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I wish more older Americans understood how these people really work. My parents live in a neighborhood that has gone down hill through the years. They called up

by tmm84 3y ago

I wish more older Americans understood how these people really work. My parents live in a neighborhood that has gone down hill through the years. They called up a company who did this kind of home buying. Usual visual inspections and the like went on with a quote being issued. They saw the amount was a little over the remaining mortgage which was less than the market value of the house. They decided to ahead of time wire over $20k in cash from their bank to the mortgage company then move on with the sale. The home buyer company had been notified of the mortgage payment and immediately reissued their quote minus the exact amount transferred to the mortgage company. I wish my parents had told me their plan because businesses communicate more than they used to.

ttyprintk 3y ago
Now and then, someone posts on HN their saga about disrupting real estate. It’s difficult, but I wonder what would help those like your parents. I wonder what it would take for eBay to auction real estate, and whether older people in 2030 would try that instead of this caveman.
- mjh2539 3y ago
  Real estate is such a highly regulated industry with so many myriad laws governing it that you might as well ask what it would take for eBay to auction human organs.
poulsbohemian 3y ago
>I wish more older Americans understood how these people really work. I wish more Americans overall understood how real estate works. I see people get screwed all the time because of bad information. Here's an example: several times a year I will talk with a member of the public who will say something like "we want to work with the listing agent because then we won't have to pay as much commission" not understanding that in fact they are (assuming a traditional two sided commission offered by the seller) actually just giving that listing agent both sides of the deal. Or, similarly, they will say things like "we want to work with the listing agent because it's their listing so they will know the most about the property" again, not realizing that depending on your state, the rules for dual agency may not give you as a buyer the same representation as getting your own separate buyer's agent. In fact in some states, you may not actually be getting any representation at all, IE: they fill out the paperwork on your behalf but actually represent the seller. Those are just some trivial examples, but it's dumbfounding how many bad ideas the public has about real estate. So much of my job is hours of educating my clients apart from anything related to the actual transaction.
- mindslight 3y ago
  Listing Realtors (TM) rely on people's misunderstandings to get them to sign those lopsided agency agreements in the first place (3% of a capital asset for setting up a key box, taking mediocre pictures, and writing a description of the property!), so those less critical misunderstandings are just part and parcel of their market. You should never skimp hiring a real estate attorney, as they will actually go to bat for you. But realtors' primary motivation is volume, and they'll often "represent" your interests by encouraging you to go along with buyers' nonsense lest you lose them.
  - poulsbohemian 3y ago
    I'm sorry you've had such bad experience with realtors... just some thoughts: -- My experience with real estate attorneys has been as mixed as your experiences with realtors. Some know what they are doing, many do not. Many care about billable hours just as much as the outcome. YMMV. -- Some realtors care about volume, and some care about their fiduciary responsibilities to your business. If they are actually a Realtor and following the standards set by the NAR, then volume or commission % shouldn't be their motivation. Again - just like any profession - some are good, some suck. -- Finally, regarding commission percentages - yeah, in many markets commissions shouldn't be as high as they have been. In my market(s) we are seeing commissions decline. That said - I regularly more than pay my own commission in the earnings / savings I negotiate for my clients. If I make you an extra $50K and I get $10K for that service, I've earned my money. Again - if you haven't found that with the agents you've used, I fully encourage you to report any fraudulent activity to the local real estate association and/ or state agency. In any case if you don't receive the service you expect, find a new agent.
    - jjav 3y ago
      > If I make you an extra $50K and I get $10K for that service, I've earned my money. That's totally fair on the surface. But it's also impossible to demonstrate. Nobody can know if the house would've sold for 50K less if a different (less competent) realtor sold it, or if the owner sold it on craigslist or wherever.
dclowd9901 3y ago
Elderly people need an 811 (the service you call to check for buried hazards) for shit like this. Basically a free service they can call to verify if something is a scam or not.
- jasomill 3y ago
  Not just the elderly, and this would very much help with online scams, as well. Case in point: my mother, who I would not consider elderly, and who's skeptical enough to pretty much assume everything is a scam, yet wasted a fair bit of time on a scam email from "PayPal". She doesn't have a PayPal account, and, for reasons, doesn't want one. So she was certain the email was part of a scam. What she did not know was whether it was phishing email from a scammer — her words, so, yes, she's generally well aware of the practice; again, not elderly — or the result of a scammer attempting to set up a PayPal account in her name (in order to defraud her friends and family, perhaps). So she went to PayPal.com, emailed, called, etc., and they weren't willing to confirm or deny whether they may or may not have sent her an email concerning an account that may or may not exist in her name, for privacy reasons, unless she was first able to log into this hypothetical account that an unknown third party may or may not have set up in her name[1]. She then showed me the email, and it was immediately obvious to me that it was low-effort scammer spam of the "From: PayPal Security <SecurityPayPal@gmail.com>" variety. Even if only useful for trivial cases like these, it would be helpful if some government agency or trustworthy nonprofit would set up a well-known mechanism where anyone could forward potential scam emails and receive a prompt, semi-automated "obviously a scam / not necessarily a scam, but still exercise caution as follows; …" result. This would obviously need to be set up with measures in place to minimize its usefulness as a fraud-detection oracle for scammers themselves, but still seems like a worthwhile cause. [1] I'm not trying to call out PayPal for bad behavior here: while they could have been a bit more helpful by offering useful, general advice, this is otherwise a reasonable response to what, from their perspective, was an admitted non-account holder requesting information about someone else's account in violation of their policies (and possibly the law).

by tmm84 3y ago

ttyprintk 3y ago

Now and then, someone posts on HN their saga about disrupting real estate. It’s difficult, but I wonder what would help those like your parents. I wonder what it would take for eBay to auction real estate, and whether older people in 2030 would try that instead of this caveman.

mjh2539 3y ago
Real estate is such a highly regulated industry with so many myriad laws governing it that you might as well ask what it would take for eBay to auction human organs.

poulsbohemian 3y ago

>I wish more older Americans understood how these people really work. I wish more Americans overall understood how real estate works. I see people get screwed all the time because of bad information. Here's an example: several times a year I will talk with a member of the public who will say something like "we want to work with the listing agent because then we won't have to pay as much commission" not understanding that in fact they are (assuming a traditional two sided commission offered by the seller) actually just giving that listing agent both sides of the deal. Or, similarly, they will say things like "we want to work with the listing agent because it's their listing so they will know the most about the property" again, not realizing that depending on your state, the rules for dual agency may not give you as a buyer the same representation as getting your own separate buyer's agent. In fact in some states, you may not actually be getting any representation at all, IE: they fill out the paperwork on your behalf but actually represent the seller. Those are just some trivial examples, but it's dumbfounding how many bad ideas the public has about real estate. So much of my job is hours of educating my clients apart from anything related to the actual transaction.

mindslight 3y ago
Listing Realtors (TM) rely on people's misunderstandings to get them to sign those lopsided agency agreements in the first place (3% of a capital asset for setting up a key box, taking mediocre pictures, and writing a description of the property!), so those less critical misunderstandings are just part and parcel of their market. You should never skimp hiring a real estate attorney, as they will actually go to bat for you. But realtors' primary motivation is volume, and they'll often "represent" your interests by encouraging you to go along with buyers' nonsense lest you lose them.
- poulsbohemian 3y ago
  I'm sorry you've had such bad experience with realtors... just some thoughts: -- My experience with real estate attorneys has been as mixed as your experiences with realtors. Some know what they are doing, many do not. Many care about billable hours just as much as the outcome. YMMV. -- Some realtors care about volume, and some care about their fiduciary responsibilities to your business. If they are actually a Realtor and following the standards set by the NAR, then volume or commission % shouldn't be their motivation. Again - just like any profession - some are good, some suck. -- Finally, regarding commission percentages - yeah, in many markets commissions shouldn't be as high as they have been. In my market(s) we are seeing commissions decline. That said - I regularly more than pay my own commission in the earnings / savings I negotiate for my clients. If I make you an extra $50K and I get $10K for that service, I've earned my money. Again - if you haven't found that with the agents you've used, I fully encourage you to report any fraudulent activity to the local real estate association and/ or state agency. In any case if you don't receive the service you expect, find a new agent.
  - jjav 3y ago
    > If I make you an extra $50K and I get $10K for that service, I've earned my money. That's totally fair on the surface. But it's also impossible to demonstrate. Nobody can know if the house would've sold for 50K less if a different (less competent) realtor sold it, or if the owner sold it on craigslist or wherever.

dclowd9901 3y ago

Elderly people need an 811 (the service you call to check for buried hazards) for shit like this. Basically a free service they can call to verify if something is a scam or not.

jasomill 3y ago
Not just the elderly, and this would very much help with online scams, as well. Case in point: my mother, who I would not consider elderly, and who's skeptical enough to pretty much assume everything is a scam, yet wasted a fair bit of time on a scam email from "PayPal". She doesn't have a PayPal account, and, for reasons, doesn't want one. So she was certain the email was part of a scam. What she did not know was whether it was phishing email from a scammer — her words, so, yes, she's generally well aware of the practice; again, not elderly — or the result of a scammer attempting to set up a PayPal account in her name (in order to defraud her friends and family, perhaps). So she went to PayPal.com, emailed, called, etc., and they weren't willing to confirm or deny whether they may or may not have sent her an email concerning an account that may or may not exist in her name, for privacy reasons, unless she was first able to log into this hypothetical account that an unknown third party may or may not have set up in her name[1]. She then showed me the email, and it was immediately obvious to me that it was low-effort scammer spam of the "From: PayPal Security <SecurityPayPal@gmail.com>" variety. Even if only useful for trivial cases like these, it would be helpful if some government agency or trustworthy nonprofit would set up a well-known mechanism where anyone could forward potential scam emails and receive a prompt, semi-automated "obviously a scam / not necessarily a scam, but still exercise caution as follows; …" result. This would obviously need to be set up with measures in place to minimize its usefulness as a fraud-detection oracle for scammers themselves, but still seems like a worthwhile cause. [1] I'm not trying to call out PayPal for bad behavior here: while they could have been a bit more helpful by offering useful, general advice, this is otherwise a reasonable response to what, from their perspective, was an admitted non-account holder requesting information about someone else's account in violation of their policies (and possibly the law).