[sdrealtor]

Correct me if I’m wrong but I dont remember big companies coming to SD en mass at any point in time. To my knowledge, SD has been an incubator of start-up companies and has never been home to lots of corporate giants. The successful ones grew big enough to be acquired by an industry giant and typically get consolidated into the parents ops somewhere else. Its been that way as long as I can remember things (i.e. back to the mid-80’s). SD has always attracted entrepreneurs, creative minds and researchers that are drawn to exericising their passion in our beautiful climate/envirnoment.

The big companies that are hear typically have had relatively small satelitte ops here. Outside of Qualcomm, what major employers, I’m talking 5 to 10K employees, have been headquartered in SD in the last 20 years outside of the 2 big defense contractors that disappeared in the early 90’s?

Can someone help shead some light here?

[sdrealtor]

AN
I have no reason to fight it. I do what I do because I enjoy it and it allows me to help people with something very important in their lives. I have plenty of other skills and could do alot of other things if I wanted to.

What you just described is very similar to whats already available just a little more robust data. I don’t believe its on the scale of the the disintermediation that you previously referenced. The problem with what you propose is money. There isn’t enough of it in RE transaction fees to pay everyone you are adding to the mix especially when you are proposing to dramatically reduce the size of the pie. I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, the general public’s perception of the profitability of RE is brokerage is DRAMATICALLY higher than it really is.

[sdrealtor]

As I mentioned, the survey I saw pegged SD at 18%, nowhere close to 40%. Its just too expensive here for that level of investors.

However, that number is irrelevant because as Rich pointed out there was alot of speculation going on regarding the purchase of primary residences. The difference is primary home speculators will fight to keep their homes whereas tru investors have and will bail more easily.

[sdrealtor]

That single source of information already exists.

BTW, I dont think its brain surgery, just wanted to see if I could get anyone to jump on that one 😉

[sdrealtor]

Perry
They angles you are playing sound like you are the type to risk taking adavntage of grey areas. The more you accumulate in the life the more you have to lose. Successful people that want to stay that way learn its not in their best interests to play that way. Sooner or later what comes around goes around.

[sdrealtor]

I love to hear all the comments about how simple it could be. It just shows how naive you are. The MLS is not a public utility it costs alot of money to support and depends on the fees paid by realtors and other members. I would love to see what would happen when you got sued for non-disclosure of an item and had to defend yourself in a court of law or were ready to move and had closed on a new house only to find out that you didnt fill the contract out properly and your buyer just walked with his deposit and you are screwed. If I wrote an offer on your FSBO house I could take your pants off w/o you even knowing it while setting you up to get sued by the buyer down the road. I wouldnt do it but it’s certainly a risk you take. Is it worth it? To some yes, to others no.

How about getting a book on brain surgery and doing it yourself to save a few bucks? The liability involved in the biggest financial transaction of our lives is huge. Why someone would do it themselves w/o proper guidance or hire an incompetent realtor constantly surprises. Sure there are some who are capable of doing it themselves or who just get lucky, but to believe in the disintermediation of Realtors is rather naive in my book. Zillow with $50M of VC money quickly realized they couldnt do it.

[sdrealtor]

When you buy a home you need to disclose whether it is your primary residence. Sure you can lie but that is FRAUD! There is also a title search and a credit report. It’s not that believable to claim you are buying a $300K condo for a primary residence when you live in a beautiful single family home.

[sdrealtor]

Lindismith,
It’s 23% of single family homes and 28% when you look at both single family and condos combined.

PS,
The national numbers are irrlevant as prices are cheaper in other places and speculation much higher. All the stats you point out in SD are areas where speculation far exceeded the mean in SD. Downtown and cheap condo conversion were full of speculation and are the exception. I saw a report for SD (cant remember exactly where) but they put the number of investors/2nd home buyers at 18% in SD overall.

[sdrealtor]

Perhaps they found a greater fool!

The reality is there is a ton of venture capital floating around looking for a home.

[sdrealtor]

Yes the vacancies are significantly higher in condos. I believe this is mainly due to late investors/condo flippers and developers putting inventory in the MLS.

I don’t know the impact either but the percentage of vacanices is nothing to get excited over as its not all that different from what is has been over the last decade. Before that there is no data.

BTW, above you stated that “We know that 30% of homes bought in the last few years were for investment purposes”. How do we know this?

[sdrealtor]

HelpUSell is a franchise company and how many offices they are open is irrelevant. It has more to do with how good they are at selling franchises than houses. Ask your local Subway owner or MailBoxes Etc. owner how much money they are making. It’s not pretty. Most franchise owners buy a job not a business.

For example, I believe the local HelpUSell office in Encinitas has turned over twice in the last couple years.

[sdrealtor]

I just spoke with a manager at one of the largest and most succesful companies in SD. In July, only 1 office out of more than 30 showed a profit! This is a full service company with a Top 3 market share position in SD charging full service commissions. If they arent making money, who is besides a couple of small independents with very low costs.

[sdrealtor]

Your welcome. Sometimes the voice of reason has to step in to bust a bubble;)

[sdrealtor]

Docteur,
Good to have you back on board and I hope you are having a great Summer.

SDR

[sdrealtor]

I wonder if that one low priced house is an attempt to draw people in or if they are selling others at that price? I also wonder if it is in a lousy tough to sell location (i.e. backing up to a busy intersection)? I dont know the answer to these questions nor do i expect to ever drive out there to see. It would be interesting to know.

[Author]

Posts