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April 12, 2006 at 6:25 AM in reply to: The Gold Flush has begun!!! A sampling of downtown condo market: #24160
Farls
ParticipantPowayseller, since you are friends with Bob maybe you could do us a favor? (…and I’m 100% serious when I say this….and I’m through discussing how many properties Bob does or doesn’t sell.) Obviously Bob is very smart and very thorough. Maybe you could ask him to make an itemized list of what he does from start to finish with a client to help him or her buy or sell a home that you could post here? The point I think this would make is…if he got really specific with it…it would probably be 100 items long. Realtors (and not just Bob C.) do a ton of work that people either don’t know about or don’t understand. The time and effort involved in a typical transaction is quite extensive…. Plus, we’re not counting the time and effort put in with people who are just looky-loo’s who never buy anything. It’s so easy for people to bash Realtors as car salesmen on this site when I really don’t think that’s very accurate.
Most Realtor’s also don’t get paid just for going to the office. (Unlike many cushy salaried jobs where daily production doesn’t really matter.) They are Independent Contractors…with no salary and no benefits…and typically a higher tax liability from the “Self-Employment” tax….Also, the actual amount of money that goes to the Realtor is much different than the total commission amount, (taking into account broker split and other expenses)..By the time it gets to the agent it’s been sliced and diced like a Benihana dinner…
Plus…..I’m sure some people take Bob’s (or any other good Realtor’s) sales and market data that he gives them…Then when they’re realy to finally do the deal…They list with Help-U-Sell because it’s cheaper….or buy through the place that gives a 75% rebate….
Other tid-bits:
-Just because a Realtor may sell a lot of homes does not make him/her a car salesman. It probably means he/she is good at their job…and their past clients come back to them.
-Someone said “If I had a choice I wouldn’t use a buyer’s agent”. Well, you do have a choice. You can always pick your own agent or choose not to use one at all. If something goes wrong during or after the transaction you have no one to blame but yourself.
– If being a Realtor is such an easy and profitable job then I challenge any of you to quit your job…and become a Realtor. 80% of agents don’t make it through their first 18 months.
-Discount brokerages have been around for a long time….They’ll get their chunk of the business. But so will the large, traditional companies. Plus, if you list your home with a discount brokerage..and it sells…Did you net more money over a higher fee listing agent? The answer is…you’ll never know. Because the other listing agent may have negotiated a higher selling price..All you’ll know for sure is you paid less to sell it…
ok…sorry for the rambling…
Farls
ParticipantWrong link…Can you check it again? Thanks Powayseller.
Farls
ParticipantI’m sure Bob is a great guy and his article was well written and informative.
How will he be a survivor in the industry if he never makes any sales? As the market gets slower the agents doing the deals will survive…The others will go back to their old jobs.
ParticipantI’m interested to see if this company will be successful. We’ll see….I don’t think the 2/3 figure from NAR is accurate. (Wow..what a surprise..inaccurate info from NAR.) But buyers certainly do a lot of searching on their own…and there will be some demand for a service like this..
From looking at their job posting……Their real estate agents will make just enough money to be renters in San Diego.
Nice find Powayseller. Keep up the good work.
ParticipantRealtor vs. Car Salesman
(In fairness….and full disclosure…I was a Realtor in San Diego from 1999-2005 and happily left San Diego to live in Asia last August. I was involved in around 100 real estate transactions mostly of condos and entry-level houses. I’m a bubble believer and even used Rich’s data on my marketing materials. Towards the end of my real estate career I worked mainly with sellers who thought it was a good time to “cash out” or buyers who planned on owning the same house for a long time and locked a long-term interest rate. I could sleep at night with a clear conscience the way I dealt with my clients and never promised a constant appreciation in home value).
Jim,
Can you please expand on your saying that “The only difference between a used car salesman and a real estate agent is the number of payments”. What are the specific similarities?I’ve read your previous posts and obviously you’re a smart guy. But this is just a dumb statement by you. Especially for someone with a real estate license. (Do you really need the support of “Herd Menatlity” or “Misery Loves Company” people to back up your statement?) Have you ever done a real estate deal as an agent for a client? I’ll bet it took a lot more work than the work of a car salesman….
As far as Mr. Casagrand’s report……Great, we agree he put out a report that was well thought out and had some good data. He should stick to writing articles rather than trying to list and sell real estate because he obviously isn’t very good at that even with all his impressive credentials…..With all this data and powerful knowledge he still could do plenty of deals with a healthy conscience.
A few other tid-bits:
SDRealtor: I appreciate your posts….although I’m getting a little dizzy with the Carlsbad zip code ones…….But I think you did an excellent job on showing the Realtor bashers the things that a good Realtor does to get homes sold…and the questions potential sellers should be asking Realtors before they hire one…I also loved the research on “Top-Producer” Mr. Casagrand.Powayseller: I love your posts…Sometimes a little too much Realtor bashing….Maybe in the interest of full disclosure we should change your name to Poway(SchoolDistrict) Seller..haha just kidding. I’m concerned about the US dollar (as it’s slid 10% here in The Philippines in just the last few months)…and I don’t think A Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac collapse is out of the question either…We’ll watch and see…
A few other things:
Not all Realtors are good at what they do…
Not all real estate agents are Realtors…
Being a real estate agent is a much more difficult profession than most people think.
Even though I earned gross commissions in 2005 of over $175,000 I was happy to leave the business…Sorry for the rambling….
Farls
ParticipantWow….I actually know Rima as she used to work at an office in Carmel Mountain Ranch. She is in no position to be writing real estate articles. First of all, she’s new (maybe 2 years)in the business and I’m not sure if she’s even sold 10 homes in her career. She is certainly not an expert. She’s not from the U.S…and English is not her first language…so I’m not surprised of the grammatical errors…This further illustrates a major problem faced by the real estate industry…It’s way too easy for people to get a license and become “experts” overnight….thus ruining the credibility of the good, smart agents. (Yes….even though people like to rip all Realtors here in these forums…there are some good ones…But they’re outnumbered 20-1 by the slugs). The bubble will take care of most of the really crappy agents and part-timers….and the exodus of them from the business actually started a year ago..But until then the public still gets too much info telling them that the market is still great and real estate in San Diego will never decrease in value….
By the way, Powayseller…I like your posts…always informative…keep them coming…
ParticipantThe condo market stalled a long time ago. I was a pretty good Realtor in San Diego for the past 7 years and specialized in resale condos. I left the business last August and now am semi-retired in Asia.
All this talk about condos increasing in value in the last year is B.S..
A few examples:
I had a client whose property I sold a year ago in a good complex on the 56 corridor. He bought it a year before in the frenzy with 100% financing…Then a year later he decided to move out of the country and sell.We sold it for $15K less than what he bought it for…When you add commission and closing costs he lost $30K on the deal. Luckily he had profit from selling another property to complete the deal or his only other option would have been to give it back to the lender.A downtown example:
I had a client who bought pre-construction at Park Place for $440K (only $50K deposit)in 2001…when it was completed in 2003 we put it on the market and sold it in 1 week for $650K…Things were good. He was so happy with the results he bought another pre-construction condo from the same builder in 2003 for $880K in The Grande (Now deposit required was $150K)…It was finished in 2005 and put back on the market immediately…Sold for $959K…When you factor in commissions and closing costs on both the purchase and the sale he barely made $30,000….and He’s lucky to have sold at that time. It wouldn’t sell for that much right now…and the HOA was I think over $800/month…not to mention the mortgage payment if he had to carry it any more months unsold……In a nutshell, downtown flippers made a lot of money a few years ago..but now these speculators would be lucky to get their money back..and as the downtown inventories continue to grow, prices will come down more…Sorry for the rambling……I just wanted to let people know that these things were really happening a long time ago but somehow the media tries to paint a rosy picture…
Farls
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