[urbanrealtor]

Unless you have already paid all funds into escrow (and even then it is hard) you generally cannot be compelled to close escrow.

Hope that cools you off a touch.

However, there is generally a clause about your deposit being kept as liquidated damages and that going away. Usually, that is harder to get back from a new builder than on a standard purchase agreement.

If you have not paid funds in at all yet, then don’t.
If you used a personal check, stop payment now.
If you did not walk away with a copy of what you signed and now it is more than 12 hrs later, the contract may be voidable (though I am not a lawyer, that is how it has been related to me by lawyers).

Good luck.

[urbanrealtor]

Unless you have already paid all funds into escrow (and even then it is hard) you generally cannot be compelled to close escrow.

Hope that cools you off a touch.

However, there is generally a clause about your deposit being kept as liquidated damages and that going away. Usually, that is harder to get back from a new builder than on a standard purchase agreement.

If you have not paid funds in at all yet, then don’t.
If you used a personal check, stop payment now.
If you did not walk away with a copy of what you signed and now it is more than 12 hrs later, the contract may be voidable (though I am not a lawyer, that is how it has been related to me by lawyers).

Good luck.

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=njtosd][quote=urbanrealtor]

I am not sure what would be unethical. No sale price is “ultimate” (this property resold for far more years later). It is our job to consult and give our opinion of market value for a given property in a given area at a given time. Perhaps I don’t understand what you are asking.

[/quote]

I was just wondering whether a realtor making a public estimate (in other words, posted on a website or otherwise made available to the public) about what s/he thinks a property would sell for might have the tendency to (a) influence a buyer or seller; or (b) rile a buyer’s or sellers agent. It just seems like it might interfere with an ongoing business transaction. I wasn’t referring to consultation with clients. Now that I think about it, I guess Zillow does provide their “Zestimates” – but I don’t think they’re terribly reliable.
The point I was trying to get at is this – I wonder how close, on average, the best “estimator” could predict the ultimate sale price of a given house.[/quote]
Given a large enough sample size, a good estimator could give estimates that average within 1-2% of closing (good being the operative word). However, a single property has far more potential to be arbitrary. As far as an ongoing transaction, the seller does not have the right to switch buyers unless a buyer has violated the contract (and even then the mechanisms are structured). The buyer, however, can back out prior to close if he changes his mind (gets cold feet, sobers up, dies…whatever). So if I had shown up (like I got hired to consult) while a DIY was happening and I told the buyer the price was too high, he could say “lower the price or I am walking”. The terms of the contract would determine whether he got his deposit back or not.

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=njtosd][quote=urbanrealtor]

I am not sure what would be unethical. No sale price is “ultimate” (this property resold for far more years later). It is our job to consult and give our opinion of market value for a given property in a given area at a given time. Perhaps I don’t understand what you are asking.

[/quote]

I was just wondering whether a realtor making a public estimate (in other words, posted on a website or otherwise made available to the public) about what s/he thinks a property would sell for might have the tendency to (a) influence a buyer or seller; or (b) rile a buyer’s or sellers agent. It just seems like it might interfere with an ongoing business transaction. I wasn’t referring to consultation with clients. Now that I think about it, I guess Zillow does provide their “Zestimates” – but I don’t think they’re terribly reliable.
The point I was trying to get at is this – I wonder how close, on average, the best “estimator” could predict the ultimate sale price of a given house.[/quote]
Given a large enough sample size, a good estimator could give estimates that average within 1-2% of closing (good being the operative word). However, a single property has far more potential to be arbitrary. As far as an ongoing transaction, the seller does not have the right to switch buyers unless a buyer has violated the contract (and even then the mechanisms are structured). The buyer, however, can back out prior to close if he changes his mind (gets cold feet, sobers up, dies…whatever). So if I had shown up (like I got hired to consult) while a DIY was happening and I told the buyer the price was too high, he could say “lower the price or I am walking”. The terms of the contract would determine whether he got his deposit back or not.

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=njtosd][quote=urbanrealtor]

I am not sure what would be unethical. No sale price is “ultimate” (this property resold for far more years later). It is our job to consult and give our opinion of market value for a given property in a given area at a given time. Perhaps I don’t understand what you are asking.

[/quote]

I was just wondering whether a realtor making a public estimate (in other words, posted on a website or otherwise made available to the public) about what s/he thinks a property would sell for might have the tendency to (a) influence a buyer or seller; or (b) rile a buyer’s or sellers agent. It just seems like it might interfere with an ongoing business transaction. I wasn’t referring to consultation with clients. Now that I think about it, I guess Zillow does provide their “Zestimates” – but I don’t think they’re terribly reliable.
The point I was trying to get at is this – I wonder how close, on average, the best “estimator” could predict the ultimate sale price of a given house.[/quote]
Given a large enough sample size, a good estimator could give estimates that average within 1-2% of closing (good being the operative word). However, a single property has far more potential to be arbitrary. As far as an ongoing transaction, the seller does not have the right to switch buyers unless a buyer has violated the contract (and even then the mechanisms are structured). The buyer, however, can back out prior to close if he changes his mind (gets cold feet, sobers up, dies…whatever). So if I had shown up (like I got hired to consult) while a DIY was happening and I told the buyer the price was too high, he could say “lower the price or I am walking”. The terms of the contract would determine whether he got his deposit back or not.

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=njtosd][quote=urbanrealtor]

I am not sure what would be unethical. No sale price is “ultimate” (this property resold for far more years later). It is our job to consult and give our opinion of market value for a given property in a given area at a given time. Perhaps I don’t understand what you are asking.

[/quote]

I was just wondering whether a realtor making a public estimate (in other words, posted on a website or otherwise made available to the public) about what s/he thinks a property would sell for might have the tendency to (a) influence a buyer or seller; or (b) rile a buyer’s or sellers agent. It just seems like it might interfere with an ongoing business transaction. I wasn’t referring to consultation with clients. Now that I think about it, I guess Zillow does provide their “Zestimates” – but I don’t think they’re terribly reliable.
The point I was trying to get at is this – I wonder how close, on average, the best “estimator” could predict the ultimate sale price of a given house.[/quote]
Given a large enough sample size, a good estimator could give estimates that average within 1-2% of closing (good being the operative word). However, a single property has far more potential to be arbitrary. As far as an ongoing transaction, the seller does not have the right to switch buyers unless a buyer has violated the contract (and even then the mechanisms are structured). The buyer, however, can back out prior to close if he changes his mind (gets cold feet, sobers up, dies…whatever). So if I had shown up (like I got hired to consult) while a DIY was happening and I told the buyer the price was too high, he could say “lower the price or I am walking”. The terms of the contract would determine whether he got his deposit back or not.

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=njtosd][quote=urbanrealtor]

I am not sure what would be unethical. No sale price is “ultimate” (this property resold for far more years later). It is our job to consult and give our opinion of market value for a given property in a given area at a given time. Perhaps I don’t understand what you are asking.

[/quote]

I was just wondering whether a realtor making a public estimate (in other words, posted on a website or otherwise made available to the public) about what s/he thinks a property would sell for might have the tendency to (a) influence a buyer or seller; or (b) rile a buyer’s or sellers agent. It just seems like it might interfere with an ongoing business transaction. I wasn’t referring to consultation with clients. Now that I think about it, I guess Zillow does provide their “Zestimates” – but I don’t think they’re terribly reliable.
The point I was trying to get at is this – I wonder how close, on average, the best “estimator” could predict the ultimate sale price of a given house.[/quote]
Given a large enough sample size, a good estimator could give estimates that average within 1-2% of closing (good being the operative word). However, a single property has far more potential to be arbitrary. As far as an ongoing transaction, the seller does not have the right to switch buyers unless a buyer has violated the contract (and even then the mechanisms are structured). The buyer, however, can back out prior to close if he changes his mind (gets cold feet, sobers up, dies…whatever). So if I had shown up (like I got hired to consult) while a DIY was happening and I told the buyer the price was too high, he could say “lower the price or I am walking”. The terms of the contract would determine whether he got his deposit back or not.

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=drboom][quote=sdrealtor]DRB
You are threadskimming. The guy that bought the house in CM was unrepresented and claimed he got a great deal.[/quote]

Good catch, mea culpa. Cold medicine suppresses more than coughs.

But my objection still stands:

[quote](summing up the mid-2003 RB deal) It was my observation, when running the numbers that the buyer had overpaid by a few percent but that this did not qualify as “getting screwed”.[/quote]

How is overpaying by a few percent at a historic high not “getting screwed”? As a high-risk speculative play, it might have worked out great if the buyer was looking to flip the joint a year or two later. Is that our measure of a good deal around here–some kind of real estate day trading?

This relates directly to the issue of whether an agent saves buyers money: if an agent says something is a “good deal”, as the Clairemont house would have apparently been if it was 5% cheaper, what exactly is the agent saying? Any salesperson’s motivation is to close deals, period. I don’t begrudge someone making a living, but it’s clear that consumers’ and agents’ interests aren’t naturally aligned.[/quote]

Boom:
You are still thread skimming.
It was not the RB deal.
It was the CM deal.
Anyhoo, unless the major distinction of a “good deal” is the year they are bought in (as you appear to be suggesting) the fundamentals are there for it not being a bad deal.
If the argument is that there were no good deals between 2002 and 2007, then I don’t think you will have a lot of disagreement on this board.
That being said, the most accurate predictor of home prices historically is per capita income (except between 2004-2008).
Generally median home price vacillates in relatively short cyclical trends around long term secular income megatrends.
Generally, home prices are 7-10 times per capita income depending on demand.
Mid 2003 the price coefficient was 8.5 or 9 in San Diego (pretty middle of the road).
It was not until a year later that home prices started to become broadly decoupled from income fundamentals.
In short, 2003 was not a crazy year except in hindsight.
If weird lending and syndication innovations had not started kicking in right then, we would probably have considered that year as pretty ho-hum.
If one is looking for more nominally clear signals, here is one:
The same house would go for the same nominal price now.
Still about $400k.
The DIY in question sold it in mid-late 2005 for more than 500 btw.

To your point about aligned motivations:
In many ways the position of any agent or broker (or service provider of any kind) is somewhat misaligned with that of their client.
Any service provider is exchanging service for money.
In our case, we advise people regarding market strategy.
This includes whether or not some transaction favors whichever side we are tasked with helping.
However, markets are bounded in 4 dimensions.
I cannot tell you what a property will be worth in the future.
I can only show you the past info and give you my analysis of it and tell you if this deal looks good at a relative level right now.

It looked okay but not great.
There was no “getting screwed” in evidence.
The only missteps were:
-not predicting the bank strategies of late 2003 (the year before piggington was founded)
-not consulting a buyers agent (but that part is just my opinion)

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=drboom][quote=sdrealtor]DRB
You are threadskimming. The guy that bought the house in CM was unrepresented and claimed he got a great deal.[/quote]

Good catch, mea culpa. Cold medicine suppresses more than coughs.

But my objection still stands:

[quote](summing up the mid-2003 RB deal) It was my observation, when running the numbers that the buyer had overpaid by a few percent but that this did not qualify as “getting screwed”.[/quote]

How is overpaying by a few percent at a historic high not “getting screwed”? As a high-risk speculative play, it might have worked out great if the buyer was looking to flip the joint a year or two later. Is that our measure of a good deal around here–some kind of real estate day trading?

This relates directly to the issue of whether an agent saves buyers money: if an agent says something is a “good deal”, as the Clairemont house would have apparently been if it was 5% cheaper, what exactly is the agent saying? Any salesperson’s motivation is to close deals, period. I don’t begrudge someone making a living, but it’s clear that consumers’ and agents’ interests aren’t naturally aligned.[/quote]

Boom:
You are still thread skimming.
It was not the RB deal.
It was the CM deal.
Anyhoo, unless the major distinction of a “good deal” is the year they are bought in (as you appear to be suggesting) the fundamentals are there for it not being a bad deal.
If the argument is that there were no good deals between 2002 and 2007, then I don’t think you will have a lot of disagreement on this board.
That being said, the most accurate predictor of home prices historically is per capita income (except between 2004-2008).
Generally median home price vacillates in relatively short cyclical trends around long term secular income megatrends.
Generally, home prices are 7-10 times per capita income depending on demand.
Mid 2003 the price coefficient was 8.5 or 9 in San Diego (pretty middle of the road).
It was not until a year later that home prices started to become broadly decoupled from income fundamentals.
In short, 2003 was not a crazy year except in hindsight.
If weird lending and syndication innovations had not started kicking in right then, we would probably have considered that year as pretty ho-hum.
If one is looking for more nominally clear signals, here is one:
The same house would go for the same nominal price now.
Still about $400k.
The DIY in question sold it in mid-late 2005 for more than 500 btw.

To your point about aligned motivations:
In many ways the position of any agent or broker (or service provider of any kind) is somewhat misaligned with that of their client.
Any service provider is exchanging service for money.
In our case, we advise people regarding market strategy.
This includes whether or not some transaction favors whichever side we are tasked with helping.
However, markets are bounded in 4 dimensions.
I cannot tell you what a property will be worth in the future.
I can only show you the past info and give you my analysis of it and tell you if this deal looks good at a relative level right now.

It looked okay but not great.
There was no “getting screwed” in evidence.
The only missteps were:
-not predicting the bank strategies of late 2003 (the year before piggington was founded)
-not consulting a buyers agent (but that part is just my opinion)

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=drboom][quote=sdrealtor]DRB
You are threadskimming. The guy that bought the house in CM was unrepresented and claimed he got a great deal.[/quote]

Good catch, mea culpa. Cold medicine suppresses more than coughs.

But my objection still stands:

[quote](summing up the mid-2003 RB deal) It was my observation, when running the numbers that the buyer had overpaid by a few percent but that this did not qualify as “getting screwed”.[/quote]

How is overpaying by a few percent at a historic high not “getting screwed”? As a high-risk speculative play, it might have worked out great if the buyer was looking to flip the joint a year or two later. Is that our measure of a good deal around here–some kind of real estate day trading?

This relates directly to the issue of whether an agent saves buyers money: if an agent says something is a “good deal”, as the Clairemont house would have apparently been if it was 5% cheaper, what exactly is the agent saying? Any salesperson’s motivation is to close deals, period. I don’t begrudge someone making a living, but it’s clear that consumers’ and agents’ interests aren’t naturally aligned.[/quote]

Boom:
You are still thread skimming.
It was not the RB deal.
It was the CM deal.
Anyhoo, unless the major distinction of a “good deal” is the year they are bought in (as you appear to be suggesting) the fundamentals are there for it not being a bad deal.
If the argument is that there were no good deals between 2002 and 2007, then I don’t think you will have a lot of disagreement on this board.
That being said, the most accurate predictor of home prices historically is per capita income (except between 2004-2008).
Generally median home price vacillates in relatively short cyclical trends around long term secular income megatrends.
Generally, home prices are 7-10 times per capita income depending on demand.
Mid 2003 the price coefficient was 8.5 or 9 in San Diego (pretty middle of the road).
It was not until a year later that home prices started to become broadly decoupled from income fundamentals.
In short, 2003 was not a crazy year except in hindsight.
If weird lending and syndication innovations had not started kicking in right then, we would probably have considered that year as pretty ho-hum.
If one is looking for more nominally clear signals, here is one:
The same house would go for the same nominal price now.
Still about $400k.
The DIY in question sold it in mid-late 2005 for more than 500 btw.

To your point about aligned motivations:
In many ways the position of any agent or broker (or service provider of any kind) is somewhat misaligned with that of their client.
Any service provider is exchanging service for money.
In our case, we advise people regarding market strategy.
This includes whether or not some transaction favors whichever side we are tasked with helping.
However, markets are bounded in 4 dimensions.
I cannot tell you what a property will be worth in the future.
I can only show you the past info and give you my analysis of it and tell you if this deal looks good at a relative level right now.

It looked okay but not great.
There was no “getting screwed” in evidence.
The only missteps were:
-not predicting the bank strategies of late 2003 (the year before piggington was founded)
-not consulting a buyers agent (but that part is just my opinion)

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=drboom][quote=sdrealtor]DRB
You are threadskimming. The guy that bought the house in CM was unrepresented and claimed he got a great deal.[/quote]

Good catch, mea culpa. Cold medicine suppresses more than coughs.

But my objection still stands:

[quote](summing up the mid-2003 RB deal) It was my observation, when running the numbers that the buyer had overpaid by a few percent but that this did not qualify as “getting screwed”.[/quote]

How is overpaying by a few percent at a historic high not “getting screwed”? As a high-risk speculative play, it might have worked out great if the buyer was looking to flip the joint a year or two later. Is that our measure of a good deal around here–some kind of real estate day trading?

This relates directly to the issue of whether an agent saves buyers money: if an agent says something is a “good deal”, as the Clairemont house would have apparently been if it was 5% cheaper, what exactly is the agent saying? Any salesperson’s motivation is to close deals, period. I don’t begrudge someone making a living, but it’s clear that consumers’ and agents’ interests aren’t naturally aligned.[/quote]

Boom:
You are still thread skimming.
It was not the RB deal.
It was the CM deal.
Anyhoo, unless the major distinction of a “good deal” is the year they are bought in (as you appear to be suggesting) the fundamentals are there for it not being a bad deal.
If the argument is that there were no good deals between 2002 and 2007, then I don’t think you will have a lot of disagreement on this board.
That being said, the most accurate predictor of home prices historically is per capita income (except between 2004-2008).
Generally median home price vacillates in relatively short cyclical trends around long term secular income megatrends.
Generally, home prices are 7-10 times per capita income depending on demand.
Mid 2003 the price coefficient was 8.5 or 9 in San Diego (pretty middle of the road).
It was not until a year later that home prices started to become broadly decoupled from income fundamentals.
In short, 2003 was not a crazy year except in hindsight.
If weird lending and syndication innovations had not started kicking in right then, we would probably have considered that year as pretty ho-hum.
If one is looking for more nominally clear signals, here is one:
The same house would go for the same nominal price now.
Still about $400k.
The DIY in question sold it in mid-late 2005 for more than 500 btw.

To your point about aligned motivations:
In many ways the position of any agent or broker (or service provider of any kind) is somewhat misaligned with that of their client.
Any service provider is exchanging service for money.
In our case, we advise people regarding market strategy.
This includes whether or not some transaction favors whichever side we are tasked with helping.
However, markets are bounded in 4 dimensions.
I cannot tell you what a property will be worth in the future.
I can only show you the past info and give you my analysis of it and tell you if this deal looks good at a relative level right now.

It looked okay but not great.
There was no “getting screwed” in evidence.
The only missteps were:
-not predicting the bank strategies of late 2003 (the year before piggington was founded)
-not consulting a buyers agent (but that part is just my opinion)

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=drboom][quote=sdrealtor]DRB
You are threadskimming. The guy that bought the house in CM was unrepresented and claimed he got a great deal.[/quote]

Good catch, mea culpa. Cold medicine suppresses more than coughs.

But my objection still stands:

[quote](summing up the mid-2003 RB deal) It was my observation, when running the numbers that the buyer had overpaid by a few percent but that this did not qualify as “getting screwed”.[/quote]

How is overpaying by a few percent at a historic high not “getting screwed”? As a high-risk speculative play, it might have worked out great if the buyer was looking to flip the joint a year or two later. Is that our measure of a good deal around here–some kind of real estate day trading?

This relates directly to the issue of whether an agent saves buyers money: if an agent says something is a “good deal”, as the Clairemont house would have apparently been if it was 5% cheaper, what exactly is the agent saying? Any salesperson’s motivation is to close deals, period. I don’t begrudge someone making a living, but it’s clear that consumers’ and agents’ interests aren’t naturally aligned.[/quote]

Boom:
You are still thread skimming.
It was not the RB deal.
It was the CM deal.
Anyhoo, unless the major distinction of a “good deal” is the year they are bought in (as you appear to be suggesting) the fundamentals are there for it not being a bad deal.
If the argument is that there were no good deals between 2002 and 2007, then I don’t think you will have a lot of disagreement on this board.
That being said, the most accurate predictor of home prices historically is per capita income (except between 2004-2008).
Generally median home price vacillates in relatively short cyclical trends around long term secular income megatrends.
Generally, home prices are 7-10 times per capita income depending on demand.
Mid 2003 the price coefficient was 8.5 or 9 in San Diego (pretty middle of the road).
It was not until a year later that home prices started to become broadly decoupled from income fundamentals.
In short, 2003 was not a crazy year except in hindsight.
If weird lending and syndication innovations had not started kicking in right then, we would probably have considered that year as pretty ho-hum.
If one is looking for more nominally clear signals, here is one:
The same house would go for the same nominal price now.
Still about $400k.
The DIY in question sold it in mid-late 2005 for more than 500 btw.

To your point about aligned motivations:
In many ways the position of any agent or broker (or service provider of any kind) is somewhat misaligned with that of their client.
Any service provider is exchanging service for money.
In our case, we advise people regarding market strategy.
This includes whether or not some transaction favors whichever side we are tasked with helping.
However, markets are bounded in 4 dimensions.
I cannot tell you what a property will be worth in the future.
I can only show you the past info and give you my analysis of it and tell you if this deal looks good at a relative level right now.

It looked okay but not great.
There was no “getting screwed” in evidence.
The only missteps were:
-not predicting the bank strategies of late 2003 (the year before piggington was founded)
-not consulting a buyers agent (but that part is just my opinion)

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=Arraya][quote=urbanrealtor]

My questions is this:
Since we don’t currently have a gold or silver standard, what is the importance of gold in long term government storage?

I am not arguing. Its a serious question and I would like to hear actual views on it.[/quote]

Well, it’s kind of a silly question. It’s like saying since I am not currently in Europe, what does it matter if my suitcase full of Euros is still in my safety deposit box.

RP is just anticipating a forced relocation to Europe and wants to know what we are working with[/quote]

No.
I go to Europe a lot so that would matter to me more.
This is a bit…more…disconnected from me.
But to recap, the concern is that we will need the gold shortly?
What would be the circumstances for needing it?

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=Arraya][quote=urbanrealtor]

My questions is this:
Since we don’t currently have a gold or silver standard, what is the importance of gold in long term government storage?

I am not arguing. Its a serious question and I would like to hear actual views on it.[/quote]

Well, it’s kind of a silly question. It’s like saying since I am not currently in Europe, what does it matter if my suitcase full of Euros is still in my safety deposit box.

RP is just anticipating a forced relocation to Europe and wants to know what we are working with[/quote]

No.
I go to Europe a lot so that would matter to me more.
This is a bit…more…disconnected from me.
But to recap, the concern is that we will need the gold shortly?
What would be the circumstances for needing it?

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=Arraya][quote=urbanrealtor]

My questions is this:
Since we don’t currently have a gold or silver standard, what is the importance of gold in long term government storage?

I am not arguing. Its a serious question and I would like to hear actual views on it.[/quote]

Well, it’s kind of a silly question. It’s like saying since I am not currently in Europe, what does it matter if my suitcase full of Euros is still in my safety deposit box.

RP is just anticipating a forced relocation to Europe and wants to know what we are working with[/quote]

No.
I go to Europe a lot so that would matter to me more.
This is a bit…more…disconnected from me.
But to recap, the concern is that we will need the gold shortly?
What would be the circumstances for needing it?

[Author]

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