5 ms·
Having gone through four home-buying episodes, where my wife (an ex-realtor) spent massive amounts of time trolling Trulia, RedFin, calling police departments,
by bdamm 9y ago
Having gone through four home-buying episodes, where my wife (an ex-realtor) spent massive amounts of time trolling Trulia, RedFin, calling police departments, gathering reports from the local City Hall, I can tell you there is still a service to be provided by agents. And anyone who has bought a house knows that the collection of contracts that represents "buying a house" is not a small collection, and errors can be logistical disasters down the road.
A good agent is worth 10x their commission. A bad agent, of which there are many, is a waste of money. And the big rub is that people who could be buying homes probably aren't simply because they don't know the dozens of tricks that can be employed to make an unaffordable situation affordable, or able to identify a good deal.
If you're comfortable buying a home without any background check, then I guess you don't need a realtor, but I wouldn't do it.
Oh, and the laws that protect realtors, toss 'em. What we really need is Yelp for realtors.
- fraserharris 9y agoWhat is the purpose of calling police departments?
- hkmurakami 9y agoCrime in the area, for one.
- jrs235 9y agoTo determine if any possible meth activity is associated with the home.
- notadoc 9y ago> A good agent is worth 10x their commission. You actually think a 'good' realtor deserves a 60% commission? I can tell you're married to a realtor.
- blocacres 9y agoI'm currently working on solving this problem, hoping to launch in the next year. The truth is the average real estate agent doesn't have a college degree and has been in the business for less than 3 years. And in a hot market, when houses sell in a week, the agent is worth even less. What marketing plan is going to sell a house in a week? None at market value.Furthermore, buyers are walking into transactions thinking they aren't paying for a realtor when they are paying for both sides in the price of the house.
- harrumph 9y ago> What marketing plan is going to sell a house in a week? None at market value. Do not agree. Markets are only collections of people, and brokers know people, some of whom are buyers and a few of whom are the perfect buyers. Reaching those people is the marketing plan. Also, this is not buying airplane tickets, this is the single most costly and complicated process buyers and sellers will likely go through in their whole lives, so time frames of a week are fantasy.
- eric_the_read 9y agoDepends entirely on your market. A former co-worker sold his father's house for tens (possibly hundreds, I don't want to oversell this, but I can't recall for sure) of thousands of dollars over list in Denver in less than 3 days. If you count closing, it's definitely more than a week, but a contract was signed very quickly.
- harrumph 9y agoI hear you -- I'd only say the marketing, showing, offer and acceptance took three days but selling of the house, by any meaningful/legal definition, took much longer.
- blocacres 9y ago"This is the single most costly and complicated process people will go through. .." so why hire someone for 5-7% of the purchase price, who doesn't have a college degree and has been in the industry for 3 years or less. Furthermore, notice the incentives if you're a buyer literally everyone in the transaction from real estate agent to mortgage broker wants the price to be as high as possible. The incentives all point toward increasing the house price. We're going to fix this. And hopefully help many in the process. I say all of this as a real estate broker and lawyer to boot.