Somebody needs to say something, so I guess it will be me.
Though I’m still shocked that realtors and their management are willing to stay this quiet, for this long – their silence is deafening. The disrupters are the only ones doing the talking, and because no one else objects, they are getting away with lies and deceit. The consumers deserve better.
This guy does what Glenn and the rest of them do – constantly reminds the viewer that the standard commission is 6%. If you are selling a median priced home (or higher) in Southern California, and think you have to pay 6%, you haven’t looked very hard. Myself and most other agents are happy to deliver full service for 5% or less.
Rex listings aren’t in the MLS, and they are only making sales with buyers they find themselves. But the highly-motivated buyers – the ones who pay top dollar – work with an agent. Why? Because they like the advantages an agent offers, which include convenience and expertise. Because Rex won’t deal with other agents, it narrows the potential buyer pool. If your house isn’t being offered to the highly-motivated buyers, then your bidding war won’t be as robust, and you will sell for less than you could have if you would have hired me.
The buyers they do attract are unrepresented, and deal with robots. The comfort level of those buyers will be lower, and their offers will be too.
It is a fact that buyers who get little or no representation are more likely to fall out of escrow. It might seem sexy in the beginning to make a deal through a new-fangled disrupter, but only the perfect houses at the perfect price make it through escrow without issues. Seen many of those lately?
He agreed that lousy agents aren’t going to survive, but good agents will. In reality, the disrupters are offering an alternative to the lousy agent – for consumers who are willing to put up with minimum service with the illusion of saving a buck, plod ahead. Great agents deliver maximum service, which results in top-dollar sales for sellers, and the best houses for the buyers.
The disrupters have one thing in common – they want you to think that their automating of the process will deliver the same results, and make selling homes easier and cheaper.
But it takes an expert salesman to get personally involved with creating a bidding-war environment to cause a top-dollar sale for sellers. You don’t get that with disrupters (or lousy agents) who just want to process your paperwork.
These differences need to be clearly identified so consumers can make an informed choice. Get Good Help!
More to come later – I have to go beat a robot out of a sale!
With mortgage rates bouncing back into the mid-4s (with no points), JBREC published this article on the effect of higher rates on home sales:
Mortgage rates have risen 1.0% or more ten times in the last 43 years, with little impact on home sales and prices when the economy was also strong. Here is the paper we shared with our clients a few years ago. Historically, rising confidence, solid job growth, and higher wages have more than offset reduced demand for housing resulting from higher mortgage rates. When rates rise during a weak economy, home sales and prices get crushed.
Today’s economic backdrop clearly supports continued home buying demand. Confidence among consumers and businesses continues to hit multiyear highs. Job and wage growth remains solid, with an increasing number of workers rejoining the workforce.
Home builders agree. In our survey of 300+ home builders this month, 85% said sales would decline less than 10% if rates were to rise all the way to 5.0%. Twenty-nine percent (generally luxury and active adult builders whose buyers are quite affluent) don’t believe sales will fall at all.
Builder stocks typically overreact very strongly to rising and falling rates, so don’t follow builder stock prices to assume what will happen to new home sales and pricing.
For perspective, mortgages rates have increased from 3.78% in September 2017 to 4.32% today, equating to a 6.7% increase in one’s mortgage payment.
Rates rose even more last spring, jumping from 3.41% in July 2016 to 4.30% in March 2017 (11.5% spike in mortgage payment). Despite rising rates, housing had its best spring since 2013 last year, with a strengthening economic backdrop more than offsetting reduced demand from higher rates. All signals point to a similar scenario for builders as we kickoff spring 2018, with rising rates unlikely to ruin housing’s recovery.
The suburbs and beyond could get a boost from driverless cars:
What do driverless cars have to do with housing? Among the possible connections, they could have an impact on the location where people choose to buy their homes. When those open to the idea of buying a driverless car were further asked if having one might encourage them to move further away from work, a significant share – 63% – said ‘yes’ or ‘maybe.’
As with previous trends, younger people would be more likely to move further away from work if driverless cars become a safe and reliable commuting option: more than 60% of Millennial and GenXers might be encouraged, compared to only 18% of Seniors.
Here we only have to pay 5% to 10% over list….if at all!
It is no secret the housing market is on fire. Last year, almost a quarter of all U.S. home sales were above asking price, according to real-estate listings website Zillow. But the average premium over asking for those homes was $7,000—not $700,000. Even in the hottest real-estate markets, where there is a severe shortage of inventory, the highest bid typically isn’t more than a couple hundred thousand dollars over asking.
What often distinguishes the houses that go way above asking—half a million or more—is a feature that the other homes in the neighborhood just don’t have, says Toby Lumpkin, a real-estate broker with Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty in Seattle. That can be a better view, more southern exposure, an especially tasteful renovation, a three-car garage in a parking-challenged city, or a side yard, which is what set apart Mr. Malcolm’s house. It’s also often a price low enough to attract attention.
When Kerry Bucklin saw a house for sale on Mercer Island, Wash., on the waterfront, he thought its price of $1.995 million was too low. The Midcentury Modern home, built in 1959, needed updating and shared 210 feet of waterfront with five other houses. But it was the closest of the houses to the shore, offered unobstructed views in a parklike setting and allowed him to go paddling on Lake Washington without having to load a canoe on his car. At the same time, the property was close to the freeway, shaving 6 miles off his commute to work.
Mr. Bucklin, 55, a real-estate lawyer, had been looking for a couple of years to replace the large family home mid-island, where he lived alone since becoming an empty-nester. He bought the home in June by paying just over $500,000 above asking, beating seven other offers.
This graph looks funky because it is charting negative numbers, but the latest housing-bubble study by the California Association of Realtors shows that of the people leaving California, the majority have incomes under $100,000.
They concluded that the main reason people are leaving is because of the high cost of housing.
Although California has, in many ways, earned its reputation for being hostile to business and ‘taxing people to death,’ the outmigration patterns by income are instructive and even illuminating. Virtually all of the state’s out-migrants earned less than $100,000 per year. That is true whether measured in raw numbers or as a percentage of each income group, but it is the exact opposite of what we would expect to see if it were taxes that were driving folks away. This is a housing issue, pure and simple.
San Diego is absolutely massive! There are so many activities one can do whether that is hiking Torrey Pines and spending a day at the beach in Del Mar or walking the boardwalk in Pacific Beach and bar hopping!
I found an article by Culture Trip that was to help people explore San Diego in 24 hours. This would be great even for the North County folk that have never gone down south to explore what the city of San Diego has to offer!
I discovered this park a few years ago when I lived in Pacific Beach. It can be great for a quick walk OR there are plenty of festivals that occur throughout the year. Here are some events coming up in 2018!
North Park is such a trendy/upcoming neighborhood. The houses are not only cute but they’re getting more expensive because it’s the hot place to be! Along 30th Street and University, you will see dozens of cool bars and awesome shops – not just for clothes but for gifts too! A girlfriend always does her gift shopping at Pigment.
If you drive along Miramar road between the 805 and 15 freeway, you will stumble across some killer breweries. Ballast Point is insanely huge. There is the brewery/bar area on one side, and then a more restaurant setting on the other. I also love the AleSmith brews – Pale Ale .394 being my fav! I’ve never been to the brewery itself, but I’ve only heard good things!
