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98 Comments
- Pinkertinkle, on 04/13/2009, -3/+38Everyone and their mom was getting a real estate license back in 2002.
- edstate, on 04/12/2009, -5/+38Most everybody knew what they were doing... the banks, the brokers, the agents, and YES... the poor, poor homeowners.
- DangerCollie, on 04/12/2009, -5/+37She's exactly right. I had my license in those days, mainly for my own stuff, and I heard the most outrageous lies. The whole industry is rigged. I did some work for a couple clients and friends, but when I would tell perspective buyers or sellers the truth, they'd get mad at me. And then go find an agent who would tell them what they wanted to hear. I saved thousands in commissions, which was a good thing because I would have starved otherwise.
Real estate agents aren't the only guilty parties, but they're definitely accessories. - dehn, on 04/13/2009, -0/+22Hi want to buy this house for $300,000? Whats that you can only afford a house for $200,000. Well dont worry about that because I can hook you up with this kick ass loan with some low as ***** interest. Deal done.. Congrats on your new house.
Oh and by the way that kick ass loan I hooked you up with well it seems we are going to need to go ahead and crank that interest up a few points. Dont worry it will only add $500 more to your monthly payments.
Um I have noticed you have stopped making full payments so we are going to need you to get the ***** out as soon as possible. But dont worry about defaulting on that sweet loan we gave you because the government just gave us money. So we will be just fine. - MrPatriotMan, on 04/13/2009, -3/+22I view the problem like herpes (cold sores), you can say sorry all you want but you still gave me herpes.
- RJ0534, on 04/13/2009, -2/+16I had a high school teacher who after taking a student on a date and getting fired for it went into real estate. nuff said.
- peestandingup, on 04/13/2009, -0/+13Lionel Hutz: I've been getting a lot of calls about you, Marge. People just love your no-pressure approach.
Marge Simpson: Well, you know what we say: the right house for the right person.
Lionel: I'm going to let you in on a little secret. The right house is the house that's for sale. And the right person is anyone.
Marge: But all I did was tell the truth!
Lionel: Of course you did. But there's.. [face becomes unfriendly, voice deepens] the truth [shakes head, "no"], and [voice becomes chirpy, smiles] the truth! [nods head, "yes"] - oOLiquidNightOo, on 04/13/2009, -2/+15Government reduced lending oversight.
Fed continued to reduce rates during ridiculously booming times.
Banks lent money to borrowers who shouldn't have qualified (NINJA Loans: No Income, No Jobs, No Assets).
Realtors sold houses to people who couldn't afford them.
Appraisers based value on the sales price rather than determining an independent value.
Buyers borrowed money the couldn't afford to maintain. - ousthouse, on 04/13/2009, -3/+15There's no need to apologize. These people are getting what they had coming - unless they eventually get their hands on some bailout money. In that case, it was all justified.
- Semprini, on 04/13/2009, -3/+14Baloney, "I'll get you the cheapest price/I'll sell it for the highest price"
Oh, and I'll bake cookies when I show the house...because someone who actually went to college and studied psychology said it would be a nice trick.
Bah, good riddance to them, freaking unnecessary leaches. - travh99, on 04/13/2009, -1/+11"i am the reason the world is in an economic tailspin" -haha what sort of masochistic delusion of grandeur is this
- firebat9er, on 04/13/2009, -3/+13An architect makes 7% of a buildings value for designing and consulting the construction, then the real estate agent sells it for 7%.
F that. - ChiaGod, on 04/13/2009, -0/+10Herein is the issue. I'm not saying that all mortgage brokers are crooked, but just the same one should be weary of anybody who makes more money the more they screw you with a loan.
Case in point, four years ago, me and my wife were living in one state but getting ready to move to another (we had gotten jobs in the other state). We found a house we liked and were ready to buy it in the new state. So we were referred a broker through our realtor who got us what seemed like a great deal and after looking at the paperwork the "fixed" rate looked good (we had only spoken about a fixed rate loan and were sold a fixed rate). The paperwork we were mailed indicated a *fixed* rate.
I stayed over working in state 1, my wife flew over to sign the paperwork and complete the sale of the house.
A year or so later we had sold our old house and I figured it would be a good time to refinance the new home. Come to find out, the old rate (through Country Wide) was a variable rate loan and they had included an early payoff fee.
I dug up the documents they had my wife sign when she flew over and sure enough, the mortgage broker had given her new paperwork (where the initial payments worked out the same) but this loan had a variable rate.
Lastly upon closer scrutiny I found two (or three) separate closing cost fees ($2,000 total) that really were code for "cash for the mortgage broker".
On my refi I ended up going with Navy Federal CU and ended switching to a 15 year loan with only a minor change in payments. They were the lowest, through shopping around I got the fees reduced to about $1300 (vs $7,000 in fees Countrywide wanted to charge on a refi). I saved the $2700 early payment fee on the first year alone.
Moral of the story, don't go through a broker, shop around yourself, get educated about the loan fees (many are avoidable or negotiable - like finding your own title company), and re-read the contract at signing (since it may not be the same one sent to you to examine). - jMichaelEdwards, on 06/14/2009, -0/+10I'm a mortgage loan officer, and I should take the responsibility here... but I won't
- Y0tsuya, on 04/13/2009, -0/+9Yeah back in 06 I got really tired of reading about people who won bidding wars gushing about their "good fortune". I knew what will happen to them. And if they had bothered to do some fact checking, they would've been able avoid financial ruin.
- SpykerSpeed, on 04/13/2009, -4/+12Nice try taking the heat off the Federal Reserve, but it won't work.
- hawkspur, on 04/13/2009, -4/+11No one source is responsible for this economic ***** and any attempt to pin the blame entirely on one source is just scapegoating. The Fed, the past administrations, the financial institutions. etc ad nauseum.
- Semprini, on 04/13/2009, -9/+16I am no fan of real estate agents, the job is to lie to both sides and jack the price so you make more. I refuse to trust them.
I am buying a house now, from the estate of my deceased father, no agents, just a simple cash and mortgage, thank god.
I once was in Hawaii, there were 40,000 agents in town for a holiday, they were wearing their silly polyester suits, walking up and down the beach handing out cards....what a bunch of *****. - Theycallmetak, on 04/13/2009, -0/+7I call BS.
40,000 agents in town for a holiday.
Polyester suit
Handing out business cards on the beach.
40,000 people means an almost 10% bump in monthly arrivals for any single month. That would be front page news here even during the boom.
Nobody wears polyester suits here. Not even convention attendees really, much less vacationers.
As far as the business cards go, at Waikiki beach you'll get some flyers here and there but anything like you imply would have made the news too. Not to mention the offending agents getting the bums rush from the beach boys and lifeguards for being a nuisance. - inactive, on 04/13/2009, -1/+7HI MY NAME IS PATTY AND I'M YOUR AGENT!
I'm going to speak really loudly and excited about whatever over-priced piece of cr@p house I try to shove down your throat! Did you notice my makeup and perfume? I put WAY too much on. It's my way of trying to cover up the 45 pounds I gained after I have birth to my kid. My husband then lost interest in me and now has sex with Thai hookers when he goes on business trips for his WIlly Lomanesque sales trips! Can I interest you in this split-level Colonial which has gone 500% in the past six months? The markets fueled by low interest, interest only loans which will entrap you like an 18th century negro south of the Mason Dixon Line- hi, I'm Patty! - teqonix, on 04/13/2009, -1/+7I came out of high school in 2005 and went into business school directly from there. One of the first courses was learning about the different things we could study there, like accounting, real estate, etc. The real estate guys were so pumped about it during their presentation, but man - really glad I didn't go into it, now.
- AmnesiacJack, on 04/13/2009, -0/+6That's right my friends, keep pointing your fingers at the imaginary "left" and "right" sides, keep separating your self's into more groups, keep your attention on the hot topic items we toss out there for you, and please please please keep ignoring the beast behind the curtain.
Sincerely,
The Fed
P.S Muhaha hah ha. - inactive, on 04/13/2009, -1/+6Can anyone explain to me why do we need real estate agents in this day and age with the interwebs and stuff?
- korvan504521, on 04/13/2009, -0/+5while on the one hand i think its lame that you took his number seriously, as an analytical person i approve of your analysis based on hawaii tourist counts.
digg +1. - thespiff, on 04/13/2009, -0/+4I thought it was a very interesting perspective. Care to explain what was retarded about it?
- korvan504521, on 04/13/2009, -0/+4the problem with appraising is when market values spike, like they did the last few years. i imagine most prospective home owneres weren't aware that the value of a house had jumped some 300% in ten years. or if they did, their realtor was trying to imply it'd go up another 300% in the next ten years. . .when anyone with half a brain would look at the graph and say "i think the value of houses is ***** up, lets just go build one."
a non-sale value appraisal would be the value of the land, + the value of the materials, +the value of the labor to build the house, + a reasonable margin for the contractor (typically 10-20%). land values didn't spike quite as badly as house values did. - akhomestead, on 04/13/2009, -0/+4Absolutely!
This is like the teacher bringing booze to class and giving it out to the students. Then blaming them for being irresponsible when they get drunk. Now the teacher is going to make a bunch of rules and punish the students so it doesn't happen again and the kids are blaming themselves for the whole thing. - inactive, on 04/13/2009, -0/+4Yeah, well they're not helping the current rental market much either, at least not in NY.
- regression, on 04/13/2009, -0/+3"Real estate agents aren't the only guilty parties, but they're definitely accessories. "
Barely. I would put more blame on mortgage brokers, whom ultimately, took advantage of the negligence of banks to actually keep track of their/our money. You real estate agents couldn't get a dime if brokers and banks weren't deceitful/negligent. - korvan504521, on 04/13/2009, -0/+3You are correct that the price of oil skyrocketed, but ti wasn't the oil companies that did it. It was the large hedge funds, investment and holding companies, especially those with some of the larger unions (not the unions fault, but it is a big pot of money) that manipulated the price of commodities. The oil companies were merely beneficiaries, the investers are the ones to blame.
- chill613, on 04/13/2009, -1/+4Hey at least its well written!
- aletoledo, on 04/13/2009, -0/+3Thats like claiming the getaway driver isn't guilty because they never touched a gun or entered the bank.
- Memitim, on 04/13/2009, -0/+3Good idea. I should have just entered into the biggest financial transaction of my entire life presuming that I knew everything, despite having absolutely no knowledge of the process other than what I read from the Intarwebs. Why would I possibly want to rely on the services of an expert?
- Semprini, on 04/14/2009, -0/+3OK, 4,000! (I multiply annoyance by 10) I was in the airline industry, and there was an assload of them.
And yes, they were wearing their silly suits (about 10 years ago) and they were going blanket to blanket.
Worse than the damned Jehovah's Witnesses. - edstate, on 04/13/2009, -2/+5Nah, they're going to be given our tax dollars. They'll be just fine.
- DiggDuggin, on 04/13/2009, -0/+2We really don't, and the real estate agent industry is doing everything they can (with protectionist BS like the MLS) to try and eliminate people from just using the Web. It is completely ludicrous what agents charge, and if you ever bring this up to them or try to get them to negotiate something like a variable commission rate (when you are dealing with a listing agent without a buyer's agent), they get very pissy really quickly.
Some people are morons and feel they can't do something like purchase a house without somebody else telling them how to do it, but these are people who have no business buying a house in the first place. I would never trust the legal advice of an agent over a lawyer anyways, as it takes only a few weeks to get an agent's license. The only useful thing an agent does is show properties, but this does not make them deserving of their huge commissions. - aletoledo, on 04/13/2009, -1/+3Ahh, yeah sorry, no. The blame can be squarely fixed on the Fed since they controlled the money supply. They flooded the market with a huge supply of money and it all had to find it's way into something. If it wasn't real estate, it would have been internet dotcom startups getting all the free floating money. If it wasn't the investment banks, then it would have been the Savings & Loans making wild investments.
You see, all this has happened before. It's not a odd occurrence, there is a pattern to it all. The thing that people (such as yourself) are ignoring is the root cause of it all. What you need to be worrying about is the fact that all this is getting bigger and bigger in it's swings. After this bubble is re-inflated, it has to be inflated even bigger to keep the perception of progress in the suckers eyes.
The fact remains that as credit is loaned out for more things, the money has to go somewhere. As the interest on these loans comes due, they have to create more money to pay for the interest on the original loans. Without these manipulations, you'll be back to using a savings account for retirement instead of the stock market. Does saving really fit your lifestyle? - edmcguirk, on 04/13/2009, -0/+2So far, the real estate agents have been able to keep a lock on the Multiple Listing Service. If you are not an agent, you can't know what's for sale. Pretty much every place you see a house for sale is an advertisement placed by an agent.
Let's face it, agents rarely do more than a few hours of useful work in selling a house. Anything more than a thousand or two at most is a rip off. Even charging out at $100 per hour, do you really think that an agent puts in more than 10 hours for a sale? - shoppingkart, on 04/13/2009, -2/+4Are you truley sorry for the lots?
- nomojunkscience, on 04/13/2009, -0/+2Real estate agents are really just consultants. Some of them are bad at it and most of them are no longer licensed. The ones that are left work hard to find people the right home and get them the best deal or help them sell their home for the highest price.
- inactive, on 04/13/2009, -10/+12I've seen a lot of retarded ***** come out of salon.com but this takes the cake.
Edit: Nah I thought about it, I've seen a lot more retarded ***** than this on salon.com - purzzzell, on 04/13/2009, -0/+2When you go through business school, you take a fair number of "general" courses that are related to business in general but not your field.
I was in school for marketing, but I've also been educated in Management, Accounting, and a bit of Finance.
If you know you're going into the "general" field business, it may make sense to have a bit of an orientation.
And it may not have been a whole course about what he could study, but more of 1 class in a freshman orientation type course. - seroevo, on 04/13/2009, -0/+2Being a real estate agent is essentially an entrepreneur, and in the same vein as any business you'll get the "faceless corporate greed" and the "mom and pop" varieties.
Probably the most consistent element are the often greedy, emotional, shortsighted home owners.
Home owners off the bat are far too biased. They have an emotional connection to the house they're selling - so always want more than it's worth - and also like anyone just want a deal, some more so and could just be called "cheap."
Blaming real estate agents would be like blaming -any- business owner in any industry. While you do have the stereotypical workaholic agents that can be manipulative weasels whipping around in their Mercedes, you also have the ones who will spend countless hours to make sure the customer is happy, all before they even get paid.
Most people simply don't get what a real estate agent does. They aren't just there to snatch a commission without doing anything, like a clerk at an electronics store after buying a TV you went in to the store specifically to buy. There are tons of legal aspects, be it paper work or inspections and countless others, not to mention negotiating and advertising, that the agent facilitates.
At the end of the day, the call is with the homeowner to buy or not to buy. There was a great SNL skit for a new book on budgeting and finance. "If you don't have the money, don't buy s***!" Every agent isn't out to make someone spend $400,000 when they don't want to spend above $200,000. Either way, it's still up to that person to not be so stupid as to "forget" what their budget is.
It's just more people not taking personal responsibility for themselves. Unless it's something you can't control like an illness, then you only have yourself to blame for your debt. - mhummel, on 04/13/2009, -0/+2*choke* *thump* *drag*
- korvan504521, on 04/13/2009, -0/+2now is a good time to work with realtors, because the get-rich-quick realoters are all broke and starving on the street, or back working at mcdonalds. the only ones left (i assume) would be the ones who actually want to do it, not just for the money.
- Memitim, on 04/13/2009, -0/+2I wasn't going to go with a realtor when we bought our house a few months back but my wife convinced me to give it a shot. Best friggin move ever. Our realtor is like a house buying ninja; she straightened out our financier on a couple of points and helped us finagle a deal where we got the house for about 30% less than asking, had the sellers pay all closing, and got us a check at closing for every dime that we had spent on costs associated with the buy.
There may be some gyp agents out there, just as there are douchebags in every profession, but our realtor is a total badass. I pimp her cards out to anyone who even hints at looking for a house in our area. - nomojunkscience, on 04/13/2009, -1/+3You have no understanding of how it works kiddo
- oOLiquidNightOo, on 04/13/2009, -0/+2If the appraiser did a "blind appraisal" (as opposed to receiving the purchase contract and justifying a sales price, which is what happens) it would be a step in the right direction.
- korvan504521, on 04/13/2009, -0/+2Do you realize you had 5 lines and you didn't put in even one period?
stop and breathe, man. - jbmcb, on 04/13/2009, -0/+2We had a real estate agent for a couple months while looking for a house. We didn't find anything, and she didn't seem to zero in on what we wanted. She also didn't seem to know a lot about houses - we noticed the floor splitting away from the drywall in one room and she claimed it could be easily fixed. Riiight.
We ended up living in an apartment for a few months, before we found something ourselves. Since we didn't have our own agent, the listing agent came way down on price (since he wasn't splitting the commission.) We hired a lawyer for a few hundred to double check that everything was on the up and up, and had a very thorough inspection done, and we had a house. The listing agent was a total slimeball, by the way, but we got a good deal on a good house, which is all that really matters. -
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