101–110 of 220 posts
There's an article I've been meaning to write for a while called Death to the Salesmen. I've spent a large part of my career working on products for insurance agents, real estate agents, and car salesmen. My experience has left me with one conclusion: we should eliminate most of these jobs. They're about as predatory toward the customer as they come, adding little value in most cases. There are certainly cases where…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The next batch of YC startups named things like “Turnkey” and “Realify” will do it for $499
I used to scoff at entrants into the space because I thought something valuable was being disrupted. Then my agent let me get 90% through a sale before - "surprise" - such and such construction is required prior to closing due to recent statute in this town. I had to haggle DOWN to 6% to enjoy effectively no representation or understanding of the market I was selling into. If this industry is disrupted, even if by ch…
Lots of people hating on realtors here, but my buying realtor: - Put up with me through several offers that fell through due to issues with the house - Met me quickly several times to see houses in a very hot market (covid) - Constantly found me homes that met my criteria - Was able to "get the dirt" on the homes and give me good advice for the homes that fell through, not pressuring me to buy And my selling realtor,…
Lots of people hating on realtors here, but my buying realtor: - Put up with me through several offers that fell through due to issues with the house - Met me quickly several times to see houses in a very hot market (covid) - Constantly found me homes that met my criteria - Was able to "get the dirt" on the homes and give me good advice for the homes that fell through, not pressuring me to buy And my selling realtor,…
That's all great. And nobody's saying don't pay realtors for their work. They're saying, certainly don't pay them 6%, and preferably not a percentage at all. Just pay them like a contractor or anyone else you hire -- either a flat fee or by the hour, depending on the exact services.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay so that's a good service. Is that worth $20,000? $40,000? I'd love to pay by the hour for service. There aren't many such realtors.
Well, you're paying TWO realtors. Buyer and seller, so it's really half that. But yeah, I would say $10k is a pretty sweet deal in a lot of cases.
The median home sale price in June was $426k. Or $25.6k of commission.
Typical Sunnyvale prices were about 2.4million, or $144k commission.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The job of the appraiser is to demonstrate to the bank signing a mortgage that the deal isn't a scam. If a house would reasonably be sold for $250k, but the buyer is buying at $2 million, there's probably some very good questions that need to be asked about where the money is going. On the other hand, if an appraiser can demonstrate that: - properties with similar features have been sold in a similar price range in s…
The last deal I did, the appraiser asked me (the buyer) if I was okay with the appraisal, or wanted a different number.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find that it's very similar to mob tactics. Prospective homeowners just get passed and funneled from person to person that they effectively have no choice but to interact with. And each of those people take a piece of the pie.
And there are a lot of fear tactics used as well. Or FUD, at least. "Don't skip the inspection, what if something is wrong" sounds sensible but pre-purchase home inspections are quite surface level, will only find visible, obvious problems, and in the fine print they disclaim responsibility if they miss anything.
The good inspectors told me about a condo loft that had plumbing issues throughout, probably a $5000 repair, and at a house, a sagging pier and beam foundation causing all sorts of problems.
Now we just need an explanation of how the hell appraisers come up with their numbers. Not only is it functionally useless to ask someone to measure fair market value of an asset that already has someone offering to buy it at a specific price, the appraisals seem to come in ridiculously close to offer price every time. I've had to deal with around 8 appraisals over the years as buyer or seller, I only had one that di…