saving of homes is one of the best features about ziprealty. not only does it allow you to track price reductions (or tricks like price increase of $100 followed immediately by a 4100 reduction), but if you save the “inactive” homes, you can catch those re-listings aimed at getting that ZERO DOM.

I am in 92648 coastal Huntington Beach.

Inventory is high and growing.

334 for sale today per ziprealty, with at least 2 more FSBO on top of that.

42,000 people live in this zip, with an AGI of $78K

Pop to listing ratio of 125.

Average price guess is about $1.2.

Yes, I derive pleasure from helping to puncture the bubble psychology of smug easy money.

Famous quote from multiple sources.  "The least we can do is comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

Powayseller,
Long-time, no talk. I like your posts…at least most of them…haha.

Regarding your meeting with Bob Casagrand….You’re very convinced he’s a great person and a great Realtor. Which I think is just fine…The items I’ll mention below are in no way a personal attack on Bob (or you)…as I think he says a lot of the right things (per your posts) and has a lot of the right data.

1) He only works with buyers. To him, listings waste too much time.
This is an interesting statement. The top agents will always do a lot of transactions via listings. It’s been said in the real estate business that it takes approximately 10 times the time, energy and effort to make a buyer sale compared to a listing sold. (I understand that it takes longer for a listing to sell than during the previous “hot” market.) Most of the agents that are specifically buyers agents are typically inexperienced or don’t have any good specific reasons for a seller to list a property with them. If you were a top agent would you want to spend your weekends driving around clients who will only write lowball offers? With all Bob’s data…don’t you think he could make a proper listing presentation to get a seller to list his/her home (with Bob) at a price that would cause it to sell? Good listing agents take listings that will sell…and walk away from ones that won’t. Scared agents who don’t feel they have the ability to compete against experienced listing agents don’t try to get the listings at all….So, why would Bob not even try to take salable listings?

2) Condo sellers are offering him 3.5% – 4% commission.
You make it sound as if these sellers are only offering HIM these commissions. The commission amount to the buyers agent is stated in the MLS (and agreed upon by the seller at the time the Listing Agreement is signed) and is the same to whichever buyers agent brings the offer that gets accepted.

Wouldn’t this also show that sellers are now willing to pay MORE commission to get their home sold? I thought we were moving into the time of a 3% total commission…and making Realtors obsolete….

3) He gets all these buyers by having a website. He has so many buyers now, he refers some to other realtors. His business is booming.

Great for Bob…I’m glad he’s doing well.Could you please ask Bob how many transactions he’s closed year-to-date so we can get a feel for the type of activity that’s out there for agents now? Good agents prioritize “leads” and refer lower quality ones to other agents. So, he’s doing the right thing there…

4) Bob understands how to use the internet to leverage his business. Too many realtors out there are still doing business the old way: pounding the pavement, putting ads in papers, printing flyers, holding Open Houses, and putting listings on realtor.com.

I agree with some of this. But as a point of clarification: Agents don’t put listings on Realtor.com. They are a default directly from the MLS which the agent has no control over when they appear (Usually within a day or two..as a new listing) or disappear (when it goes into pending). The agent does have control over the description of the listing and can pay an extra fee to be able to add custom copy and extra photos. In my opinion as a former agent that did a lot of listings…Realtor.com was by far the best way to show a listing via the internet. The amount of hits on that site will blow away any that Bob (or any other agent with their personal website) gets on their site. I wasted money on several of my own websites before just putting the money into Realtor.com. (This has been said by SDRealtor on earlier posts and is exactly right.)

5)Like I wrote a few months back, listings used to guarantee a commission, but no more! You’re dealing with sellers who overprice their homes, and you end up spending thousands of dollars marketing the home which doesn’t sell because they won’t take your advice on lowering the price.

A lot of what you say is true…But a lot of these are listings that were taken by desperate agents, working for mom-n-pop unknown companies whose only reason they got the listing was them saying….”I’ll do it for less”. A good listing agent with the proper data, comps and “objection handling” skills can still get a listing that is priced right and will sell….

6) Enter the buyer’s agent. You deal only with buyers. You make sure the buyer doesn’t get attached to one home. Homes are not like spouses: don’t think there is one soulemate. Find 4-5 homes, give a 24hr offer period on each and make it a firm and final offer that is below market price, and if they counter, move on to the next one.

Interesting. Weren’t you the one who said there was little value in a buyers agent earlier…and that all people find their new home on the internet…and that you just need an agent to handle the paperwork….and you expect the agent to give you a large proportion of his/her income???

7) What I like about Bob is that his is upfront with all his customers. He tells them not to expect appreciation, not to refinance, to get a mortgage they can live with a long time.

Great! I agree….

8)Bob’s business experience is amazing. Guys like him always figure out how to improve on things, find an edge. He’s a family man, very smart, very nice. I am fortunate that he considers me a friend.

Wow, you’re laying it on pretty thick here. Are you seeking a campaign contribution from him? Just kidding. All this is great…But it doesn’t make him a great or successful person in the real estate business. I’ve met former landscapers that become so good at helping their clients that they sell several hundred homes per year and make millions of dollars doing it….In a nutshell, a prior business career certainly helps in understanding dealing with people, situations, processes etc…But it does not guarantee a sucessful real estate career. I personally would choose an experienced person in real estate to handle my transactions.

9) Bob said that the outflow of people is amazing. On a recent weekend he took his buyer to see 5 homes, and each seller was leaving SD upon sale. We’ve got 15K families/year leaving SD, meaning 15K/year vacant homes. It’s the slower sales that’s increasing the inventory.

With so many sellers wanting to leave town…you’d think there were some salable listings out there…..People who would price their home to sell at the right price…

10)…….don’t ever count on the media or your realtor to tell you the truth about housing. They are just as cluelss as the average joe on the street.

Bob=Truth in all real estate aspects.
Other Realtors= “Dipsh*ts”………as you said in an earlier post

Again…my business goes to an active agent that does a lot of business…especially in my neighborhood….

11) When I am ready to buy, Bob is my guy to go to. He understands the market better than any realtor I have ever come across. A true buyers’ agent.

Again Powayseller, you earlier said a buyers agent was a highly paid taxi driver…..and all people find the home by themselves on the internet…I thought you said the Mackey Team was the team to go to??? I thought you would just have an Attorney do the paperwork so you could put the commission savings in your pocket???

OK…Finally finished and sorry for the rambling…..and nothing personal in this post…

Farls

Actually, I’m not at all interested in the way Bob does his business so there’s no need for me to contact him. I’m more interested to see how much business he actually does. Even though he may be a great guy with a solid business background I suspect he doesn’t sell very many homes. If you’re going to be promoting him so strongly I think you owe it to the people visiting the site to show if he actually sells homes…or just puts out good data. We had this discussion awhile back……..

Farls

P.S. Powayseller, I think you were right to sell your home when you did…and I feel the market is in for a big correction….I’m shocked at the journalists who continue to print articles saying prices are still increasing across the board…So, we do agree on these and many other areas of the market…

I would pay him a fee for the advice on the market conditions.

For you PS, a colossal waste of money. With the amount of time you put into this, why would you pay for his advice?

Chris Johnston

Thanks sunset. I have my blog there also, and it is unreliable at times.

Bob has sold 3 low priced properties for a total of approximately 1.3M. He has no listings and nothing in escrow unless it is directly with a builder (i.e.not in the mls). These properties were located in Lakeside, Pacific Beach and South SD. That’s alot of humping around. Two of the buyers did 100% financing. The other put down about 20% and must have a rich Dad. Her last name you might wonder????……..Casagrand

I currently have 3 listings in escrow none of which is more than 3 miles from my home and one of which will sell for more than his 3 sales combined. One more thing…I’ve never sold a home to a buyer with 100% financing though a couple of my lsitngs have been bought by buyers with 100% financing.