Live data from Hacker News

Terrible real estate agent photographs

terriblerealestateagentphotos.com

171–180 of 346 posts

Re: Terrible real estate agent photographs

#171
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Home inspections that aren't really "inspections" and are just there to grease the skids I hear this a lot on here and I wonder what state people are in or if the laws are somehow different elsewhere. In the states where I do business, there are state mandated checklists of systems and inspectors could be held liable if they don’t show reasonable care and professionalism in gathering the data for their report. The i…

Colorado here and that wasn't the case for me. There were many, and varied things missed in my inspection. The biggest was the entire HVAC system being messed up. The furnace was incorrectly installed, improperly sized for the house, and didn't even have any return ductwork installed. The air flow seemed really bad in the bedroom and so one day I decided to climb up into the attic and take a look. The problem with th…

I agree, it feels really odd that making a huge ticket item purchase, if something goes wrong the max liability it the inspection price. A drop in the bucket for some issues they should have brought to light.

Re: Terrible real estate agent photographs

#172
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you both bought and sold a primary residence without a realtor? Interested to hear about the experience.

Bought current house without agent (very desirable part of Los Angeles). Selling now without agent. If you buy with an agent you put yourself at a disadvantage because the selling agent will need to split the commission (typically 2.5% a piece or so). When you make an offer on a home without a buying agent, suddenly your offer looks a lot more attractive to the selling agent, who is the only point of contact the sell…

>If you buy with an agent you put yourself at a disadvantage because the selling agent will need to split the commission

I can’t speak to California law, but this isn’t explicitly true in either market where I work. Non-agency is a thing in some places, and depending on the terms of the listing contract the listing agent might pocket both sides regardless if there isn’t a buyer’s agent.

I’d also argue that there are a lot of properties where a buyer benefits from expertise on the part of an agent - either negotiating strategies or local market concerns. In my market for example understanding environmental and construction issues and value add that a buyer won’t know without doing meaningful research on their own.

Re: Terrible real estate agent photographs

#173
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bought current house without agent (very desirable part of Los Angeles). Selling now without agent. If you buy with an agent you put yourself at a disadvantage because the selling agent will need to split the commission (typically 2.5% a piece or so). When you make an offer on a home without a buying agent, suddenly your offer looks a lot more attractive to the selling agent, who is the only point of contact the sell…

I’ve seen this happen many times in LA. Never in SF, and once in Oakland. I don’t have much experience outside California but helped friends in Chicago buy a condo. It definitely helped that they didn’t have an agent and leveraged the listing agent. Not having an agent is generally a big asset when buying a home, much more than anything an agent will bring to you.

>definitely helped that they didn’t have an agent and leveraged the listing agent.

Ooof. Gotta be careful with this one and understand agency law in your respective state. That listing agent may not actually be working for you the buyer, even if they help you fill out the paperwork.

Re: Terrible real estate agent photographs

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Weird, having bought/sold a number of houses in the last ten years (our family moved several times), I can't say I've ever run into a real estate agent that seemed like a "high pressure" salesman. Perhaps its just the market so they don't really need to try, but IME the best real estate agents -- on the buyers side, at least -- were the ones that listened carefully and did a good job of finding houses that matched ou…

> can't say I've ever run into a real estate agent that seemed like a "high pressure" salesman

High-pressure job, not high-pressure sales. Real estate sales is not a business that's kind to underperformers (in the long run).

Re: Terrible real estate agent photographs

#175

When I moved to Seattle back in 2011 and was looking for a place to rent, I noticed that almost all the photos across multiple listings looked like they were paintings or architectural renderings or something. I could not figure out what was off about them. A friend pointed out that the lighting was off because every single one was photoshopped with one of a few pictures of a sunny blue sky with just a few clouds in…

FWIW: NWMLS will fine agents if the photos have been “too” doctored… adding some blue sky is generally considered ok, but anything that hides a material defect or camouflages the actual attributes of the house is a no no.

Re: Terrible real estate agent photographs

#176

This site is impossible to visit on my setup. Firefox 114, default tracking protection, uBlock origin with default settings. I am not interested in spending time debugging it, and I can live without seeing those photos. Better spend that time whining here, where I suppose the ratio of web developers is high: what happened to web development? How come is it so complicated to write a site that displays some photos with…

Surprisingly, it's a frontend for Tumblr, with the "fuseblue.com" theme.

Re: Terrible real estate agent photographs

#177

About 10 years ago, me and my wife took LSD on a vacation, and the sheer uselessness of a real estate agent appeared to us. What does a real estate agent do? They unlock doors. Who are real estate agents? We can all think of a few real estate agents, none of them are top performers. They are usually on their ~4th career before the age of 30. They are the type of person to wear a suit in public to pretend that it make…

Strongly disagreed. Unless you regularly buy and sell houses, when it comes to buying a house, you are out of your depth. You need the help of a professional, and you want one who is looking out for your interests. I admit finding a real estate agent who you can trust is not easy. I don't know how to do it, other than from who you know. I was lucky, and ours was a friend of my wife's family.

Just find one who has been working through a few downturns. Hot markets spawn real estate agents like locust, but downturns burn out all but the best.

Re: Terrible real estate agent photographs

#178
post #129
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean to say that among Realtors he was pretty elite, whatever that means. Put another way, he dealt in million dollar listings, not just average family homes.

If you were getting any significant number of million $ homes, why would he keep the day job? Real estate transaction fees are pretty high.

It's possible that his connections and encounters from his work as an agent formed the foundation of his 'book' - and being a real estate agent is like 99% about building that book and 1% about doing things the rest of us might refer to as "work". Many if not most of the successful agents I know are moonlighters for this very reason.

Not ragging on real estate agents, it's not an easy thing to pull off; convincing someone to hand you 3-6% of the biggest financial transaction they've ever made just for you to negotiate for what's probably a grand total of a few hours and do some online shopping. And they do provide value insofar as knowing the landscape can really help a client avoid getting bent over a barrel.

Source: did it myself (poorly, which is why I'm in tech).

Re: Terrible real estate agent photographs

#179
post #47
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and even if you are a “top performer” doing gods work… that does not give you any right to belittle others. I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment and would pay money to see us as a collective (me included) try our hand at something like real estate. I for one know I would fail, but that’s me.

We software engineers already have tried, and failed to the tune of $550 million. Oops. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29087479

Sometimes real estate agents fail at flipping and stick to brokering other people's transactions too.

Re: Terrible real estate agent photographs

#180
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A youtube video from the buyer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbbwv-ZbXDk

I don’t know what compels people to live in these McMansions. Perceived status? Second vacation home? Fuck you money? American lifestyle is so wasteful. It’s disgusting. Climate change is impacting everyone and these rich assholes continue to waste resources on shit like this.

Maybe they just like them? There's no accounting for taste.
Post reply on HN