Damn Protestants.
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Entertaining read, but LOL realtors. You’re making mid 5 figures to unlock a door, fuck off.
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Let’s get an expert on, uh, home buying, to help straighten these blokes out.
Harris, the agent who lost the Bed-Stuy townhouse over two feet and $200,000, said the experience hammered in a lesson he has known since he got into real estate more than a decade ago: to ask his client right away if anyone else is making this decision, to involve that person at every step, and to take action to make sure they feel as if they have power in the relationship and are being heard. “I’ll intentionally say things wrong so they can correct me sometimes,” he said. Then, later in the conversation, Harris repeats those corrected phrases back to his clients as a way of showing them he has really been listening. “It gives them the feeling they’re in control,” he said.
It’s almost sounds like the real estate agents are hustling the buyers.
Love that “employ basic sales techniques like figuring out who is making the decision and kissing their ass without being too obvious about it” is mind blowing for lol realtors.
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You all forgot to mention how the realtor’s valuable time is being wasted if the client doesn’t immediately offer over asking on the first house that is viewed.
I’m convinced that article is actually designed to get a lot of sharing and hate views from financially responsible boomers who are helping their kids, just like the subgenre of personal finance article where millennials are criticized for spending a lot of money on avocado toast is more likely to get views from offended millennials
I think this is obvious when you’re talking about spousal/partner dynamics, when sales people inappropriately focus all of their attention on one party, not recognizing that the other has a voice in the decision.
But I thought this story was more interesting, because who would expect that you’d have to cater to some random uninformed parent when you’re trying to find a house for the kids? It reminded me of my dad when we were buying our current house. I don’t remember exactly what the dollars were, but I think the house was listed for like $510k, and I said that we were going to make an offer on it (probably in the $475 range?). His response–based on absolutely no information–was, “You need to bid closer to $400k to really let them know that you can’t be taken advantage of.” So basically exactly the boomer parent in the story.
I thought it was pretty obvious the boomer parents in the article were all the ones paying for the apartments. In that context the lol realtors being surprised they were the ones to cater to is pretty consistent with my opinion of their capabilities.
Aha, that makes my dad’s participation VERY different from this story.
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It seems like home prices haven’t really gone down in lots of places, not just Miami.
I said this before about cars and I might have said it about houses, but I wouldn’t expect to get a deal by waiting on the sidelines.
The 2008 dynamic was tons of people who bought at the peak were underwater with poorly qualified loans and could have dramatically lower housing costs if they walked away.
The 2023 dynamic is tons of people who bought at the peak are a little underwater but with well qualified loans and would have dramatically higher housing costs if they walked away or sold. These people aren’t gonna sell, they’re gonna hang on for dear life. Inventory of resales is gonna remain depressed for a long time imo. And new builds have slowed a ton, making things worse.
Yep people aren’t gonna voluntarily sell a place where they’re locked in at 3% to go buy another house at 6.25%.
In personal news, we bought our place last April, and our appraiser insisted on appraising it for 3% below what we paid for it, forcing us to come up with extra for a down payment. Place next door that is a carbon copy of our house just sold for 13% more than we paid for it. Feel like sending our appraiser a picture of their sale price stapled to a flaming bag of dog doo.
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Lol appraisers. every single person involved in the home buying and selling process is useless with the possible exception of a good inspector.
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I think it’s typically a lot more helpful and accurate to think of rent vs. buy as a lifestyle decision rather than a financial one.
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So much truth to this—mortgage brokers and PMI (I’m sure there’s some individual behind PMI) might be the worst.
Now, underwriters: relatively useful in a “their presence benefits all parties” sense.
Of course, most of the people involved are actually quite useful. But useful to whom is the question.
My appraisal came in about 13%ish under what we had our offer accepted for. I was pretty fucking pissed, and of course every other comp in the neighborhood sold for significantly more than we paid for a year + after we bought. I had to come up with an extra like 30k which kinda murdered my poker/gambling bankroll for a while.
If i could go back to my post college single life, I would snap do a van conversion and live in that for a few years.
There is so much money flowing to people for no reason.
The biggest line item is obviously lol realtor fees, 6% LOL what the fuck. Buyers almost always find their house on Zillow before their lol realtor knows about it, and think their lol realtor is “free.” Make buyers pay their realtor outside closing, in cash, and this whole fraud collapses.
Don’t sleep on title insurance! Totally useless product you probably paid like $5k for. 99% of your premiums goes to kickbacks and lobbying, LOL TITLE INSURANCE.
Next up mortgage brokers and appraisers (covered above). Like $795 for an appraiser to “pull comps” and fill out a template. That takes about 20 minutes.
If you sell a $500,000 house you’ll probably pay about $35k in fees and the buyer will pay another $5k. What a racket.
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except 95% of people use their agents inspector. we did for our first home. surprise, they missed a bunch of stuff.