patrick.net

I've always wondered why I've never heard "if you and your lovely wife get off the fence and buy now I'll throw in a Ménage e twa. after all, i'm already all 'bimbo'd up'".

George,

Thanks. It is clearly folks like you who have been perhaps most hurt by this runup in RE and the unethical behavior of so many in your industry.

As I posited a couple of threads back, I'd like to see more accountability and professional credibility in RE. That would serve to attract and retain more people like yourself while making it more difficult for the bottom-feeders.

Thanks John, my alternate Sprache ist deutsch, nicht französisch.

I don't know why everyone has such a grudge against the realtors, they are just like the next person who wants to make a living, and if the potential return is high enough, one is likely to steal, lie, kill for it.

The same thing applies to all professions, will you listen to your broker's "advice"? Your financial planner's "advice"? Most of the financial professionals I know have even less grasp of the finaicial market and how things work than me, yet they want to peddle some insurance, option trading or whatever products to me so that they can make their commission. What sets them apart from a realtor?

Always take other people's words with a grain of salt. I never take anyone's words at face value, cycle it through my brain, evaluate what the person stands to gain if I take in his "advice". It always pays to check people's statements against each other, there is no truth of the matter once it comes from the mouth of a stakeholder.

So it really depends on how you use a realtor. If I have a good idea of what I am looking for, I don't mind using them to look for a piece of realty that I am interested or doing some research leg work for a reasonable fee (for example, digging out the seller's financial situation, with proof of course). Why should you listen to their "advice" to begin with?

Bap33 Says:

"What is the difference(s) between an agent and a broker ? (sounds like the start of a good joke, but it’s a real question) Thanks."

A real estate "agent" has to have at least a salespersons license (and work under someone that has a brokers license) .

A broker may refer to themselves as a "real estate agent".

my daughter is 12
the house she is currently living in with me,
is "worth" about 300K
at 20% annual appreciation, 20 years from now,
at 32 (my age when I bought my house)
to buy it off of me, she will have to pay..... drum roll please

9.58 million dollars

retirement's gonna be great. Sorry kiddo.

yeah,
that's gonna happen.

The same thing applies to all professions, will you listen to your broker’s “advice”? Your financial planner’s “advice”? Most of the financial professionals I know have even less grasp of the finaicial market and how things work than me, yet they want to peddle some insurance, option trading or whatever products to me so that they can make their commission. What sets them apart from a realtor?

Those other professionals you refer to are required to have much more serious credentials and licenses than RE "professionals". Although this certainly doesn't ensure their advice is any better, it does constitute a system whereby they have *much* more accountability for their words; and they face some very serious repercussions from lying.

Also, you Owneroccupier are not the typical customer of either RE agents or stockbrokers. Remember that most people can't do algebra, let alone conceptualize the time-value of money.

Randy,

then I think the problem shouldn't be just the realtor business itself (of course I think some regulation revamp should happen there), but we should, as a whole, enhance the knowledge of our community so a 6-pack Joe 20 years down the road will know far more than his counterpart today to defend himself financially.

I don't believe in seeking protection from a government, a church or whatever institution that is considered superior. The most effective protection we can place is through equipping ourselves, through knowledge. The more we know, we learn, the more we can protect ourselves.

With the speed of dispersion of knowledge and information increasing at today's pace, I don't think we are that far off from making everybody a knowledgeable human being in terms of matters that concern them, and only when each individual is comfortable with picking up whatever he wishes with relative ease is he truely free and safe.

As a side note, the public education of this country is really failing its purpose in the last couple of decades, that is a shame. I think personal financial management with basic money concepts should be made comulsory in high school curriculum.

Brokers have more access to financial resources (bank financing, deal structuring skills, contacts to private party investors or buyers) that agents don't usually have. Brokers' worth is in the number and quality of industry players they know to make a deal happen, treat them as a relationship broker. Relationship / networking is something you cannot displace easily.

Agents are practically useless, the realty agent business will evaporate as time goes by when Turbotax-equivalent of realty transaction goes online. Established agents sometimes do have relationships which allow them to act like brokers, new realtor agents are practically as useless as travel agents and they will go extinct very soon.

...in tomorrow’s NYT...

You can read tomorrow's NYT today? 8O

@George & Owneroccupier,

Point taken, but if we don't have Realtors & Boomers to bitch about, then what's left?? ;-) Hey, don't take it so personally --this post is meant to be fun!

Seriously, I salute you --George-- the Last of the Mohicans! Wish there were more of you around. And BTW, while I don't think shady Realtors or the NAR/MLS cartel are what primarily caused the Bubble, it's fair to say they definitely contributed to it. I don't hold anything against honest salesmen of any stripe.

@Peter P,

I don't know about NY, but here in LA you can buy the Sunday Times in any grocery store on Saturday.

Owneroccupier,

I agree with you wholly. However, I am more pessimistic about acheiving those goals when we're heading in exactly the opposite direction today. Like I said, most people can't even do basic algebra. Teaching them command of deductive logic required to understand finances is quite a stretch.

I fear that Joe Sixpack will not be smarter in 20 years; quite the opposite. By then they will have probably either chased out, marginalized, or executed those who dare to actually educated themselves and think rationally.

I don’t know about NY, but here in LA you can buy the Sunday Times in any grocery store on Saturday.

Can I buy the Tuesday Times on Monday? I only want the stocks section.

-educated
+educate

By then they will have probably either chased out, marginalized, or executed those who dare to actually educated themselves and think rationally.

A truly smart person will not oppose anything that he or she should not oppose.