Posted on 02/10/2006 5:41:59 AM PST by summer
Zillow says the house I used to live in in Draper, Utah is worth 2.5 million. What a laugh. The value is more like 250K. All the houses in that area are valued at 10 times what is real. I think they need to work on their math.
My point is that, for most people, it will cost them far more than 6% of the sales price to try and go through the process without a qualified real estate agent.
Another area of change is in the employment area. We recently hired an in-house accountant through an online "help wanted" database. We placed the online ad because we received only three responses to the ad that we ran for a week in the local daily newspaper. The online ad was one-third the cost of the print ad and we received 16 quality responses.
Real estate agents have to go the way of travel agents. They will not continue to add value to the process. There's no way the real estate process won't be almost completely overcome by direct buyer-to-seller technologies.
REal estate agents in the past did perform valuable services that a buyer/seller could not do for himself.
However, with the internet and evolving software venues, more and more of the "matching" aspect of buying and selling real estate will be done directly by the individuals.
Right now, the only reason you need a RE agent in the selection of property process is, one, you can't always get full access to MLS (that will change) and, two, you can't actually get inside a property without going through an agent.
More and more listings will go online, though, with or without cooperation from RE agents. And the ability to post extensive photos and virtual tours will reduce the number of homes a buyer actually wants to get into to view (IOW, many homes can be eliminated from the buyer's interested list upfront).
I have bought and sold a lot of property and simply resigned myself to RE fees as part of doing business. I have worked with some excellent agents. But very rarely have I felt I received value added to the process commensurate with what I ended up paying the agent.
What I don't like is the monopolistic nature of the real estate business.
If people want an agent's services in the instances you set out, fine, let them hire one. But as it stands now, there really is no viable alternative to paying big commission fees regardless of how much work the sale involved and regardless of whether the agent added any value to the process.
For example, I'm selling a property now and of course it has to be listed on MLS. There really is no practical alternative. That requires an agent. No choice. So sometimes the commission turns out to be just what it costs to get access to MLS.
Once MLS gets busted open, and it will, (IOW, it will get replaced with a system that does the job and does it better), agents will have to make the case for what value they are adding to the process else be OBE.
I haven't seen a PC yet that had the slightest problem with the plugin.
What are the rules (or does it vary by listing agent/state) on striking a deal after the listing ends? If you (the seller) found a buyer completely on your own (no help/contact from the agent, no from agent's advertising etc.) and you enter contract after the listing expires, can the agent come back at you?
More susceptible to viruses and worms. Sorry.
Sorry, but you're questions are all along the lines of "So you are okay with . . . being stupid?"
No one wants to get into the situations you describe and a person who has the slightest clue about what they're doing will have a clue about how to avoid and deal with these types of things.
Also, as for "guessing" the right price---first, the "right price" is completely subjective anyway. Secondly, there is so much information on pricing easily available, and more and more will become available as time goes on.
I don't think understanding "right" pricing, or receiving advice on same, is worth thousands of commissions.
Most people understand how to avoid entering into a contract with an "unqualified" buyer.
No one is okay with marketing their home to a vastly smaller audience than is available through MLS, but that's no great credit to the agent or the agent's skills. The agent's exclusive access to MLS is purely artificial, contrived to make it harder to sell a home without paying thousands in commissions.
And, no one is okay is it taking longer to sell a home. However, it is not the fact that the home is not listed with a "qualified agent" that makes the sale take longer. It is the fact that MLS access is restricted to those who fork over the money to an agent.
Once MLS-type access to real estate listings is open to everyone, not just agents, (and this WILL happen), the real estate agent will either have to be redefined or become obsolete.
Sum: yes, right now it's very difficult to sell a home without listing it with a real estate agent. However, this has little to do with any services rendered by the agent. It has mostly to do with the fact that listing with an agent is the only way to get into MLS and, for now, MLS is the only way to reach the entire real estate market. That will change.
Looks like you have it all figured out
2003 data, worthless.
Wow! I bet Realtors are lining up to represent people that want to use this site to find a home.
The sales contract paperwork in just a small fraction of the documents the Realtors have to handle for their clients.
Sellers who use a Realtor sell there home for an average of 15% more than those that either go FSBO or a discount service.
I think the market/technology will eventually crack MLS wide open.
As for your other points, I agree that it often is much easier using an agent. However, the fact remains that it is never a good thing that an agent *must* be used (there's no practical alternative), regardless whether an agent will add value to the process or not.
IOW, there should be more choice in the process.
Typically, listing contracts have a clause that allows the agent to provide a seller with a list of prospective buyers names(people who showed interest as a result of the Realtor's marketing) at the end of a listing period. If anyone of those people on the list buy the house within a certain time frame (90 days I've heard) after the listing expires then the seller would owe the agent the listing fee.
If the seller sells to someone not on the agent's list after the listing contract expires then there's no fees due anyone.
bump
"right now it's very difficult to sell a home without listing it with a real estate agent."
That statment varies by market and a city can have multiple markets.
I put it the house I sold 8 months ago, and it listed it for $120,000 less than what I got for it. I don't think it's very good.
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