Man. Reading these stories just reminds me how much lno and I lucked out when we bought our house. Not only did we have an awesome realtor who walked us through EVERYTHING (as first time buyers), like a father would want to walk his kids through the process, but we lucked out with the seller’s realtor, too. She was a friend of the old lady who was selling the house, and sweet as pie.
Jeez, are we lucky! Our realtor was my husband’s neighbor growing up and taught at his HS in his previous career, so they’ve known him for more than 20 years. He has made himself an absolute expert in local real estate, and knows more about properties, trends and histories than anyone I’ve ever known.
He found us our first house, then sold it and found our second, and sold my MIL’s house and found her another. He is totally professional, smart as a whip and a very cool guy to boot! We will be hating if we move out of this area and have to deal with someone else…
To begin with, I have yet to encounter a Century 21 realtor who was not in dire need of being clubbed repeatedly over the head with a large blunt object.
All my apartment renting experience has been in Japan, where the law (a) stipulates that all house/apartment rental contracts must be done through an agent, and (b) is extremely vague on the issue of who landlords can refuse service to (while realtors technically can’t refuse service to non-Japanese, they can always fall back on “the landlord won’t rent to you”)
In renting four different apartments over the course of ten years, I’ve encountered:
3 realtors who actually took me to see several different apartments after asking what kind of place I was looking for. They wanted my business, and they got it. Had my moves been within the same city, I would have kept going back to them.
1 phantom. My friends moved into a new place and mentioned there were other units still available. I met with the landlord, she showed me the rooms, we agreed on the rents and worked out the contract together. I then had to hand over $700 to a realtor who did jack shit because of rule (a) mentioned above.
15+ slugs. Another side effect of rule (a) is that there’s not a lot of incentive to get off your ass when everyone’s required to come to you. Most of the realtors asked what I was looking for, then tossed out a couple of flyers and said “you can go check these out on your own, if you want it, our service fee is one month’s rent. Why are you still here?” Real impressive. Century 21 fell predominantly into this category.
1 racist asshole. This guy simply told us (my wife (gf at the time) and me) that he didn’t want foreigners living in the neighborhood and wasn’t going to show us anything. He then called my gf a dumb farmgirl for thinking she could bring a foreigner into that neighborhood (which was a pretty run-down, low-rent part of outer-outer Tokyo). On the plus side, he only took up 15 minutes of my time, unlike…
1 lying cowardly asshole. Century 21 again (this was the last time I ever went to them). When my gf and I were looking for a new apartment, she found a nice-looking place at their website, and called up to make an appointment and take a look. Since we weren’t married yet, she gave them her own name, which of course was Japanese. The agents were very friendly and polite and said they would set up everything right away. When she walked in, they were all smiles and bows.
Then they saw me, the big ugly foreigner. Suddenly, the smiles dropped and they started hemming and hawing about a ‘problem’ with the apartment, and that we’d have to wait for just a few minutes. After an hour (during which time they didn’t even show us info sheets for other apartments), they finally accepted that we weren’t going to leave (it had taken over an hour just to get there and we had the whole day to kill) and told us “ok, we can show you the apartment, but there was a problem with scheduling, so you can only look at the outside, and it’s raining pretty hard so you don’t really want to go, do you?” After viewing the apartment and finding it unsatisfactory (hell, yes we went. And we made that jerk agent stand out in the rain with us for 20 minutes while we asked questions about every detail of the building’s downspouts and brickwork.) When we returned to the agency, rather than offering to show us something else, he positioned himself in front of the door and said “well, thanksforcomingsorrywecouldn’thelpbye.”
That’s just been for renting. When we decided to buy a condo, things were completely different. Rather than using realtors, the developers all had their own salespeople, and at every place we looked at they were bending over backward to show every detail and answer every question. Never encountered a one that had a problem with foreigners, either.
These stories make me so glad I’ve never needed a REALTOR!
When we moved back to Georgia from Hawaii, we moved into the house Mr. SCL’s grandmother had owned; it was now owned by his mother and we paid rent to her. Mr. SCL brought up the topic of buying it, which was met with a very decided “No” from me - the house was in a nice neighborhood but only had two closets! Two single closets!
Fast forward about 10 years - both of Mr. SCL’s parents have passed away and we have decided to buy their house. We bought it from the estate - SIL was the executrix. During the moving process - which took a couple of months as we had painting and stuff to do in the new house - we had a yard sale at the old house. SIL was helping me with the yard sale, and for shits 'n giggles we decided to post a sign reading “House for sale - as is”. The house needed painting and carpet, and I was not looking forward to the work.
We sold the house at the yard sale! We probably made more on it than if we had done all the needed work and put it on the market! A guy saw the sign, walked through and made an offer - even gave SIL an earnest money check right there
So I can hopefully go through my entire life without having to deal with a REALTOR.
The same thing happened to us. A guy I’ve known since grammar school lived next door to the people, and we put in a bid about $25,000 under asking. The realtor (from Foxtons, go rot in hell you pricks) had told us the guy was holding out for 5 under asking. So, I asked my guy to inquire why they’re holding out, considering it’s the only asset left from the nasty divorce. Yeah, never told about the offer. I actually had the realtor on the phone while standing in front of the owner later that day. It’s amazing how quickly the offer was suddenly approved.
This is one of the trivial topics covered in Freakonomics. Realtors own homes stayed on the market a statistically longer time than other people’s homes. Because realtors are more likely to wait for someone to take the home at the original price. With other people’s houses - time is money and they’d rather move it quickly and forfeit some of the commission.
Wow, these stories make me want to call up the realtor I used to buy my house and invite him out to lunch on me. Might even give him a hug!
MeanJoe
I regularly deal with REALTORs who don’t understand the very very very basics of strata (condo) property.
Most recent example, the nice lady that called asking for information about a particular unit’s fire insurance on Friday - and could not grasp the concept of the strata corporation (“The Owners”) having a common insurance policy - I spent about fifteen minutes explaining how strata corporations (“condo associations” elsewhere) work, from first principles.
I have seen her name on dozens of strata conveyances over the years - and she hasn’t got a freaking clue. It’s scary.
The realtor my husband and I worked with was a total slimeball. Almost cost us the sale of the house we ended up buying. He just happened to be the one that answered the phone when I called to inquire about a listing. I know better now.
He couldn’t manage to show us anything within our price range. Used the excuse that there was currently nothing on the market under $100,000.00 that fit our criteria. He made it sound like we were trying to find a mansion on a beer budget.
My off the wall criteria: Fenced yard, new windows and siding. At least 2 bedrooms.
In addition to showing us houses outside our budget, he also showed us properties that weren’t listed. Made them sound like total gems. These were the ones he really pushed. Why? Found out later it was because he owned them and was trying to get out from under them before his divorce.
Part of this fiasco was my fault. This was our first foray into house hunting, and he knew it. I thought an agent was a required part of the game. I didn’t realize that agents work for the sellers, that’s where their money comes from. I researched everything else… financing, closing costs, inspections, escrow. I hadn’t stopped to think about where he was going to get his money.
Before one particular trip, he asked if we’d seen any houses that weren’t listed with him that he could arrange a viewing on for us. I had happened to see an ad in the paper, For Sale By Owner, within our price range and gave him the number. When we stopped by to see the house, we fell in love with it. Met all my criteria, met the VA’s inspection criteria, was a perfect little starter house. I called the owners later that night to make our first offer. They didn’t even let me get that far. Evidently, our realtor had pulled the owners aside at some point while we were exploring the house and informed them he would be expecting 4% at closing time and that didn’t sit so well with them.
I work in a bank. I’m surrounded in Real Estate loan officers who are more than willing to answer questions, especially when they come from a co-worker. That’s when I found out about the impending divorce and his overall reputation around town. I called the manager of the office and read him the riot act. Gave him the addresses of the houses that the agent owned and had been pushing us toward. To his credit, he seemed completely sincere and apologetic. He promised to look into it and he offered to set us up with another agent in the office, but at that point I’d had all I could take.
I waited a couple of days and called the owners back. I explained the situation, and that I was no longer working with the agent, and asked if they would consider our offer. Luckily, the owners turned out to be very cool people and the rest of the process was a piece of cake.
Would I ever go to a realtor again?… Possibly, now that I know the rules of the game. But I’ve also been involved with the selling of a second house, again without a realtor in sight, with a good outcome. It can be done, and chances are good I’d go the same route.
Is it legal/ethical to do that on the side. For example “Look, if you can get another $10,000 knocked off the price, we’ll sign the papers, and we’ll give you $300, cash, for your trouble.” That would make up the $150 that they lost AND reward them for getting you a better deal.
Something that might be a bit apropos for this thread:
I just read a letter from an owner who was upset about having received a default letter (for being >90 days in arrears in his strata obligations.)
It opened with “Dear Dinkweeds…” (I swear!) and closed with “You wanna know how low you are? You’re worse than realtors.”
(Of course, it’s our obligation to the owners in general to ensure that owners in particular pay their fecking strata fees in a timely manner. I just thought that the comparison was funny.)
At least he didn’t say you were worse than car salesmen.
I bought 2 houses as a single woman and my husband and I have bought 6 together - we’ve sold all but the one we’re living in now. Most were routine transactions, but 2 stand out as particularly horrible.
First, there was Judy “I was just about to call you back” <Lastname> - as the name suggests, every time we called her, she was *just * about to call us. :rolleyes: It was especially aggravating because we were in Florida and the house we were selling was in Maryland. First deal she put together, the guy didn’t show at closing - he changed his mind and forfeited his deposit. OK, it happens. We got $500 for our trouble.
Shortly thereafter, she lined up another buyer. We were really antsy to be rid of the place, so we took less than we really wanted just to have it done. Day of closing, the buyer showed up $12K short, and were we willing to hold a 2nd mortgage? So we did. And after a couple of years, we sold the mortgage for about $8K. I blame Judy for that, too. She had to have known the buyer’s situation.
Then there was Steve - son of the real estate company owner. We’d gotten into a financial pinch, so we rented our house and moved aboard our boat. Steve found the tenants. Then we decided we wanted to sell and the tenants wanted to buy. Piece of cake, right? We knew it was going to be close, money-wise, but Steve assured us we’d only have to bring about $50 or so to closing. Day before, he calls - we needed over $2K. We didn’t have anywhere close to that much - that’s why we were selling! So there we were, in our 30s, running to Mom and Dad National Bank to borrow enough money to sell our house. I know this may not sound like that huge a deal, but it was just one more thing after a series of others that I didn’t bother listing about Steve. Every time we drove past his office, I wanted to hurl eggs at the windows!
Both of those event were early in our marriage. We’ve since gotten really good at this real estate game. And we’ve decided we’re staying put till they have to wheel us to The Home.
I see absolutely nothing unethical or illegal about it. In fact, I’m trying to figure out a good formula for it next time we have to buy real estate.
After reading you guys’ stories, I’m still thanking my lucky stars that we’ve not run into a really bad realtor. In fact, the guy who sold us our last house was great. A coworker of Papa Tiger’s, he listened to exactly what we wanted, showed us only houses in our price range and with the features we were looking for, and was just an all-around good guy.
The closest I’ve ever come to a less-than-stellar realtor is the guy who sold our place before that, and even he didn’t do anything particularly bad; he just didn’t pay us much attention. But since it took 3 whole days to sell the house (the market was insanely hot at that point), it wasn’t like he needed to do a lot. And the one before that was so nice that we went back to her to sell the house that she’d originally sold to us in the first place.
I have a cousin who’s been a Realtor (I’m sure with a capital R) for years and sells cream of the market homes, is up to her eyeballs in community good works and historical preservation, etc., and believe me, she has some tales about clients that could easily match any of the horror stories in this thread. There’s something about buying and selling houses that brings out the worst in far too many people on all sides, apparently.
I’d like to know the answer to this myself.
Back in 2004 my now ex and I decided to quit the renting game and buy a house. A friend recommended a realtor (nope, I’m not going to capitalize it) and we gave her a call. We sat down with her and gave her a list of the non-negotiable criteria for what we were wanting in a home. It had to be under $140K, had to have a fenced in back yard, at least three bedrooms and had to have a 2 car garage. Pretty simple standard stuff.
The first couple of houses fit the criteria but just weren’t what we were looking for. We press on. Then she starts calling me every day with a house we just have to see. We meet her at the house, and of course, it has none of the criteria AND is over 140K. Well over. I tell her, please, don’t bother calling about these kinds of houses. Next house, I think she was just being pissy now, was $90K, smelled like the previous owners had 20 cats that used every room as a toilet, or else they were cooking meth. The garage was so dilapidated it would have to be torn down. The foundation was cracking, the fence was in need of repair and so on. I asked her I would love to take it (sarcastically) if she could get the seller to drop the price to $60k so that I could take out a loan to fix it up. She said she could never in good conscience low-ball a seller like that! :rolleyes:
The final straw was the day she called to have us look at a house. She says it’s perfect, and she thinks the seller is willing to do some serious price negotiating. We go look at it with my parents in tow. It was nice looking house. However, the backyard had no fence, there was obvious water damage on the ceiling of one of the bedrooms, and the roof joists were bowing horribly. The sellers price? $160K. I asked my realtor to meet me outside after we toured the house. I asked her why she showed us the house as it was clearly a waste of time. She replied that it would be perfect for us and that I could just borrow the extra money from my mom and dad.
I was furious! The unmitigated gall to suggest that I borrow from my folks!! Jesus Christ! I told her that was not going to happen and that I was no longer in need of her services.
The next week my ex and I were out riding our bikes when we saw a house for sale by owner. I copied down their phone number and called that night. This was on a Thursday night. We saw the house the next day, took the parents over there on Sunday, made an offer on Monday and had it accepted on Tuesday.
The whole thing went seamlessly. I’ll be doing my own legwork when I sell this house. It’s much less of a hassle.
I’ve never heard anyone negotiate like that either. The fact that there are no appliances included, dead bushes, and a bad yard is usually reflected in the asking price. In other words, if the house had acceptable features in those areas, you would expect it to be priced as such.
In even other words, let’s say a house I’m selling that had good landscaping and new appliances would normally go for $150k. I know that my yard looks like hell and I’m not selling appliances, so I am asking $125k. Then you come along and ask for a discount because of the aforementioned.
Maybe this is what the realtor meant?
We were worried about doing that because you can’t get your house on MLS without using a REALTOR!!!1!!. (Note toe featherlou: I will spell it that way for the rest of my life.)
So we paid a discount broker $995 up front to get on MLS. It was approximately $945 more than he was worth; I’ll give him $50 credit for providing us with Open House signs. Actually, I’ll take that $50 back because the hassle of working with him - he was a complete moron - was worth more than that.
The buyer was someone who saw our ad on Kijiji. Virtually everyone else who’d expressed an interest found it on Kijiji or by just going to the open house when they were out looking for houses anyway.
I think I like my formula, however much they will lose by getting you a better deal…double it. So if they are gonna lose $150, give them $300. That makes up what they lost, plus gives them errrr…‘negative commision’(yeah, negative commision, that’s the ticket) on the amount they saved you. Does that make sense?
But I’d make sure to save that for the very end, after you got the price down as low as you can on your own with offers and counteroffers, then you ask your agent to see what they can do and make them this offer.
So if the house listed for $200,000 and after a few back and forths you’ve got it down to $190,000 and you get to keep the washer and dryer, then you tell you ask your agent if they can try and get another $xxx knocked off the price.