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Jury Finds Realtors Conspired, Awards Nearly $1.8B in Damages

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Re: Jury Finds Realtors Conspired, Awards Nearly $1.8B in Damages

#241

Post by Turing_Machine »

chongli wrote: post #201
Turing_Machine wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your city and neighbors don’t want to be responsible for or have to deal with your house falling down because it was improperly constructed. Why on earth would the city or the neighbors be "responsible" for that?

Because it damages their property values. Would you want to buy a house next to a dilapidated pile of abandoned rubble?

What makes you think you're entitled to an increase in your "property value" at the expense of someone else?

Maybe you should look at your house as a place to live rather than an investment vehicle.

Or maybe you should just accept that investments come with risks.

Re: Jury Finds Realtors Conspired, Awards Nearly $1.8B in Damages

#242

Post by roshin »

scottwick wrote: post #41

Not really related to the article but something I've been wondering... In recent years the housing market has been so competitive that escalation clauses are often written into offers. They typically include a base offer of $X and then an agreement to escalate that value by increments (maybe $1-5k at a time) up to some cap. All the offers are collected by a certain date and then an auction is run behind the scenes by…

It doesn't seem unethical, just weird. The seller can just require a higher starting bid, the result would be equivalent. Of course the risk would be that no one would buy the property if the price is too high.

Re: Jury Finds Realtors Conspired, Awards Nearly $1.8B in Damages

#243

Post by deelowe »

semiquaver wrote: post #219
conductr wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem has always been with the percentages used on certain things; like commissions. Just make it a flat fee. Things that require agent's time like open houses; bill for that. It's the essentially the same effort on a $100K house and a $500K house and a $1M house. Maybe once you get to $5M+ houses the fees need to increase since this is a different class of RE with much smaller pool of buyers. But still should b…

Is there anything else in real estate that’s normally priced in terms of percentages other than the realtor cut? I’m not aware of any.

Everything is negotiable, but sellers often get asked to pay some portion of closing costs.

Re: Jury Finds Realtors Conspired, Awards Nearly $1.8B in Damages

#244

Post by fragmede »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #239
autoexec wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my neighbor doesn't wire their home to code and it burns down and the fire spreads to my house it doesn't matter who is "responsible", I'd still lose my stuff (or my life). Hell, if my neighbor's tree falls into my property and causes damages I can't be sure I'd be fully compensated for my losses. You can take someone to court, but they can't give you what they don't have. People also just don't want to live in sl…

> People also just don't want to live in slums filled with run down barely standing shacks since it hurts their property value too. Someone else's property value is their problem, not mine. You're not guaranteed that the value of an investment is going to go up. It's called "risk", dude. Your opinion of what I should do with my property does not trump my opinion of what I should do with my property. At one time, peop…

> Someone else's property value is their problem, not mine.

On an individual level, sure, but if we have a repeat of 1929 or 2001 or 2008 or 2020 (we'll see about 2024), even if you're not personally directly affected, there are going to be ramifications that affect society beyond a couple of unlucky individuals. We don't really need another once-in-a-lifetime economic event.

Re: Jury Finds Realtors Conspired, Awards Nearly $1.8B in Damages

#245

Post by exmicrosoldier »

stuff4ben wrote: post #5

Commission based on home value is a joke. Realtors should earn a flat-rate.

"Stock options are a joke. Developers should just get a flat fee."

There are people worth their commission and there are people who are not worth it.

The bigger reason house prices are so high isnt the real estate agent cartel, it is the banking cartel and the capital chasing homes to rent them out.

Re: Jury Finds Realtors Conspired, Awards Nearly $1.8B in Damages

#246

Post by leephillips »

nwellinghoff wrote: post #238
leephillips wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sold a townhouse in DC using a company that listed in the MLS for a flat fee (I think it was about $200). I held my own open house and got my target price from a buyer I met there. He did have an agent but I told them I wasn’t paying any commission. The agent thought I didn’t know what I was doing and tried to sneak a commission onto the sales contract. Typical real estate agent behavior. (I had sold and bought a f…

By what method did he try to sneak a commission in? What it something obscure that you have to know to look for or?

She just put it right there in the contract, despite our verbal agreement that it would not be there. When I objected she made a show of having made a “mistake”. Quite crude, in fact.

Re: Jury Finds Realtors Conspired, Awards Nearly $1.8B in Damages

#247

Post by m463 »

exmicrosoldier wrote: post #245
stuff4ben wrote: post #5

Commission based on home value is a joke. Realtors should earn a flat-rate.

"Stock options are a joke. Developers should just get a flat fee." There are people worth their commission and there are people who are not worth it. The bigger reason house prices are so high isnt the real estate agent cartel, it is the banking cartel and the capital chasing homes to rent them out.

I think a better analogy would be "stock sales are a joke, you should be able to sell them for a flat fee"

Re: Jury Finds Realtors Conspired, Awards Nearly $1.8B in Damages

#248

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

leephillips wrote: post #246
nwellinghoff wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what method did he try to sneak a commission in? What it something obscure that you have to know to look for or?

She just put it right there in the contract, despite our verbal agreement that it would not be there. When I objected she made a show of having made a “mistake”. Quite crude, in fact.

It’s surprising to me that the buyer’s agent would even consent to produce a contract that doesn’t pay them any fee.

Re: Jury Finds Realtors Conspired, Awards Nearly $1.8B in Damages

#249

Post by lelanthran »

cgh wrote: post #187
Willish42 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb, uninformed question here, but are there not some sort of For Sale By Owner systems that cut into the huge percents in closing costs? Or is the issue that you have to pay the buyers' realtor fees too and that's unavoidable? I'm trying to figure out why nobody's figured out "DIY MLS listing as a service without having to pay for a realtor". Maybe everyone who does this just gets a realtor's license or something.

It's true that there's scope for an alternate MLS that's just for sale by owner listings. But as someone else mentioned, the buyer often uses an agent (I refuse to use the made-up word "realtor") and you'll have to pay that fee anyway. Unless, that is, your listings site provided handholding to do away with the buying agent. To handle the paperwork, a notary and/or a lawyer is necessary but the site could either prov…

> It's true that there's scope for an alternate MLS that's just for sale by owner listings. But as someone else mentioned, the buyer often uses an agent (I refuse to use the made-up word "realtor") and you'll have to pay that fee anyway.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding how this works.

With (often) the seller holding a lot of the cards, they could simply insist that any buyer pay their own agent, or buy elsewhere.

If the demand is even minimally high it wouldn't take a lot of sellers to cause people looking to buy to avoid signing on with an agent just to find a house.

Re: Jury Finds Realtors Conspired, Awards Nearly $1.8B in Damages

#250

Post by nrb »

frumper wrote: post #237
pxx wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lenders could internalize this risk, which is miniscule. But mortgages in the United States are a subsidized product. The real problem is that the lender wants to sell the note to Fannie/Freddie, who require title insurance. Title insurance is a total scam. Title insurers pay 3-6% of their premiums in claims [0]. Compare to auto insurance, which is ~80% [1], or home insurance (~50-70%) [2]. [0] https://www.ceicdata.c…

You really haven’t added anything. You’ve just restated that people that own the mortgage want title insurance to protect them. It isn’t for the home owners protection. It’s the same with PMI. That’s another insurance the lender requires a buyer to purchase to protect them. Title insurance is relatively cheap compared to home or auto insurance. It’s a one time purchase cheaper than the 6 month premium of either of th…

> You really haven’t added anything.

Are you intentionally glossing over that it could/should cost less than 1 month of premiums of either of the other types of insurance?

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