patrick.net

ReMax sucks. When we sold our place in 2008, we had a conservative idea of what our place would sell for, and planned to go with a ReMax agent (we were naive).

We met with the agent who immediately wanted us to shave $10k off of our already low asking price (even though our price was lower than the entire neighborhood) - when we refused she was offended.

I asked her if she would cut her 6% commission to 3% - she got very angry and said commission isn't negotiable. I told her our listing price wasn't negotiable - she was shown the door.

Listed our house that night with a flat fee online realtor, sold it in 2 weeks - at our asking price. Paid about 3.5% in total commission.

Rabbit trail: The re agents and the title company's are in bed with each other. When we met with the title company to finalize the sale of our house, the title agent kept bashing flat fee re agents saying they provide horrible service - and wanted us to talk trash about the service we went through. Reality is that they provided us with better service than ReMax could've.

The last words I said to the title agent were, I saved about 4 grand, and sold my house in 2 weeks doing it this way. You may want to say goodbye to the way things were and say hello to the internet. (she was pissed)

Turns out, the title agent and ReMax lady we're good friends. And to think that I almost paid THEM an extra $4k for doing NOTHING ! And while the internet hasn't had a profound impact on real estate in all parts of the country, I believe it will in the long run.

Which online realtor?

I bought 10 years ago and am still smarting - and it was a remax realtor.

I was newly divorced and moving back to my hometown - she started out by asking me if I had a man that I trusted to "help me with the paperwork." We were off to a roaring start.

I wanted a 3/2 with separate family & living rooms, less than 2,000 sq ft on horse property with an open lot. I live in a rural area, so that's pretty much a no-brainer around here...

The first house she showed me was a five bedroom house on an acre with no room for a corral - her daughter's house.

The next one she showed me was 2500 sq ft in the middle of town, no animals allowed.

And the one after that was 1350 sq ft with a living room so small you could barely fit a couch, no family room and no room for a kitchen table. Her son's house.

She tried to get me to buy more house that I felt I could comfortably afford (I qualified for $180k loan but wanted to keep it around $125k).

I finally found and bought a place I wanted even though she recommended that I build (her husband was a builder) and - the worst part - after I bought the place I wanted, she called me monthly asking if I knew anyone who wanted to buy a house.

Remax is just like all other real estate companies - realtors just want to sell you something, they don't give a shit if it's what you want.

KILLERJANE says

Which online realtor?

Thinking saying and doing need to line up.

http://www.creekviewrealty.com/

Realtor Estate Agents routinely recommend certain title companies, mortgage brokers, terminate and housing inspectors. I'm not sure if they get a kickback for steering business one way or the other. I do firmly believe that they use people who represent there interests instead of yours. For example they pick a housing inspector that don't point out any major defects with the house that could potentially prevent the sale from going through. So you get a white washed report from the home inspector, the agent gets a sale, the home inspector get lots of repeat business from the agent and the home owner gets the shaft when they discover major issue that really should have been pointed out to them before the sale and ends up costing thousands of dollars to fix.

elliemae says

Remax is just like all other real estate companies - realtors just want to sell you something, they don't give a shit if it's what you want.

TechGromit says

Realtor Estate Agents routinely recommend certain title companies, mortgage brokers, terminate and housing inspectors. I'm not sure if they get a kickback for steering business one way or the other.

Sometimes they definitely do. They'll often steer you to their stager in expensive markets, and their other favored vendors. At least in California, it has gotten harder for them to mess with the appraiser. I'm not surprised with elliemae's experience with the title company. The title agent should have STFU in that scenario -- you were paying them for their service, and they should provide the service and keep their mouth shut.

Sometimes the referrals are legitimately helpful -- how often do you really engage a title company? But it can help to ask around and see what the competition is like. It never hurts to call/meet more than one person just to chat before you hire them.

I'm also not surprised with elliemae's experience with the realtor -- trying to sell her family's houses. Realtors always prefer their listings above someone else's, but they will always spin their related person's house even more.