patrick.net

indigenous says

But ALL monopolies come from government intervention, NO exceptions.

Uh, wrong.

Cornelius Vanderbuilt created a monopoly on NYC ferries by simply giving away rides systematically until his competitors died from lack of revenue. Then when they were dead, he would start charging again. He could do that because he had enough wealth.

Microsoft systematically destroyed one profitable business after another (Wordstar, Lotus123, Netscape) by bundling and giving away the product with the OS until the competitor died from lack of revenue. Then Microsoft started charging for Word and Excel.

How was government intervention responsible for those monopolies?

Strategist says

A law requiring all bids to be published after the close of escrow might be easier, because the seller WILL SEE all that he should have been seen. A corrupt listing agent would then need to prove why a double commission was in the interests of the seller in spite of higher offers from other agents.

Or could patrick.net provide this service? If all bidders know about it, they would list their bids here after the sale, and sellers could then look here after the sale and see what the bids really were, not just what some realtor told him the bids were.

It's a chicken and egg thing though. How to get that ball rolling?

How would I contact the bidders who lost to ask them to list their bids here? No one knows their names except corrupt realtors, and that's by design.

But you know, if this got into the press, then the ball would roll by itself. Each corrupt realtor would make a nice news story, and there would be a lot of those.

rando says

Strategist says

A law requiring all bids to be published after the close of escrow might be easier, because the seller WILL SEE all that he should have been seen. A corrupt listing agent would then need to prove why a double commission was in the interests of the seller in spite of higher offers from other agents.

Or could patrick.net provide this service? If all bidders know about it, they would list their bids here after the sale, and sellers could then look here after the sale and see what the bids really were, not just what some realtor told him the bids were.

That is one helluva idea. The Secret Intelligence of all real estate transactions. All those willing, could submit their offers, opinions, and information on every real estate transaction.
People could also submit proof of structural problems that were not disclosed, and anything to hide facts from the buyer, before or after the transaction.
Love it. Love it. Love it. OMG.

rando says

Uh, wrong.

Uh back at ya. You are misinformed.

This is a cut and paste from the Mises institute:

The battle between market and political entrepreneurs was not confined to the railroad and oil industries. Indeed, from the mid-nineteenth century onward, this sort of battle marked the development of much of American industry — the steamship industry, the steel industry, and the auto industry, to name just a few.

For example, the great steamship entrepreneur Cornelius Vanderbilt competed with government-subsidized political entrepreneurs for much of his career. In fact, he got his start in business by competing — illegally — against a state-sanctioned steamship monopoly operated by Robert Fulton. In 1807, the New York state legislature had granted Fulton a legal, thirty-year monopoly on steamboat traffic in New York — a classic example of mercantilism.37 In 1817, however, a young Cornelius Vanderbilt was hired by New Jersey businessman Thomas Gibbons to defy the monopoly and run steamboats in New York. Vanderbilt worked in direct competition with Fulton, charging lower rates as his boats raced from Elizabeth, New Jersey, to New York City; to underscore the challenge to Fulton's monopoly, Vanderbilt flew a flag on his boats that read NEW JERSEY MUST BE FREE. Slowly he was breaking down the Fulton monopoly, which the US Supreme Court finally ended in 1824, ruling in Gibbons v. Ogden that only the federal government, not the states, could regulate interstate trade under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.38

As the cost of steamboat traffic plummeted because of deregulation, the volume of traffic increased significantly and the industry took off. Vanderbilt became the leading market entrepreneur in the industry, but he would continue to face government-subsidized competitors. For example, steamship operator Edward K. Collins convinced Congress that it needed to subsidize the transatlantic steamship business to compete with the Europeans and to create a military fleet in case of war. In 1847 Congress awarded Collins $3 million, plus $385,000 per year. Sitting on these fat subsidies, Collins had little incentive to build his ships efficiently or to watch his costs once they were built. Instead of focusing on making his business more efficient, Collins spent lavishly on lobbying, including wining and dining President Millard Fillmore, his entire cabinet, and many congressmen.39

Like James J. Hill in the railroad industry, Vanderbilt did not shy away from competing against his heavily subsidized rivals. Not surprisingly, these government-supported rivals ultimately could not keep up with Vanderbilt, in large part because the stifling regulations that were inevitably attached to the government subsidies made these steamship lines remarkably inefficient. By 1858, Collins's line had become so inefficient that Congress ended his subsidy, and he promptly went bankrupt. He could not compete with Vanderbilt on an equal basis.

https://mises.org/library/truth-about-robber-barons#4

At the Microsoft monopoly, there was Apple and Linux, i.e. not a monopoly.

Strategist says

That is one helluva idea. The Secret Intelligence of all real estate transactions. All those willing, could submit their offers, opinions, and information on every real estate transaction.
People could also submit proof of structural problems that were not disclosed, and anything to hide facts from the buyer, before or after the transaction.
Love it. Love it. Love it. OMG.

I'm not sure I could let people list offers, because the realtor cartel would call that "practicing real estate without a license" and realtors are the ones in charge of real estate laws, not the people.

But merely publishing facts and opinions seems entirely protected by the First Amendment.

How to get started? If I could just get and republish lists of known property sales, that would be a good start, since people could find a page on my site for each sale via a search engine. I tried to get property sales from San Mateo County about 10 years back, but they would not give them to me, saying I had to come in and write them down one at a time manually, with a pencil that they would provide. Not kidding. Maybe it's easier now.

Better would be to just get a massive list of all known sales for the whole US. Maybe someone provides that for a reasonable cost. Certainly the realtors are highly protective of that info and do not give it away. Nor do any of the big real estate sites like Zillow. Even if they let the public see it, to copy it would violate their "terms of use".

Where can I get the list of sales?

rando says

Strategist says

That is one helluva idea. The Secret Intelligence of all real estate transactions. All those willing, could submit their offers, opinions, and information on every real estate transaction.

People could also submit proof of structural problems that were not disclosed, and anything to hide facts from the buyer, before or after the transaction.

Love it. Love it. Love it. OMG.

I'm not sure I could let people list offers, because the realtor cartel would call that "practicing real estate without a license" and realtors are the ones in charge of real estate laws, not the people.

But merely publishing facts and opinions seems entirely protected by the First Amendment.

How to get started? If I could just get an republish lists of known property sales, that would be a good start, since people could a page on my site for each sale them via a search engine. ...

No one that i have heard of is doing something like this.
Some kind of a blog.
Get the right web name.
Start local.
There is a clear need from the consumers point of view for something like this. I wish I had the inside knowledge and information on every real estate i have purchased.
You will be loved by the consumer and hated by the REALTORS.

Does anyone have a county website that actually lists addresses of recently sold property?

rando says

Does anyone have a county website that actually lists addresses of recently sold property?

SF Chronicle does this every week (at least did at one point). Let me see if I can dig it up

rando says

Does anyone have a county website that actually lists addresses of recently sold property?

http://countyrecordsresearch.com

Strategist says

rando says

Does anyone have a county website that actually lists addresses of recently sold property?

http://countyrecordsresearch.com

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@Ironman do you have any county web page which shows recently sold property addresses?

Strategist says

rando says

Does anyone have a county website that actually lists addresses of recently sold property?

http://countyrecordsresearch.com

That's a commercial service. Not viable for me to use, at least not yet.

But no list of recently sold prices there, right Ironman?

Long ago, a guy at the San Mateo County office in Redwood City told me that I would never find such a list on any county website, because realtors wouldn't like it.

I think he's still right.

No addresses though, right? Only these:

Type GRANTOR GRANTEE Inst. Num Recorded TownName Block Lot Book Page

The "view" link sent me to this page, not to any data:

I suppose the newspapers work well enough for the moment:

http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/homesales/

1283 El Camino Real Burlingame 94010 2/15/2017 $1,480,000
3175 Geneva Avenue Daly City 94014 2/15/2017 $765,000
622 Southgate Avenue Daly City 94015 2/15/2017 $1,127,000
1765 East Bayshore Road #214 East Palo Alto 94303 2/15/2017 $733,000
1049 Shell Boulevard #10 Foster City 94404 2/15/2017 $675,000
1123 Forrestal Lane Foster City 94404 2/15/2017 $1,330,000
1559 Mizzen Lane Half Moon Bay 94019 2/15/2017 $892,000
2140 Santa Cruz Avenue #B210 Menlo Park 94025 2/15/2017 $746,000
933 Hermosa Way Menlo Park 94025 2/15/2017 $3,250,000
60 Linaria Way Portola Valley 94028 2/15/2017 $1,918,500
95 Lerida Court Portola Valley 94028 2/15/2017 $2,400,000
1745 Hull Avenue Redwood City 94061 2/15/2017 $1,500,000
1286 Fernside Street Redwood City 94061 2/15/2017 $1,625,000
961 Cherry Street San Carlos 94070 2/15/2017 $1,130,000
142 Plymouth Avenue San Carlos 94070 2/15/2017 $2,180,000
218 Tilton Avenue #104 San Mateo 94401 2/15/2017 $670,000
383 Hobart Avenue San Mateo 94402 2/15/2017 $2,081,000
22 Parrott Court San Mateo 94402 2/15/2017 $2,505,000
421 Aragon Boulevard San Mateo 94402 2/15/2017 $2,600,000
3550 Carter Drive #27 South San Francisco 94080 2/15/2017 $550,500
12190 Skyline Boulevard Woodside 94062 2/15/2017 $1,674,000
49 Skyline Drive Daly City 94015 2/14/2017 $865,000
1982 West Bayshore Road #230 East Palo Alto 94303 2/14/2017 $620,000
935 Runnymede Street East Palo Alto 94303 2/14/2017 $630,000
1404 Melbourne Street Foster City 94404 2/14/2017 $2,080,000

I picked one of them and started a post about it here:

https://patrick.net/1304355/2017-03-27-who-bid-on-2140-santa-cruz-avenue-b210-menlo-park-94025

Yes, thanks @Ironman that did work. OK, I have an existence proof now that at least one county website does publish recent sale prices.

Most recent one is very interesting. Only $1? I bet this was excluded from comps, lol!

Document Detail

Type:	DEED
File No.:	2017030739
Date/Time:	3/24/2017  10:19:12
Book Type:	O
Book/Page:	16692/68
Pages:	4
Consideration:	$1.00
Legal 1:	6 WEST RAMAPO LANE
Legal 2:	 

Grantors:
ZERVOULIAS DONNA M
NERY DEIDRE A
MICHAEL GILBRIDE IRREVOCABLE TRUST
GILBRIDE MICHAEL IRREVOCABLE TRUST
Grantees:
GILBRIDE MARY

Now it gets interesting: what is the low price cutoff below which realtors won't report the price?

I will post my bid to all overpaying suckers.
10% of LISTING PRICE.
My actual PRIVATE bid 11% of LISTING PRICE,
got to have the SHACK.
ASSHOLES won't know the selling price until after closing & they will realize
the overpaying suckers they have been.

Ironman says

I'd have to check to see when a bank buys the house back at a foreclosure auction for $100 if that actually gets reported.

FMTT! I overpaid at 11%!