Where Inventory is Growing
If you are thinking about moving out of state, here are places where the inventory is growing and you might have some negotiating power. Not one of these is in California!
Compass PEs – The Reality
The Compass CEO, Robert Reffkin, is a vocal opponent of the Clear Cooperation Policy. Those in the business call him names and say his only motivation for opposing the CCP is to promote in-house sales.
The point that gets trampled over is that consumers and agents should be free to choose how they want to market the properties for sale.
The CCP insists that listings go onto the MLS right away, and be subject to this nonsense:
They don’t name Zillow but obviously that’s the target.
As we saw yesterday, Zillow is not truthful. They don’t care about doing what’s best for sellers or agents. They only care about making money, and dominating the space.
Unfortunately, the NAR and others turned over the control of the marketing of our listings to Zillow, Homes.com, and Murdoch’s Realtor.com – which is the real disappointment! Realtors don’t own, and we don’t control realtor.com? What a travesty!
Compass is determined to take control of the marketing of our listings.
It starts with getting our listings onto the internet before the search portals. Having the consumers see our listings on our website, and thereby contacting the listing agents who know the most about the properties, is better for the consumer than being funneled to outside agents who are paying for leads:
I’ve been saying for a while that everything happening in residential real estate is heading towards single agency, and eliminating the buyer-agents. Homes.com is directing consumers to the listing agent, and spending millions on advertising to make a point of it.
We’re in the transition phase, and I’ll predict the future.
Compass will quit NAR and the MLS, and go it alone.
If you ask me, we’re already big enough to do it now. I have encouraged Robert to do it, but it’s too early.
But it’s coming.
We will still be happy to cooperate with outside agents – they will just have to find our listings on our website, instead of elsewhere. We’re just doing what Redfin did – make our website more popular with consumers.
What about the Private Exclusives, the title of this post?
They are allowed now, and because you only sell a house once, sellers and agents should have the choice to sell a home off-market. Here are good reasons to do so:
- The allure of an insider deal can cause a buyer to pay more – they are sexy deals.
- Buyers don’t have the benefit of open-market exposure to test the price.
- It keeps the bozo agents from screwing up deals.
We have it happening right now. Our sellers are in escrow with buyers who got squeamish this week. Their agent was NO help. He had no experience or ability to try to help them through their foibles which had little, or nothing, to do with buying the house. Donna and I both had to step in to save the day (another reason to hire us to sell your house!).
It is detrimental for escrows to blow out. Trying to ignite the same urgency as when a listing is fresh on the market is impossible. Every buyer thinks something is wrong, and rarely do a home sell for the same price or more the second time around.
Those are three good reasons for our sellers to go Private Exclusive. I still believe in open-market exposure being the best route but it’s because I’m old-school. The current market conditions are tough and inviting every joker to bid on my listings has consequences, and they’re not all good.
Reffkin and Compass will undoubtedly taking more heat for questioning the CCP in the coming months, but it’s a sideshow. There will be bigger changes down the road – promise.
Zestimate Fraud
This morning:
This afternoon:
It is sad how much faith and confidence people put into the zestimates when they are so manufactured and phony. But now that everyone trusts everything they see on the internet, we deserve what we get.
OCEAN & SUNSET VIEWS!
Check out our new listing!
5212 Clemens Ct., Carlsbad 92008
5 br/4.5 ba, 3,535sf
10,053sf lot
YB: 2004
LP = $2,499,000
This is the best 180-degree panoramic ocean view for sale in North County! This former model is situated on the premium lot in the tract and is facing due west for maximum ocean and sunset experiences! Plus, we have spent $150,000+ over the last sixty days to transform the interior into a modern masterpiece too with new flooring, paint, and lighting throughout plus a fabulous kitchen all on a 10,000sf pie-shaped lot with a large grass backyard at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac near the beach – wow!
Are you looking for a trophy property? This is like winning the Super Bowl!
https://www.compass.com/listing/5212-clemens-court-carlsbad-ca-92008/1780715575580142553/
After the open-house extravaganza the first weekend, we received SIX offers over list. Now PENDING!
San Clemente Island view
Santa Catalina Island view
Transparency is a Winner
Fellow realtor Paul left this comment earlier:
Thank you Paul!
Why don’t realtors adopt the full-transparency idea?
Since the beginning of time, there has been an old wife’s tale that agents can’t divulge anything about the offers they’ve received. It’s a bunch of hooey!
It says right in the contract that nothing is confidential.
Why don’t agents think about other methods? Why don’t they question authority?
It’s because it is so safe and comfortable being vague. They are PETRIFIED of saying the wrong thing and screwing up – so they just say nothing at all, to the detriment of everyone involved, especially their client.
Let’s strive to be better salespeople!
The Power Station
I hope you get a chance to see the 3-hour documentary Ladies and Gentlemen 50 Years of SNL Music – the only problem is it’s too short! One clip that didn’t make the cut was this one-time-only performance:
The Power Station were a British-American 1980s/1990s rock and pop music supergroup originally formed in New York City and London in 1984. It was made up of singer Robert Palmer, former Chic drummer Tony Thompson, and Duran Duran members John Taylor (bass) and Andy Taylor (guitar). Bernard Edwards, also of Chic, was involved on the studio side as recording producer and for a short time also functioned as the Power Station’s manager. Edwards also replaced John Taylor on bass for the recording of the band’s second album. The band was formed in New York City late in 1984 during a break in Duran Duran’s schedule that became a lengthy hiatus. The Power Station was named after the Power Station recording studio in New York, where their first album was conceived and recorded.
On 16 February 1985, the band performed “Some Like It Hot” and “Get It On” on Saturday Night Live. It was the only time that Robert Palmer performed live with the original line-up – and the band only lasted a year. The horn section for the Power Station’s Saturday Night Live appearance included saxophonist Lenny Pickett, who would join the show’s house band that fall and eventually become the show’s musical director.
Posts from the oldschoolcool
community on Reddit
NSDCC Annual Inventory & Pricing
Thanks for the comments this week!
For some historical perspective, let’s review the recent change in inventory.
Bill Clinton signed the new law in 1997 that allowed sellers to take up to $500,000 in tax-free profits, and it set off a local moving spree that lasted 20+ years. Boomers were at peak family levels, and moving up and down in the same town was reasonable because prices didn’t fluctuate much.
The most frenzied-up years were 2003, and 2021 – both were years when the inventory dipped.
But in 2022 and 2023 the inventory kept declining, for two reasons. Boomers were empty-nesting comfortably, and the rapid rise in mortgage rates thwarted the move-up/move-down homeowners.
It set off a pricing bonanza that has limited the buyer pool to only the most affluent. It shows no signs of slowing locally, and it would take a flood of motivated sellers who dump on price for the trend to change.
Local pricing HAS DOUBLED in eight short years!
NSDCC Number of Listings Between January 1 and February 15
Even if the remaining home buyers go on strike, it would take a flood of boomers to give their houses away for pricing to dip, and you don’t see much of that happening.
If pricing just went flat, it would be a dramatic change!
Trendy Tuesday by Kayla
Trendy Tuesday by Kayla Klinge
I’m a huge fan of Athena Calderone – New-York based interior designer, author, chef, and entertaining expert. She is also the founder and CEO of lifestyle brand, Eyeswoon, which has grown from an editorial platform into an e-commerce destination and thriving online community. I’m constantly looking at Eyeswoon’s website and Athena’s Instagram for home decor inspo and delicious recipes.
Recently on Eyeswoon, they were discussing the 7 colors in every home we should expect to see this year. It’s funny because after reading it, I realize I just added terracotta and olive accents in my bedroom!
Here are the 7 colors they discuss:
1. Earthy Terracotta
2. Energetic Olive Green
3. Handsome Greenish-Gray
4. All the Greens
5. Elegant French Blue
6. Blue Cobalt and Ultramarine Blues
7. Soothing Seafoam Green
I am very excited to see more color inside the home. The all white/gray look is a little basic in my opinion. But I know going with a bright color can be a little scary! If you’re in that boat, maybe start off with a more muted color like seafoam green. I think this color would look great in a kitchen or bathroom!
Happy Tuesday everyone!
Embrace The Bidding War
This was the seller who had a competing agent tell them that I’m tough to deal with because I like to create a bidding war.
The seller took it as a compliment, and I did too. Don’t you want your listing agent to create a bidding war? You would think, YES. But instead, literally all other agents want to be vague about their process, gather up the offers, and go in the backroom to decide the winner they prefer (while denying others the chance to bid higher).
It’s not me they dislike – it’s the transparency that comes with a proper bidding war.
I can see why other agents would jump to the conclusion that I’m tough – because I don’t sell houses as described above. If I was a home seller and I found out that my listing agent was publicly denying buyers with the opportunity to bid and re-bid on my house with verbiage like, “NO MORE SHOWINGS” in my MLS remarks, I’d sue them for malpractice.
Yet, that is the common practice you see happen with the hot listings every week.
There is another agent out there today who thinks I’m tough – the agent who rushed her buyers over to see my new listing within two hours after it hit the open market on Thursday.
Her clients loved it, so she corners me in the living room and tries to bully me into selling the home to her clients for full price cash on the spot. It is a common practice, borne out of the frustration shared by all buyer-agents who get screwed over by listing agents in virtually every sale where there are multiple offers.
I was happy to agree to sell the home to her clients, but not at full price.
But I’d do it for an outrageous price that I thought no one else would pay.
This is when I told her $2,500,000.
If you are a cash buyer, this isn’t your last $2,000,000, so they could pay the $2,500,000 if they wanted to – and I want to give them the chance! I think my sellers would be very happy with that outcome.
But consider what it also sets up.
They didn’t go for my $2,500,000, but they did offer $2,100,000 cash.
They already knew they could buy it for $2,500,000.
So when we officially counter-offered at $2,250,000 in writing, it had to sound way better than $2,500,000. There was a real chance they might sign it!
By now it’s Friday, and this is where agents might think I’m tough. I told the agent that if her clients didn’t sign it, I was going ahead with my open houses to see if we might get other offers.
Here’s where she screwed up, like most agents do.
She goes running back to her clients and tells them exactly what I said.
Their response? “We don’t want to get into a bidding war”.
Well, then sign the $2,250,000. It’s all they had to do to buy their dream home.
But instead they let a measly $150,000 get in the way, which is pennies, relatively – especially when you consider how hard it is to find a newer single-story home on big flat lot at the end of a cul-de-sac which is walkable to everything you need in life.
Why is there such aversion to bidding wars?
Fear of the unknown? Afraid you might overpay? Feel being taken advantage of? Had bad experiences previously (probably the most likely because realtors handle them so poorly that losers can’t help but feel bitter).
Buyers should embrace the bidding war.
It’s the smell test. It means you found a hot buy. A home that you will enjoy, and one that will be easy for you to sell for top dollar some day.
Conversely, if there are no other bidders on a listing that has been on the open market for 1-3 days, what did they see that you missed?
Are bidding wars fun for buyers? No they are excruciating, mostly due to the uncertainty caused by the poor handling by the listing agents.
Instead of telling people I’m tough, agents should consider using my method.
I tell everyone the rules of engagement, spell out what it will take to win, and conduct the bidding war – and myself – in a way that caused maximum transparency. I answer my phone all day and night!
As late as last night, I was communicating with agents who had lower offers. I flat out told them that a deal was imminent with Buyer C, yet if you hit this price, I will rescind our counter-offer and sell it to you instead.
It turned out that they didn’t like the price, BUT AT LEAST I GAVE THEM A SHOT TO BUY IT.
That’s not being tough to deal with – it’s what every buyer and buyer-agent should want: an opportunity.
So when you hear there are multiple offers, don’t automatically bail out. Make an offer and see where it goes. Eventually a good one will fall in your lap.
P.S. The first buyers did re-engage, but then they got caught up on the comps.
I thought we were right in there!
Inventory Watch
I somehow didn’t hit the Publish button on Monday morning!
The pendings are tracking right along where they were during the same time period in each of the last two years – even though there are about 20% more homes for sale today.
It sure makes you think that many home sellers are going to get left behind.
