i'm over it already.

[GTiTOM]

Meh, in this case- I agree with jnm. I say hire the extended family. At least get a piece of the pie for someone you know. Let him do any paperwork for you, and help with the search. If you find something you like, chances are he can get you in for a look quickly. Win-Win.

The problem is, he said "need to talk to him and see if he is willing to do it for a small piece of it".

It's when you start assuming friends owe you big discounts that things start to get dicey.

[jnm2.0t]

Gotta be careful in situations like this. It's always frustrating when everyone wants a friends and family discount when you could be making more money on non-friends. My friends who are lawyers, contractors, and computer techs are always getting the "hey, could you just help me out with this...."

i appreciate the concern but he's not a realtor. he's just finished his 2nd or 3rd tour in iraq and graduated from grad school and looking for work. same with his fiancee (minus military). they'd readily welcome the money. it'd probably work out to 1.5-2 months of rent for them, which would be a real help.

Meh, in this case- I agree with jnm. I say hire the extended family. At least get a piece of the pie for someone you know. Let him do any paperwork for you, and help with the search. If you find something you like, chances are he can get you in for a look quickly. Win-Win.

I got a good friend of mine in on the split for our current home due to a ****-bag of a sales agent who didn't even need to be involved. It is nice to help friends and family out. Hell, at the very least he can field all of the phone calls and nonsense.

thats the other side of it... the money would be a big help to them. that and we probably wouldnt even ask him to do any work or advising, just use his license.

[jnm2.0t]

Gotta be careful in situations like this. It's always frustrating when everyone wants a friends and family discount when you could be making more money on non-friends. My friends who are lawyers, contractors, and computer techs are always getting the "hey, could you just help me out with this...."

i appreciate the concern but he's not a realtor. he's just finished his 2nd or 3rd tour in iraq and graduated from grad school and looking for work. same with his fiancee (minus military). they'd readily welcome the money. it'd probably work out to 1.5-2 months of rent for them, which would be a real help.

Meh, in this case- I agree with jnm. I say hire the extended family. At least get a piece of the pie for someone you know. Let him do any paperwork for you, and help with the search. If you find something you like, chances are he can get you in for a look quickly. Win-Win.

I got a good friend of mine in on the split for our current home due to a ****-bag of a sales agent who didn't even need to be involved. It is nice to help friends and family out. Hell, at the very least he can field all of the phone calls and nonsense.

thats the other side of it... the money would be a big help to them. that and we wouldnt even ask him to do any work or advising, just use his license.

in the end i could easily get my own license... if he agrees to it he'd be saving me time and effort and i'd have no issues paying him for it.

[GTiTOM]

makes sense

[ImRollin]

Just make sure he is aware of the approximate 70-30 split, insurance costs, taxes etc involved.

Let' say you buy a $500k house with a 3% commission. $15k gross commission less $4500 to the broker, less say another $2k in start-up costs and than add-on around 30% in self employment taxes. He'll pocket close to $6k.

Also keep in mind if he doesn't have some of the prereq classes its going to take him awhile to do those and than schedule for the exam.

[ChrisMD]

i appreciate the concern but he's not a realtor. he's just finished his 2nd or 3rd tour in iraq and graduated from grad school and looking for work. same with his fiancee (minus military). they'd readily welcome the money. it'd probably work out to 1.5-2 months of rent for them, which would be a real help.

So you're already bitching about experienced agents and you think the reasonable solution is to hire someone who has absolutely no experience at all? Good luck with that.

[jnm2.0t]

Also keep in mind if he doesn't have some of the prereq classes its going to take him awhile to do those and than schedule for the exam.

he already has the license.

So you're already bitching about experienced agents and you think the reasonable solution is to hire someone who has absolutely no experience at all? Good luck with that.

re-read the thread. if you still can't figure out the difference let me know.

[John Lee Pettimore]

as has been pointed, sales people ask about your budget/pre-approval as qualifying questions to gauge how serious you are about buying whatever they're selling. whether it's a house, or a car, or something else - they sort of need to know before dedicating their time to answering your questions & it's merely common courtesy to let them know if what you can afford to spend is in the range of whatever they're marketing. if you don't think it's any of their business whatsoever (even just a range, not exact numbers) then don't be surprised if you get chitty service from them - if any at all.. especially if you're trying to book that sales persons time to come and demonstrate their product knowledge. why should they spend their time educating you about their product or service without them knowing whether they even have an opportunity to earn your business?

as for realtors, the two main problems i see are:

1) basic level of customer service has all but disappeared - even from highly lucrative service roles such as realtors. WTF is with this? IMO realtors should be providing good old fashioned 1950's style service with a smile, at a bare minimum.

2) not only has the service level decreased, but the commissions have ballooned to astronomical figures without even having great customer service to accompany them!! never mind the fact that, IMO, realtors can & should be providing additional services of value to their clients in order to better earn the sums they're paid.

[GTiTOM]

2) not only has the service level decreased, but the commissions have ballooned to astronomical figures without even having great customer service to accompany them!! never mind the fact that, IMO, realtors can & should be providing additional services of value to their clients in order to better earn the sums they're paid.

you had me until this part.

if a house is $300,000, then there's a 6% commission. that's 18,000. split between the agents, that's 9000. what does the broker get -- 60 or 70 percent? so then the agent walks away with $2700 or so, which after taxes and what not is maybe $1600? If you're closing a house every other week (good luck with that), you're taking home $35K a year. Not exactly rolling in the dough.

The problem is, it's a field with a low barrier to entry --- take a course, pass a test, sign up, anyone will give you a job b/c it doesn't cost them to hire you. So there are a lot of people in the field who suck. But the people who are good are good for a reason. And the people who suck won't last. You just have to take some time to find someone who doesn't suck instead of just going to open houses and chatting with the person who happens to be the listing agent.

[John Lee Pettimore]

managing brokers don't take anywhere near that amount from commissions here, so the agent does get the lions share of the commission - plus the fact that the average detached home price for the region is over $600k = they're getting paid a lot of money & providing crap service. and they should have been providing great service even back when houses were only $300k - now they should be going way above & beyond, IMO.

[ChrisMD]

re-read the thread. if you still can't figure out the difference let me know.

Quite frankly, I don't have the attention span to wait for you to respond in another 10 days.

[GTiTOM]

managing brokers don't take anywhere near that amount from commissions here, so the agent does get the lions share of the commission - plus the fact that the average detached home price for the region is over $600k = they're getting paid a lot of money & providing crap service. and they should have been providing great service even back when houses were only $300k - now they should be going way above & beyond, IMO.

just out of curiosity, but how much experience do you have with first hand customer experience offered by brokers of $600k houses?

and if the people doing now are so bad at it and it's so easy to make so much money, than why not do it? i'm not trying to be a wise-ass. seriously. if it's that easy and the competition is so terrible and its that much money, should be a solid employment opportunity, no?

[John Lee Pettimore]

just out of curiosity, but how much experience do you have with first hand customer experience offered by brokers of $600k houses?

and if the people doing now are so bad at it and it's so easy to make so much money, than why not do it? i'm not trying to be a wise-ass. seriously. if it's that easy and the competition is so terrible and its that much money, should be a solid employment opportunity, no?

only house/home shopping with friends & family, not for my own purchase.

and i know a handful of realtors & have met many others, both while performing their job as well as in social settings. their jobs aren't rocket surgery, but many still manage to mess them up.

why not indeed.. especially since i've already studied for my licence in the past. we'll see what the future holds.

[ImRollin]

you had me until this part.

if a house is $300,000, then there's a 6% commission. that's 18,000. split between the agents, that's 9000. what does the broker get -- 60 or 70 percent? so then the agent walks away with $2700 or so, which after taxes and what not is maybe $1600? If you're closing a house every other week (good luck with that), you're taking home $35K a year. Not exactly rolling in the dough.

Agent usually gets the 60 or 70%. Like any other sales job 10% of the people make 90% of the cash.

[jnm2.0t]

So after taking a break from the market for a while we were back to the point of keeping an eye on it. Were doing preliminary work with a realtor, someone highly recommended to us. As it turns out the woman my in-laws used 20 years ago and are still casual friends with is ranked as the best in Silicon Valley and a top 10 in the country by WSJ. Of course she is far far out of the range that could help us but she was happy enough to provide a (seemingly) great referral to someone that could help better in the $600-700k range.

Well, started off fine but as we started to actually look at houses there was zero value this guy was able to offer. All the observations, market research, house research, etc. was done by me. He basically just agreed with us on any thought we had. We saw a possibly okay house and he told us how great the area is. So we go to the open house and it sucks. More research and all the nearby houses in this small area sold for the same or less in the past 12 months, nothing higher which really limits any upward price movement we could see. We don't want to be the best house on the block, which he knew ahead of time. We bring this up to him and suddenly he agrees its an area we shouldn't bother considering. Thanks.

Anyhow he also highly recommended a mortgage broker, thought we would work great with her. Ok, so we e-mail her to get the ball rolling. Well after 2 weeks and asking our realtor what is going on the lady finally gets back to us. I read through her response (keep in mind she hasn't asked us a single question about what we want) and a few things become clear quickly. First she presented two options, one fixed and one adjustable. Well we aren't really interested in adjustable but the numbers looked odd to me. Some quick math the and adjustable she is quoting is interest only versus an amortizing fixed loan. Huh, odd but maybe an oversight.

Keep reading more and she is trying to justify the adjustable by saying most bay area folks earn a bonus or have stock options they could pay the adjustable down quickly with. Hmm, odd again since she clearly doesn't know we both work for non-profits and have neither. Read a little more and she is stating that Bernanke hasn't raised rates recently so we will be okay. More reading and she is telling us to take a loan against our retirement accounts as our down-payment.

Okay that's enough of this lady, she is spouting off all this without knowing a single thing about our situation. I bring this up to our realtor and now haven't heard back from him for weeks. The real kicker... we ask a friend who bought a house recently in the area which broker they as another direct referral and it was the same scumbag. Why the **** is it so god damn hard to find one reasonable non-scumbag in this industry?

----

cliffs... got a referral from a highly respected professional, turns out to be nothing more than a yes man with no insights of his own, proceeds to highly recommend a broker who turns out to be the standard industry scumbag. Disgust with the industry continues...

[SteveMKIIDub]

open letter to real estate agents and mortgage brokers.


.

Your thread title reads like a teenage girl writing a gossipy text to her friends.

That aside, your feeling the exact things I felt a little over a year ago. Our agent showed us houses that were over our price range. She showed us houses in areas we didn't like. I had to (not to be rude) tell her that I didn't want to walk out of my house and look at apartment buildings. I didn't want to see lazy, unemployed scum bags drinking beer when I take my dog for a walk. I had to tell her that we wanted the other side of the road. All the while not sounding like a pompous dickbag.

What did we find? A house in a nicer neighborhood with a bigger lot surrounded by nice young families (and car dealer owners, ex mayors and other old well off people). For less than anything else we looked at. The catch? It was the house we originally found online and wanted to look at - she simply had us tour a bunch of stuff in an area we didn't even want. Not a complete waste.

Real estate agents add an artificial pressure to buy. They add a lot of stress. But for a first time homeowner it was nice to have someone help. I guess.

With that said, there will be no way to get anything past us on our next house. Seriously. I've learned so much about houses in one year its ridiculous. What a learning experience!

[mauslick]

part of the problem has been stated, at one point the cocktail waitress, the massage therapist, the store clerk, the trashmen, the cab driver and everybody else has real estate liscenses!..
good friends, nieghbors, brother, sisters cousins, second cousins, the family cat..........all with licenses,
I stopped and looked at an open house on friday, mainly to check the surf out from the balcony of the house, I went up, (dreading it as I thought I was going to encountery a real estate agent)
and it was a person I know pretty well. So I was off the hook right away for a 'sell' recording

for all of you on either side : real estate is a SALES JOB.........get it? YOu post your smiling face on signs, cards, adds, and god knows what else........and then get made people find you and don't buy? Maybe more truth in advertising will help maybe something like "Real Estate Agent"
I work with only people who are buying what I"m selling. MUst be quailified for xxxxx amount of dollars. NO questions, no answers no nothing just give me the money. CAll 1 800 'being real'

this will eliminate customers you don't want to deal with which will be, namely all of them..........PROBLEM SOLVED!

[woofster]

John, my advice to you is do what I did, spend the thousand or so dollars to get your own R/E license. All teh pre-work stuff is open book and than you have a fairly easy state exam.

Being a finance guy it should be fairly simple for you. If you figure the average home costs $500k (well one that you would want to live in) the 2-3% commission back is well worth the entry fee. Plus you have access to all the listings and can avoid dealing with other realtors for the most part.

I've always said everyone should get the R/E license to avoid the nonsense.

I like your way of thinking, as that is something I've looked into also. I haven't gone ahead with it only because getting your real estate license (here in Toronto anyway) really just means you're a real estate salesperson. The first stage takes a little over a year if I remember correctly and costs a couple thousand dollars (a nominal amount in the grand scheme of things). You then have to article for 2 years which I believe includes more courses you have to pay and take before you're a full-fledged real estate agent. Of course, you have to align with a real estate brokerage firm unless you want to be a broker yourself, which requires more courses and experience.

Was it a similar process for you and, if so, do you positively feel it was a worthwhile endeavour?

[Oliver@triplezoom]

Anyhow he also highly recommended a mortgage broker, thought we would work great with her.

I would never use a mortgage broker that was recommended by the real estate agent. This is such an incestuous industry that you don't want to run the risk of your Realtor and mortgage broker working foremost for each other and not for you.

[Tornado2dr]

I would never use a mortgage broker that was recommended by the real estate agent. This is such an incestuous industry that you don't want to run the risk of your Realtor and mortgage broker working foremost for each other and not for you.

This.

You'd be better off hitting the on-line lending links to your major bank/CU - which will in less than a day or so connect you with a local lending rep from that institution. Less shady, more standardized and separate from your agent.

[jnm2.0t]

I would never use a mortgage broker that was recommended by the real estate agent. This is such an incestuous industry that you don't want to run the risk of your Realtor and mortgage broker working foremost for each other and not for you.

This.

You'd be better off hitting the on-line lending links to your major bank/CU - which will in less than a day or so connect you with a local lending rep from that institution. Less shady, more standardized and separate from your agent.

You know I do tend to agree but I was hoping that this highly regarded agent wouldnt farm out their business to less reputable people since it reflects back on them. Guess I was wrong. Also though as it turns out this same mortgage thief was referred to us by a friend whose husband is in commercial R/E and has all his licenses, so can't really go by that either. Not really sure how else to do it, everyone says to get referrals but that wouldn't have worked out.

[SteveMKIIDub]

Any updates?

Owning a home sucks anyways.

[jnm2.0t]

Any updates?

Owning a home sucks anyways.

Just keeping an eye on things. Pretty tied up for the next 4-6 weeks as it is so not sure I could do much at the moment anyhow.

Still no word from the realtor. Considering just going toe redfin route or just hiring an attorney for the paperwork part.

[jnm2.0t]

We have been seeing things come on the market that are appealing in dribs and drabs, looking at the past 6 months of sales and there seems to be a steady flow of homes we would have bought, although its only a handful on the market at a time.

Decided against a real estate agent, going to use Redfin. I dont really see the value of agents in the first place, and since there's so few homes out there and our target area is so limited we dont see the value in an agent.

Now the other big suck is trying to find an even half decent mortgage broker. These guys are worse than real estate agents. The current battle seems to be to get any of them to put an accounting of their fees and expenses into an e-mail. They all want to do it over the phone or only after you do a whole credit application with them. I understand you would have 100 people asking for the same sort of thing but that's your business problem, not mine. Write up a simple form email that you can use the 99 other times, you already have them or the generic responses you send out.

[SAPJetta]

Skip the mortgage broker and work directly with a bank or credit union. I hate Bank of America, but they were a joy to work with on our original loan. We have since refi'd and moved away from them, but the original process was smooth and easy.

[titleist1976]

We had CountryWide originally. Sold to BofA (who really were easy to work with) and now our loan got sold off to some tiny little **** hole of a bank.

[jnm2.0t]

So I did put in a request for info to our credit union. Their readily available fees and rates dont seem too dissimilar from what I have been able to pry out of the mortgage brokers I have spoken with. I still cant figure out why it is so damn difficult for brokers to disclose up front what theyre going to charge you.

At any rate will wait to see what the CU comes back with.

[Tornado2dr]

So I did put in a request for info to our credit union. Their readily available fees and rates dont seem too dissimilar from what I have been able to pry out of the mortgage brokers I have spoken with. I still cant figure out why it is so damn difficult for brokers to disclose up front what theyre going to charge you.

At any rate will wait to see what the CU comes back with.

Cause a lot of them are crooked jerks that don't think you should be spending a lot of time going thru the different fees listed on the GFE and asking what they are made up of.

[jnm2.0t]

Cause a lot of them are crooked jerks that don't think you should be spending a lot of time going thru the different fees listed on the GFE and asking what they are made up of.

They all seem to want me to do a full credit application and provide docs in order for them to do anything. My response is generally that why would I provide all the information to a broker that I don't even know if I would use yet? You dont do a credit application before negotiating the price of a car, its completely backwards. Some have just never replied, others have begrudgingly been somewhat helpful, but nobody has just outright done it and definitely not on the first request. Not a good way to kickoff a relationship imo.

Meanwhile at the CU website you put in the purchase price, loan amount, city, etc. and it gives you a table of estimated rates and closing costs based on variable points paid. What seems so simple actually makes them look like geniuses.

[maskedSONY]

Ok, so after reading this, why should I want to buy a house or real estate at all?

[jnm2.0t]

Ok, so after reading this, why should I want to buy a house or real estate at all?

Oh man I tell you, its a real pain in the ass to even get into it.

For us we primarily need more space. We have decided to target 2 bedrooms, save some money, maybe fix it up or expand, etc. For us here we can find a 2br house in a cute little area close enough to work that, after the downpayment, is the same payment as our rent net to net. We will end up with more space via a converted garage, a yard, a shed, etc.

Also, since 3 bedroom rent close to work is insane and I just refuse to pay that much, it isnt like we would be moving into a 3br apartment. It is going to be 2br so it may was well be a 2br house.

We are also looking for ones that need minor cosmetic stuff inside or an overhaul of the yard. Things we can live with, fix up when we have time, and would add some value to the property.

Layout of the house and how it is sited on the property is a key though, we would like the option to expand out, could end up being cheaper than selling and buying a 3br when you take all costs into account.

[TW@]

I think you are just making this too hard and you sound like a bit of a nutcase.

If I'm assuming you're looking in the general vicinity in and around Palo Alto, that is your first problem. Good luck with that $600-$700k price range. I'm not saying it's not possible to get your wishes met, but just how close do you want to be in the East Palo Alto or sketchy bits of Menlo Park do you want to be?

And WTF do you care about having a buyer's agent? As has been said, the cost is split between the two agents on the seller's end--good luck trying to somehow get that commission knocked off the purchase price of the house in a competitive real estate market. All we used our agent for was to access the homes we liked, do the legwork on comparables for the area, and paperwork. The nice thing about agents is that if you don't like the one you are working with, you don't have to work with them.

Don't bother with mortgage brokers. That part is easy.

You know what you make, you know how much you owe, you know your credit score, you can walk in to any bank and get up front what terms you would be approved for. If you haven't spoken to anyone, how are they supposed to know what you can or cannot afford?

[jnm2.0t]

I think you are just making this too hard and you sound like a bit of a nutcase.

crazy as they come

If I'm assuming you're looking in the general vicinity in and around Palo Alto, that is your first problem. Good luck with that $600-$700k price range. I'm not saying it's not possible to get your wishes met, but just how close do you want to be in the East Palo Alto or sketchy bits of Menlo Park do you want to be?

Theres enough places outside EPA and Belle Haven and that arent down to Santa Clara or out to Pacifica.

And WTF do you care about having a buyer's agent? As has been said, the cost is split between the two agents on the seller's end--good luck trying to somehow get that commission knocked off the purchase price of the house in a competitive real estate market. All we used our agent for was to access the homes we liked, do the legwork on comparables for the area, and paperwork. The nice thing about agents is that if you don't like the one you are working with, you don't have to work with them.

And for doing only that little bit of work you think they deserve 2.5-3% of the purchase price? That my friend is truly crazy. They should get paid for the work they do, which these days with the internet is far less than 20 years ago. Im not going to perpetuate the problem of real estate agents by using one. Redfin acknowledges this and since they arent doing as much for you they give you some of their commission. On the houses we are looking at it is usually around $5-6k but some are up to $8k. Why would I let som real estate agency walk away with that money when they dont deserve it? I know, crazy right?

Also the notion of the seller is the one paying the costs is a crock of ****. People believe that because they are the ones physically handing the money over but don't be a fool, the expense of the agents is baked into the purchase price which ends up on the buyer.

[SAPJetta]

My father in law worked as a mortgage broker/real estate agent for years until the market went belly up and then lousy ones like him weren't needed anymore.

However, he managed to make almost $10k on the purchase of our current house because he walked in while we were doing the signing and they put him down as the buyers agent. Crazy. He spent no more than 10 minutes with us and made a whack of cash. Something is truly wrong there.

[Oliver@triplezoom]

My father in law worked as a mortgage broker/real estate agent for years until the market went belly up and then lousy ones like him weren't needed anymore.

However, he managed to make almost $10k on the purchase of our current house because he walked in while we were doing the signing and they put him down as the buyers agent. Crazy. He spent no more than 10 minutes with us and made a whack of cash. Something is truly wrong there.

So who showed you the house? I'm confused as to how that would have worked.