[quote=sdrealtor]CW
There is neither an easy nor reliable way for me to measure this so I dont try because I wouldnt trust the numbers I got. On the otherhand, the old adage that 80% of the sales are done by 20% of the people still holds true. The make up of that 20% has changed and many of the old guard have fallen off. Its too broad to say it doesnt bode well for realtors because it does for some like me. When it was easy any blonde with a Lexus could be a realtor and survive. In this environment they cant and people who are good at dealing with complex situations rise to the occassion. I have never been busier.[/quote]
That’s what I figured. REALIST doesn’t break down “distressed” listings over non-distressed listings and it would be difficult and time consuming to do manually, esp since they change in composition every day.
That old (80/20) adage has applied since the dawn of time. Many agents don’t care about their production numbers. They have a full or part-time job doing something else and RE commissions are not and never have been their primary source of income. There are many, many people who are licensed for the primary purpose of handling occasional transactions for themselves, family and friends. Many, many CA attorneys are licensed RE Brokers and only occasionally broker RE transactions. Licensed attorneys and CPA’s in CA don’t have to have four years consecutive RE Salesperson experience to take the broker exam. They can sit for the exam by paying the fee only.
Lots of people are good and dealing with “complex situations” and unraveling thorny problems . . . myself included. In fact, my middle name is “Fineprint.” This doesn’t mean they couldn’t successfully complete a “short sale.” (I completed two during the “gulf war malaise” [’91-’92]) in which in one of the transactions, sellers filed for Chapter 7 in the middle of escrow. Yes, it DID close but it took 153 days and two BK hgs. This was in an era where little was known about SS’s.
To shed some light on why I choose not to work in the RE biz, I am at a point in my life where I don’t feel I need to take a lot of sh!t from people anymore (been there, done that for YEARS). The nature of the beast of this biz is that you often work hard for (often flaky) buyers/sellers for no pay who end up deciding not to purchase or remove their listing after you have spent lots of time and money on them. I need to be paid for what I do …. nothing more/nothing less. To each his own.
I don’t have any respect for people that have bled the “equity” out of their propertie(s) and then “cry wolf” because they can no longer afford to keep them. I have a fundamental problem with lenders not currently adhering to CA nonjudicial foreclosure procedures set up for them to sustain no more than 111 or 141 days of loss. If they all adhered to CA law (like 90% of them did in the past), there would be no need for SS’s because they would sustain far less loss foreclosing and reselling the property.
I lack respect for these “deadbeat wanna-be sellers” because, in the absence of millenium-boom purchasing (where they paid too much for the property with ONE purchase-money TD), their stories are all the same. They took money out of their properties to live on, enhance their lifestyles or for whatever reason and now think they should have a remedy against foreclosure. They should have thought of the ramifications of potential bad credit when they took the money out of the property and/or when they decided to stiff their lender(s).
I don’t buy that it is cheaper for lenders to sell short than foreclose. Those lenders selling short are only doing so after sustaining 9-36 mos of loss whilst the mortgage often resets with deferred interest during the process, making their HUGE losses upon short sale due to their own malaise.
Second and subsequent TD holders have ALWAYS been able to bid at trustee sales and take the first TD note “subject-to” with no qualifying. If they did this early on (in a timely TS scheduled 111 days of default on older loans), they likely would get more than a “few thousand” or 6% of the face value of the remaining balance of their note upon resale. This is because they can (and did) take control of the property after three business days, rent back to the occupant or evict the occupant and fix the property up to sell themselves! This is what they did in the past. This is FAR preferable to getting shafted in a SS. Of course, before MBS, the vast majority of these 2nd TD investors were local.
The non-judicial foreclosure procedure is not being followed in CA and THIS is what led to this slow meltdown/standoff/f-u’d whatever-you-want-to-call-it RE market we have before us today.
And btw, if you were referring to me as one of the “old guard,” I am still licensed but left (P/T) RE sales long before this “millenium boom” debacle set in and have never been a “blonde. ;=]
Signed,
Bearishgurl “Fineprint” Morgan
PS: btw, you can never take away the knowledge of the “old guard.” It is what it is.
