clout or reduce the fees Americans pay. Seller agents, he notes, will still be able to advertise compensation for buyer brokers on other websites, so steering will continue to occur. “There’s a lot of other rules that the NAR has set up to enforce the price fix,” he says, including the one that concealed home listings by REX on Zillow. He hopes the Justice Department will bring a broader antitrust case against NAR.

Good news came on Friday when the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the Justice Department could reopen its investigation of the NAR. The Trump administration in November 2020 closed its probe with a settlement that made superficial changes to some NAR policies. The Biden Justice Department sought to continue the investigation, but the NAR sued.

Launching a broader investigation into the NAR’s rules would seem to advance the Biden administration’s agenda of making housing more affordable. By Mr. Ryan’s calculation, American home buyers and sellers pay some $120 billion a year in excessive real-estate costs. If commissions sharply dropped, home prices would, too, since the fees get baked into the price. Sellers would also make more from a sale, which they could use for a down payment on another home.

Lower commissions would also boost profits for home builders, who must pay buyer brokers’ fees on new-home sales. That, Mr. Ryan says, would spur more home construction, further reducing prices and rents. Lower broker commissions would increase the volume of home sales, as happened in the stock market. In the 1970s the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered stockbrokers to end fixed trading fees. Stockbrokers then, like Realtors today, had become lazy because they faced little competition. Because fees were fixed at artificially high rates, few Americans could afford to trade stocks.

“When it costs 12 cents to trade shares, a big day on the New York Stock Exchange was 100 million shares traded,” Mr. Ryan says. “Now that the fee is almost zero, two billion shares trade a day. Every economist knows that when you drive transaction costs down, transactions go way up per day.”

Other industries could benefit from lower commissions, too. “The jobs of plumbers and carpenters and electricians and title companies and escrow companies and mortgage companies are all tied to the volume of homes trading,” Mr. Ryan says.

Better buyer agents might still be able to charge 3%, but the others would find other work, boosting the economy further. “Is it really true that 1½ percent of the workforce should be real estate agents in America?” Mr. Ryan asks. “When the price for the job drops to what it should be, then people are going to start doing other things with their time, which will be much more productive.”

Lower commissions would also reduce the cost of moving. That would mean more labor mobility, which would boost the nation’s economy, although Mr. Ryan admits it could hurt blue states that are already losing population. But that could spur those states to improve governance to stanch the flow of residents.

Mr. Ryan holds another view that is countercultural, especially for someone in the real-estate business. “Everyone thinks that they should own a house, which is like the 11th Commandment, and it just makes no sense,” he says. He is a co-author, with John Tamny, of a forthcoming book, “Bringing Adam Smith Into the American Home: A Case Against Home Ownership.”

“I’m not against owning a home in general,” he says. “I just want people to look at it as the way that they should look at a car. Should I own the car? Should I lease the car long-term, or should I just Uber around?”

That also puts him at odds with the NAR, which has been among the loudest advocates of government subsidies to boost home ownership. The result is a gigantic government-housing complex that harms taxpayers: “Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD—all these programs to encourage homeownership blow up every 20 to 25 years without fail.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-realtors-still-need-market-reform-antitrust-home-real-estate-6663bec6