Husband and Wife Realtor "Teams"

[mook]

You must not live in Oregon or you are severely misleading yourself.

Oregon was the first state in the union to enact Real Estate laws, way back in 1929, and have the most stringent laws, and an additional binding Code of Ethics. The seller's Realtor must represent the seller's interest faithfully and has a fiduciary duty to act in his client's best interest.

The scenario you describe if in Oregon would result in revocation of the Realtor's license, monetary fines, criminal penalties and possible jail time.

I've driven drunk twice in my life. I must have lost my license, faced jail time, massive fines and....oh wait, no I didn't. Why not? Because nobody caught me. Why? Because there are lots and lots of crimes committed all the time that aren't caught because they aren't noticed.

How exactly would a real estate agent get caught for urging a seller to take my low ball offer? How many cases are you aware of where a realtor was caught, faced criminal penalties and jail time for doing what I describe?

I suppose you'll probably argue that there aren't many cases of this, because realtors are too noble or too risk averse. We all know the real reason, though, is that it's incredibly difficult to prove, and most of the time nobody would even notice.

Either way the commission is always paid by the seller so a buyer who uses a dedicated Realtor gets FREE advice and major assistance not only in finding the perfect property (only about 60% of the properties for sale in Beautiful Central Oregon are on MLS), but in every step of the transaction which usually includes negotiation for the best price, quite a few forms which must be filled out correctly to protect the buyer, research into the property's history, permits, code violations, leins, past repairs, possible tax situations both positive and negative, red flags which may suggest a bad investment, construction or demolition plans in the neighborhood's future, HOA fees, utility hook-up fees, septic feasibility, water quality and average well depth in the area, well report, and can usually offer extensive details of any neighborhood's pros and cons which may not be common knowledge.

Clearly worth your investment to the Realtor ($0) as a buyer to protect your investment (price you pay for property) as a buyer.

Why on earth would I want such advice from a realtor when I could much better versions of that advice from a lawyer, a home inspector and a title company? But the realtor's advice is FREE! Well, if I'm dropping $300k on a home, maybe I should be willing to pay a little extra to get info from real experts in those areas.

Knowledge of a local area might be handy, I guess, except I've never bought a house in an area I didn't know. I'd recommend anybody considering such a move to rent for six months first. It's a huge financial commitment, and a realtor can't really know everything about a neighborhood, or how your own personality would gel with that neighborhood.

 

[mook]

Exactly, you can spend 8 hours a day every day for a year looking at homes, and not come close to the personal knowledge the AVERAGE Realtor has of the area. You could look at the same house 5 times and not notice the defects the average Realtor has already committed to memory.

If you represented yourself in buying a home you had no prior knowledge of, go ahead and feel proud of your accomplishment and be happy, but just know you probably would have come out even better with some professional assistance.

Man, either you are overestimating the AVERAGE realtor, or the four realtors I've dealt with in my life were decidedly below AVERAGE.

The first house I bought I had a realtor. The house had been on the market for 6 months during a really booming time, but hadn't been listed on the MLS (thanks to the incompetence of the seller's agent.) I'd found the house while just driving around the neighborhood and happened to notice a crappy sign that had been knocked over.

While the seller's agent was showing us the house, my agent told him, "You really are selling this for too little. I'd bump it up another $15k." While I was fucking standing right next to her. I could have killed her.

I have several more stories just like that one, but they are too infuriating for me to dwell on. I bet several other posters on here have similar stories.

I'm sure there are great realtors/real estate agents out there. Maybe you and DaRizzle are them. (I notice only real estate agents are here to defend real estate agents. Where are all the satisfied customers on this board who love their experience?) But I've never worked with one.

 

[maxiep]

You mis-interpret the findings.

What it means is the Realtors who sell their own homes, a minority as most Realtors are much smarter than that, price their homes too high so it takes years to sell them. Mostly these are investments and not primary residences and they are willing to wait years for the market conditions to be right. Meanwhile they pay on interest-only loans and hope to beat the balloon pmt deadline.

Currently something like 10% of all foreclosures in Beautiful Central Oregon are owned by local Realtors. I know several personally who have lost 5 or more homes each in the past year. They represented themselves and because of that they could not make rational decisions on their home's value due to emotional connection.

Very few sellers have the luxury of taking years to move their home, and as the study points out, Realtors will get their home to sell faster, and for about 20% more than if they do an Assist-to-Sell, o FSBO. They will also greatly decrease the likelyhood of any future legal problems surfacing after the sale.

Rule of thumb, in Oregon (as many state are pretty much unregulated) if you don't represent yourself in criminal trials, don't perform medical operations on yourself, you probably shouldn't represent yourself in Real Estate transactions.

You're tough to take seriously. In fact, it's too big a job. Instead, I'll just laugh at you.

 

[maxiep]

Marine Accident Investigator?

Yes, a criminally-minded Realtor could cheat his client, just as you seem quite proud to conduct your own business in that manner, but it's an extreme rarity in Oregon, and almost always results in prosecution.

Don't confuse a Realtor(trademarked) with a "Real Estate Agent". Nationally, it's the difference of being strictly regulated and highly educated in the field, or just a guy who tries to sell houses with no particular training or guidelines.

In Oregon you are either a Realtor, or you're illegally representing in the field.

In addition to learning the entire library of Oregon and Federal Residential Real Estate Laws, FBI background check, credit report, paying a couple grand in fees to start and re-licensing every 2 years, most Realtors have a genuine love of the business and thoroughly enjoy the thanks and admiration they receive each time they put someone into that dream home they never thought they could have, or succeed in selling their client's house in a reasonable time frame so the client can get on with their life.

All Realtors are required to meet 30 hrs a year of specific continual education in order to stay licensed.

I would guess that even you who are involved in the field careerwise would seek the assistance of a Realtor, even if it's a friend, for a little assistance were you considering home-shopping or had some property to move or exchange.

Thanks for the recap of what a Realtor is. I guess you missed the part where I mentioned I was a licensed broker in the state of Oregon. And those classes are a joke.