18 Comments
Jan 7, 2023Liked by Quoth the Raven

Appraiser here. Good agents are a godsend. I never get a phone call from a good agent during a transaction because they understand everyone's job during a transaction and how the system works. They price the listing mostly correctly, take time to explain to the clients that the appraised value may not meet the contract due to the wild market conditions, know how to read an appraisal, and know that the lender may call for specific repairs that need to be addressed. Instead of calling the loan officer or appraiser to complain they just get the job done or present actual data to back up any true complaint they might have. Like most jobs you do have to learn by doing, so many bad agents will become good eventually through experience. It would be beneficial if everyone in the transaction between agents, lenders and appraisers saw each other as coworkers instead of enemies but I suspect as Kira says the root of some problems might be the pay commission structure. Flat fees would probably weed out most bad apples.

No one is to blame for the housing bubble but the government. Everyone else involved is just making the transaction happen within the banking rules, even if we think you're paying a stupid price lol. Problem is when it all comes crashing down no one wants to take personal responsibility for deciding to pay $500k over asking and instead wants to sue the agent, lender, or appraiser for not stopping them lol

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Jan 7, 2023Liked by Quoth the Raven

My agent team for my last home purchase was invaluable. Whether or not they revealed all the details or sold me a story, the fact was they got previous owners to move on our reasonable offer. The owners had a well established history of holding out for an unreasonably high selling price in that market era. We got the impression the listing agent was getting tired of carrying the listing just to avoid selling due to unreasonable expectations.

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On Thursday I close the purchase of a new house in Sioux Falls. My real estate agent has been invaluable through the whole process.

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Jan 7, 2023Liked by Quoth the Raven

Excellent interview. Integrity has and always will be the ultimate currency. Unfortunately for most it’s a short game. Grateful for the incredible amount of value provided in your podcasts and substack

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Dime a dozen??? A bit harsh. A lot of bad apples for sure but some really good ones.

The biggest problem are huge real estate firms ‘selling’ a dream to a ‘married mother of three’ that she’ll kill it and she has the time to manage all of it. Truthfully, they just need a few transactions out of her to make ‘their investment back’ and any additional transactions are money in the bank. They don’t care about turnover because they are constantly recruiting new suckers. They never stop!

The turnover rate is ridiculous. I live in the Triangle Region of NC. At one point last spring we had roughly 10,000 agents in Wake County and less than 400 active resale homes available. We could easily manage the entire region with probably 80% fewer licensed agents. Hopefully 2023 will weed out a lot of marginal agents and the firms that keep selling them a steaming pile of BS.

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real estate agents are a dime a dozen

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Excellent article! Thank you!

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Very good article, will be linking it today in my economic news @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/

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Guys this is BS. Fiduciary? LOL. Most realtors will turn greedy in a split second and abandon all ethics— don’t even bother writing your article. The system is rigged with usurious interest rates and regulation. Banks must first be disbanded.

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