Husband and Wife Realtor "Teams"

do they buy billboards with them holding hands?

 

never...all word of mouth and meeting clients at open houses

 

come on man, no cheesy adverts stating that they love each other and will love to bring YOU their sales expertise....as a couple! vomit worthy.

 

As long as they don't do it in my livingroom, I'm coo!

 

Married couples running a business together is not unusual. It does not mean there is something wrong with the man, unless you think there is something wrong with any man married to a competent woman.

But I'm not sure if you mean "realtor" or "reality couple".

I read a hilarious article on a medical practice run by a husband-wife doctor-nurse team. She was the doctor and he the nurse. The article was on how they constantly have to correct people.

 

Husband-Wife realtor teams seem different because some of them flaunt the fact that they are married as some kind of qualification in their ads.

also, why do realtors feel the need to put a picture of themselves on their business cards?




so cheeseball.

 

haha...fifth search result under google.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&um=1&q=husband wife realtor teams&ndsp=18&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw

 

ADP . . . I know you are above this cheesey advertising and all . . . but in these tough economic times, people are going to try different angles to get market share.

They are using the fact that they are a husband and wife team to attract a certain cross section of the community . . . what is wrong with that? At least they are trying to increasae business and not giving up on the industry like so many real estate agents have.

I don't get your beef with this couple . . .

 

Theses are not new "teams", husband and wife realtor teams have been around for a while. I think its more about them flaunting their love than it being a real business than anything. Really really retarded, IMO. I've seen parent/child "teams" too....

 

Dude...alll those types of ads are trying to convey the message "We are a local, real family" rather than giving your money to the single middle aged dude working at "big bad Century 21."

Almost all businesses have some variation of that

edit: also, my Parents cards dont have their pic on them. I suspect why that happenes in real estate is because clients are going to a million open houses and meeting a million agents....gotta try hard to be remembered when the client decides which agent to call.

 

Sorry to offend you, but I've bought and sold three houses now, and as far as I can tell the realtors involved did nothing but complicate the process and get paid a commission.

The single biggest service I can see is that they get houses listed on the MLS, and that's about as much work as building a good Craigslist ad. The open houses are nice, too, I suppose, but I've never really bought or sold a house because of one, so I've always wondered how effective they really are.

Particularly as a buyer, I find it very advantagous to represent myself. Most people don't think this through, but when you represent yourself and the seller has a realtor, that realtor is suddenly the buyer's best ally. Why? It's in the seller's realtor's best interest to get the deal closed with you as fast as possible, because by not having a realtor of your own, you are doubling that guy's 3% commission to 6%. If you as the buyer walk, the next buyer might have a realtor and suddenly the seller's realtor has to split the commission.

So I go in with a very lowball offer, knowing that the "seller's" realtor is going to be my best friend in trying to convince the seller to accept the offer ASAP. "As your realtor, Larry, I gotta say this isn't a bad deal. I've seen houses this nice sell for a lot less. I think you should take it (and pay me the entire 6% commission!)."

 

I have now bought and sold three houses on my own . . . and I agree with a lot of what you are saying. (I have a lot of funny stories during negotiations (each house), but won't bore you with all of them . . . one of them I had the seller's agent agree to only take 3.5% and take another 2.5% off the sale price of the house to make the deal work)

I'm just going to add that one thing I think an agent brings to the table is distance between the buyer and seller. Too often negotaitions can be affected by emotions . . . by having the agents negotiate, it takes the emotions out of play and negotaiting strickly in a business mode is more likely going to get done.

Being the one always doing the negotiating when buying or selling a house, I am amazed at how often emotions control decisions.

 

Stats that Ive been told by my office is that Open Houses lead to only 5% of the sales. Open Houses benefit the Realtor more than the client by him meeting prospective buyers. On the flip side clients WANT open houses so agents do them. Vast majority of listings are sold by networking with other local agents or within your company.

This is a highly touchy subject in the real estate world. Many state have outlawed "dual-commission". CA still allows it but Ive heard its on its way out. Obviously the your scenario is highly unethical since the agent is focusing on his pay rather than his ethical duty to BOTH clients. They say by law "you have to service both sides equally and fairly"...you can see how that can sometimes get ugly. Agents who do a dual commission are have a WAY higher chance of getting sued because of a cynical (or maybe right) client in one of those deals.

Here is the hole in your story. As ou said earlier the MLS is a vast array of info for agents which also of course includes records of home sales and their specifics. You can always talk down or talk up a property a bit but the numbers dont lie. When the client asks to see the comparables hes talking about and they exist for the price range he mentioned then where is he being shady? It IS a fair price regardless of what the agent is getting paid.

On a personal note I witnessed my father do a dual commission when I was just entering the business. Him and the seller agreed to 6% total commission (3% a side) EXCEPT if my dad got dual commission. They agreed if my dad found the buyer the commission total would be reduced to 4.5%. It worked great for everybody involved. The buyer had "free money" added to his offer. The sellers got a reduction in commission if accepted, and my dad made a little extra. The offer and "extra money" was virtually the asking price and the home was sold within five days. My parents since have become good friends with the sellers.


PS. Hope you know the ins and outs of a real estate contract and where the responsibilities reside for each part. Money you are saving now could bite you in the ass later (years from now)because of disclosures you might have overlooked and now all of a sudden you found something horribly wrong with the structure.

PSS According to studies having an agent to sell your house adds 8-12% to the sale price....which if you didnt notice is more than the commission payed out (which is usually less than 6%)

 

Just look at the bright side. Maybe they are into having sex in empty houses. Then they would have a lot of fun on the job.

 

You cant (if you wanted to) in CA anymore. All lockboxes are digital and record when and who accessed the home. I dont think there are clients looking at homes at midnight

....not that I ever thought about that

 

Of course, the residential realtor gets to pick the comps. When the deal gets close to happening, residential realtors switch sides--the selling agent tries to get the seller to drop his or her price and the the buying agent tries to get the buyer to raise his or her offer. It costs them only a few bucks, but costs the buyer and seller thousands. Steve Levitt did a study on housing prices by homes represented by realtors and homes sold by realtors themselves. The study shows that the average selling price--with all other factors adjusted--achieved for their own homes is 3% higher than those they merely represent. Furthermore, the homes they represent are sold faster than their own--meaning they push the client to make the deal so they get their commission.

Oh, dear. Do you really believe that residential realtors add value on the RE contract? Nowadays the contracts are mostly standardized by state and there's enough information out there for everyone to see what the problems are. The issue you're talking about can be cleared up with a simple inspection. Heck, that clause used to be a rider, but is now part and parcel of any standardized sales contract.

Which studies? The numbers I've seen have shown that residential realtors do no better than the average seller. Perhaps these studies were put out by the NAR and didn't standardize for condition of property (FSBO homes are generally in poorer condition and on the lower end of the price scale than agent-represented homes) or make other upward/downward adjustments.

The internet should kill residential realtors for all but the most lazy and people who are relocating to new areas with a few years. The MLS we held over everyone and the information we kept private has been completely democratized with sites like zillow.com, trulia.com and realtor.com.

To them I say "Good riddance". They've been a remora on the residential RE process for far too long.

 

Your post is flawed on many levels...You have just had shitty agents if this is your opinion

 

Its called offer and counteroffer...have you never haggled on price in your life? Price is only one facet of an offer also. The other terms of the offer are just as important and sometimes even more.

You are already assuming the realtor is unethical for "picking the comps". Purposely hiding comps can get you sued and out of real estate real fast.

 

I see you can't answer my post with specifics. I've never had a shitty agent because I've never been represented by an agent. I've sat across the table plenty of times by agents who didn't act in their clients best interests, however. Once you realize how to play the residential realtor, you own them. Hook them with an easy close and then get close enough to where they can taste the commission. Hook, like and sinker.

I've purchased residential properties both to live in and as investments. In my 19 years of residential RE investing and in dealing literally with over a thousand realtors, I have run into exactly ONE who I would consider to be really good at his job. If you ever buy RE in LO, his name is Mel Brown. That guy is a pit bull who would rather lose a commission than pay too much for a house or sell a house for less than it's worth.

Realtors don't understand contracts like lawyers, they don't understand valuation like appraisers, they don't understand financing like mortgage officers and they don't understand closing processes like someone at a title company. I've never even found them particularly good at negotiating. They understand how to insert themselves into a transaction better done without them. Like I said, unless you're lazy or moving to an area you don't know, residential realtors are practically worthless.