patrick.net

Well you know its weird when the media covers a bridge blocking fairytale for 2 months, and then covers the invasion of a sovereign country for 2 weeks.

I'm married to the best man on earth and he never does anything but support my crazy ideas, so the last part, no, not personally. ;-)

My university just hosted the His Holiness the Dali lama. The Dali lama spoke about the ways we could bring ethics back to business, and the duty of each individual to boycott businesses that deal in slavery, child servitude and environmental pollution. It was a wonderful talk. Maybe someone recorded it? I think you would really enjoy his positive outlook and his many solutions to help cure the business world.

I will find out if it was recorded and post the link.

hrhjuliet says

Why do the sellers have to use MLS. Hey technical patrick.net people, create a new listing service. Charge a small fee to list and make it mega user friendly. Lawyers and paralegals could advertise their services the way real estate agents do. patrick should do it. We would all help, right?

there are many fsbo sites already, but realtors use fear, uncertainty, and doubt to get sellers to use them. classic fear line: "the biggest financial decision you'll ever make..."

sellers also figure that they can perhaps also benefit from the dishonesty of realtor games.

a big problem with fsbo sites: they generally don't share listings with each other, so the total number of properties on them is small. they are all afraid of being made irrelevant by sharing, and so they make themselves irrelevant by not sharing. ironic.

but if could find some compelling alternative system that i thought most sellers would use, i'd definite work on it.

The ones who make a sound like flushing toilet and ask for more.

Gees, what finishing school did you go to?

Not enough choices. :)

Sad, but true. :-(

I do believe moral businesses will find our way back into our world, we just have to help foster them, and boycott the wrong doers.

The nice thing about Owners Realty, Inc, is you can utilize Zillow and all the rest. Your listing will be treated just the same as the realtors.

Too many involved. Someone will take a plea bargain.

FSBO is the only way.

There is absolutely no need to pay someone 6% to provide a form you can download yourself or buy at an office supply. If there's a question, see a RE attorney. Always go through a title company (required if there's a loan involved).

The interwebs are awesome for marketing. Before that, there was the newspaper.

there are many fsbo sites already, but realtors use fear, uncertainty, and doubt to get sellers to use them. classic fear line: "the biggest financial decision you'll ever make..."

It is not a case of "fear" etc that prevents people from using FSBO sites, rather that the FSBO sites solve the wrong problem. We do not need a site that sellers want to use, we need a site that BUYERS want to use.

Unfortunately, too few serious buyers use FSBO sites. But using a FSBO site will attract lookie loos, unrealistic bargain hunters, and realtors hustling listings. Same with newspaper ads.

elliemae says

There is absolutely no need to pay someone 6% to provide a form you can download yourself or buy at an office supply.

The need for a realtor has nothing do to with the seller's ability to "download a contract" or any other incidental to the sale. If a seller can find a buyer, then the seller does not need a realtor. ALL A REALTOR DOES IS FIND A BUYER. Don't be confused because the realtor supplies a listing contract and a sales contract. These contracts are mainly to protect the realtor's interest.

That's why it's best to go through a group that lists through MLS, until someone creates a MLS that is made for owners AND sellers. For now it's actually VERY simple. Pay $295 to be listed on MLS through http://www.homeownersrealty.com/system/login.aspx?redir=&msg=You+must+have+paid+access+to+use+this+feature.
There are other sites like this.

Host a few open houses (your open house dates and times show up on Zillow this way just like anyone else) and take some great pictures. Leave a contact number or email, done.

Find a seller, use a title company or lawyer. Pay about $300 for that. Done.

Naturally, the real estate agents want you to think it's harder than that. It's not.

I guess the cheap money at super low rates are not attractive any more. :)

Bigger and less risky adventures is my guess.

They will leave as fast as they came if they can find something more lucrative.

HeadSet says

ALL A REALTOR DOES IS FIND A BUYER.

If this is the case then it sounds like the internet should be able to make them obsolete.

Analyzer says

HeadSet says

ALL A REALTOR DOES IS FIND A BUYER.

If this is the case then it sounds like the internet should be able to make them obsolete.

Should, and it eventually will. It's only a matter of time, and changing the rigid mindset that the NAR has implanted.

hrhjuliet says

Sad, but true. :-(

I do believe moral businesses will find our way back into our world, we just have to help foster them, and boycott the wrong doers.

I do hope you are right, but I doubt it'll happen. When a group of people, who make their money by beating working class into poverty, get into power.... they'll screw the working class more and more. And our politics are a one way street, money wins, and money has been winning for years.

I think in next 20 years, working people are no longer going to be in the "middle class", and there will be a widespread senior poverty too. Constant outsourcing, constant reduction of wages in private sector and reduction of benefits. It's not rocket science, we are going down to the bottom.

I still remember when you could have a good life by just having a job, that's no longer the case already. And it's only getting worse every year.

The Chinese are the real second wave.

Here's the heirarchy:

1. Institutional investors
2. China
3. India
4. Sub-Prime Resurgence
5. Correction, then repeat from 1

Repeat from 1.

The only losers are the sub-prime borrowers, and, not coincidentally, they're the only ones on the list that don't buy with all-cash.

Analyzer says

HeadSet says

ALL A REALTOR DOES IS FIND A BUYER.

If this is the case then it sounds like the internet should be able to make them obsolete.

You would think so, but buyers are a long way from buying houses off of "Craig's List" type sites, no matter how enhanced.

Just think of how TurboTax and the like did not make tax accountants obsolete for personal taxes. Even folks with relatively simple tax calculations are uncomfortable without professional help. The same mentality applies to the vast majority of home buyers - they want someone to walk then through.

No matter how many listing sites you can conjure up to appeal to sellers, they are useless unless buyers will actually use the sites to contact sellers and purchase the home.

Since I do not see Buyer's Agents going away, I would like to see a system where the seller pays a flat fee to list, and the buyer pays out of pocket for the Buyer Agent services. But then, some sellers would offer to "rebate the Buyer's Agent cost," and we would be right back where we started.

We do have the power to make a difference. It's a hard for a lot of people to believe we can help, and in some cases it seems too hard of a choice to help. A lot of people are too caught up in affluenza to make the choice to buy less and make an effort to not buy from unethical businesses or nations. Others find it too hard to do the research because too often they are stressed and tired. That's why I suggest starting with a few truly evil corporations and slowly add to the list as each person feels ready.

I would start with ExxonMobil, Monsanto, Nestle and Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International (a.k.a. The Altria Group Inc.)

Start with those, since it's honestly the equivalent of supporting Mordor.

Move on to Chevron, Pfizer and Walmart.

Take it one step at a time if it's hard, but please try, and please start today.

exfatguy says

The only losers are the sub-prime borrowers

Nope. Taxpayers are the losers, not banks either.

Call it Crazy says

Analyzer says

HeadSet says

ALL A REALTOR DOES IS FIND A BUYER.

If this is the case then it sounds like the internet should be able to make them obsolete.

hrhjuliet says

It's only a matter of time, and changing the rigid mindset that the NAR has implanted.

That's the issue... Even though most people find their new houses looking on the Internet, they are STILL brainwashed in thinking they need a realtor to "push the papers"...

Until Critical Thinking skills are used, the "sheep" will continue to follow the herd, and pay 6% commissions....

It's not common knowledge that this can easily be covered by a lawyer or title company, but it can easily become common knowledge through social media and blogging. That's why it's only a matter of time. The NRA is a union that can only do so much to stop the power of knowledge.

HeadSet says

Just think of how TurboTax and the like did not make tax accountants obsolete
for personal taxes. Even folks with relatively simple tax calculations are
uncomfortable without professional help. The same mentality applies to the vast
majority of home buyers - they want someone to walk then through.

I suspect this is mostly due to the older generation and is now changing quite rapidly.

http://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/2010/03/07/why-software-is-winning-the-tax-prep-wars/

HeadSet says

Since I do not see Buyer's Agents going away, I would like to see a system
where the seller pays a flat fee to list, and the buyer pays out of pocket for
the Buyer Agent services. But then, some sellers would offer to "rebate the
Buyer's Agent cost," and we would be right back where we started.

The last couple of times I shopped for a house I used a buyer agent and basically came up with all the listings I wanted to see by myself. The only thing the agent really helped me with was opening the lock box..................

Call it Crazy says

But NAR would NEVER let that happen....

NAR is not the problem, nothing requires anyone to use a realtor.

Although all a realtor does for the seller is find a buyer, look at it from the buyer's point of view. The buyer is making a large financial transaction in a field the buyer knows little about. Pricing, contacts, inspections, appraisals, loan apps, titles, contingencies, and even basic home research are daunting to someone who has no experience in home buying. There is also a trust issue, since the buyer thinks he may be too ignorant about houses to prevent getting "ripped off" It is not "brainwashed sheeple" that may want assistance here, but just an average Joe who does not have the ability or time to become a home buying pro.

Why do we still have Used Car Dealers? With the internet, why not all buy from private sellers?

Why (and I do not know why) do we still have people pay so much for Word and Excel when LibreOffice is available? Unless one uses VBA, LibreOffice does everything these two products do, sometimes more. Same for Photoshop vs GIMP, Illustrator vs Inkscape, and so on.

Comfort level.

jojo says

control point says

Jojo, quick question:

Do you own real estate?

Yes.

Hardly quick, but follow up question then - Is it for sale? And if not, why not?

I see. You don't really believe yourself.

jojo says

What do you mean?

A rational player in a free market acts in a way that best suits himself. (or the way he believes best suits himself)

Either you are irrational or you don't really believe what you say in regards to real estate prices.

You don't seem insane, so....

jojo says

What about you?

I own, I am holding, and I don't believe real estate prices will decline. If I did, I would be selling.

jojo says

I am not a real estate speculator and when taking the time, energy, and fees
of the transactions into account that does not make sense for me (a 1031
exchange might). I have a portfolio; RE is just one part of it.

You have lost transaction fees the moment you purchased the real estate - you should not avoid selling based on fear of fees incurred. Transaction fees are incurred on purchase, only not realized (as with gains or losses) until sale.

Transaction fees should have been factored when purchasing, not selling. That is, when doing a rent vs. buy analysis - you should have added transaction fees into cost of ownership.

jojo says

I look at real estate like buying a variable annuity. The day to day
fluctuations market values do not affect my cash flows. If prices dip then I
look to buy, otherwise I hold what I already own.

You do not understand risk, return, or opportunity cost then.

You cash flows would be unaffected by 10x increase in asset value - would you look to sell then?

jojo says

You also fail to take into account the opportunity cost of my time; this is is
different for everyone. I make more money doing what I do than spending time
trying to time the RE market and scalp a few points in one direction or the
other.

You generate income every waking second? You should like consultants I interview that are applying for full time positions.

"My billing rate is $200 per hour, I won't accept total comp less than that, including benefits." Great - and you bill 25 hours per week. I'm paying you for 40.

jojo says

You are right. And if I never sell I will never realize those fees.

Someone will realize those fees. Your estate. Your children's estates. Yor children's children estates. Someone.

jojo says

But within reasonable market ranges its not worth my time.

How much money do you make posting to p.net?

Why would I shit into a running blender?

HeadSet says

You would have needed an attorney or title company to "do the title" whether you had an real estate agent or not.

Yes and No.

I shouldn't NEED one, but unfortunately I do.
People are still liable for previous liens, levies, fines and back taxes.

They do the investigative work to get a clean bonded stamp, and title insurance. They will also go over your mortgage to let you know of any verbiage in it, that you should pay very close attention to.

Their take on my mortgage at the time I got it, was they've never seen one so lopsidedly lean toward the buyer in every almost every classic way that they normally inform the buyer. But at the time I bought, the nation was in the middle of Mortgage volume identity crisis, and the Law makers when they were working the FHA laws and tweaking them in real time by the minute. I got 7 GFE, while at the time FHA was demanding no Loan should not even be submitted for processing until a "SINGLE" GFE had been generated signed and returned. I signed 7 of them. My mortgage has only one single late fee, and that's it. No interest rate hikes. Not that I have missed a payment, or plan on it) but it's nice to know if things get tough, my house wont be one more thing, ratcheting up the screwing while I'm down.
My title Insurance is pretty solid, it protects my house from getting frivolous liens.

But they only cost me $275 for the whole thing.

So I would say, yes a title company is good. I don't know how much I would have liked them, had I bought in a time, that all of those normal "Be careful" gotchas that they were saying to people before they started tweaking the FHA rules. I don't think I would have liked to have listened to a long list of how people could legally fuck me out of my house.

Even with all of that other stuff that I felt was above and beyond what I expected out of them as a title company and RE lawyer, the volume of paper work that they had, hundreds, and hundreds of pages. And not just empty blank form pages. Each already had all of the unique inormation already filled in and ready to be signed.

I could have never collected, filled out, and signed and gotten notarized all of that paper work. Not while I working my ass off every day to prove to the loan officer my finances. Only to wake up every day like it was ground hog day, and the appeasing the loan officers would start all over again.

Plus working my job trying to make money at the same time, so I could even buy the house.

WOW! The UNtrustworthy are certainly in control of what information is apparent to the people!

Say hey! This was in the Wall Street Journal on March 30, 1999. Note "... how much it will buy."

Holy cow/interesting/compelling ...!

And where is it up to date??? Right here ... see the first chart shown in this thread.
Recent Dow day is Friday, March 28, 2014 __ Level is 103.9

WOW! It is hideous that this is hidden! Is there any such "Homes, Inflation Adjusted"? Yes! This was in the New York Times on August 27, 2006:

And up to date (by me) is here:
http://patrick.net/?p=1219038&c=999083#comment-999083

WOW! The UNtrustworthy are certainly in control of what information is apparent to the people!

And http://patrick.net/?p=1230886

Call it Crazy says

The survey also found that 50 percent of the uninsured plan to remain without coverage, even if they do know about the upcoming deadline.

This is great! Even the poor getting Obamacare for free don't want it.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/JFvujknrBuE