Thread: Is it just Atlanta?

Wow what an uplifting and positive post! Thanks for that ray of sunshine!

5 buyer agents in 5 months? Whatever could be that cause of that?

Originally Posted by pissdnatl

I wrote all this out so that potential home buyers trying to educate themselves about this industry will actually get the truth about what they are about to incounter.

You got the good credit score and the good salery, come buy a house and get 8k!! You've got approval letters in your email box and your ready to go shopping.

This is where the fun begins.

On your way, you will encounter buying agents that will steer you away from the good deals YOU find because they want a bigger commission.

I understand where you are coming from, and I feel your pain. I was a non-experienced buyer once, just like you.

As for what you are experiencing: Happens all the time and everywhere. Greed knows no city. I know of agents who won't even tell you about a listing that isn't X% of what they expect to get paid.

They will show you homes that you can barely afford or you've clearly explained to them have nothing that you want. They will try to discredit your desires and talk you into what they want you to buy.

Yep. If they can maximize your loan - they've maximized their commission.

They will try to trick you into signing contracts to only buy from them.

Nope. No tricks. It's called license law. We can't *advise* you on what to look out for if we don't first acquire your autograph that discloses our relationship explaining our intentions (agency), and you can thank BRRETA for that. It's actually for your own good. It's not like you can't cancel the stupid form, it's just a formality. The only "trick" is that if we show you a home, you cancel with us after we've spent all this time on you, then you agree to *not* buy that particular home without including us in on some compensation. Sounds fair to me. If it doesn't sound fair to you - don't sign it. You have options.

They got the same internet that you do, but you got to pay these people while you search it yourself because they have another job that they work.

LOL Yeah, many agents have other jobs. Just ask your potential agent if (s)he has another job if you think they might not spend enough time on you with your current schedule. Then pick one who doesn't have another job. You have options.

On househunting day, they will show up late.

I will agree. I deal with more agents than you ever will and they aren't very reliable. Most, in my opinion, are pretty dumb.

When you arrive at the properties you want to see, pray that they didn't forget thier magic Realtor FOB at home and know the code for the lock box

Yeah, I've done something similiar once in 10 years. The stupid thing has to update itself once weekly and if we don't put it in the cradle on that day, no lockbox opening will be happing until we do. Sorry. It happens.

on the knob or theres not a renter living in the property with whom you will need to actually schedule the viewing with along with the selling agent. You will have given them a week to investigate all this but they will be just as in the dark as you are on that day you've been waiting for.

Oh they sure do. What's worse is many agents just don't communicate very well, if at all. They are too lazy to check the mls to see where it says "TENANT OCCUPIED 24 HOUR NOTICE REQUIRED" and just show up and think that everything's cool. Well it's not cool and now my client/landlord is looking at breach of lease in 2 ways: "insufficient notice" and unable to get their "peaceful and quiet enjoyment of the property."

These asshat Realtors will try and tell you, "But I can search the MLS." Well so can you, if you can type in the box on that Google machine.

Not quite, actually, you'd visit the local MLS for your area and almost always there will be a public version of the MLS. This set of homes usually contains more than any other national site or local realtor's site. The local MLS does *not* have their listings crawled by google so you'd never find them there to begin with.

The only info they can get that you can't is the codes for those lock boxes and the HOA fees.

Disagree. There's plenty of revealing remarks in the "realtor remarks" section, of which you'd never get to see unless you're a Realtor, and that's just for starters.

I actually spent an hour on the phone with an agent one night telling him how to use the search engine on his magic MLS site because he couldn't find any of the homes I was finding without me first giving him the MLS# for the home.

Agree. And what age was your agent? The dinosaur agents, by and large, don't know jack about technology. Get you a younger agent.

When trying to choose an agent to work with , make them aware that you know about the FMLS and the fact that they loose 1% and don't give a **** what thier commission is. Months later I discovered that there were a whole slew of homes that I had been told were no longer on the market that were still being advertised. All of them had this one thing in common and were really still on the market.

Well, they could very well have been not available and were then relisted. Hard to say unless you give me some MLS numbers.

When YOU call the listing agents YOURSELF to set up appointments to view homes that YOU found, you will most likely first be greeted by the sound of a screaming baby as if you were buying a home from a daycare.

That hasn't been my experience. I'm usually greeted by their voicemail. But as long as they call me back in some reasonable amount of time, I'm cool with that.

Thats if they answer the phone at all. But its not a daycare, this is your typical lazy scab of a person that signed up to make thousands for filling out forms and sending faxes while they wait for thier W.I.C. check to come, because they are technically unemployed.

Going to disagree on that one. Most female agents have a second income by way of a husband, or ex husband, so they can afford to lose your business. I've never heard of an agent on WIC in my experience.

Now that you've gone and woke up thier screaming baby and interupted Oprah, they will ask if you have an agent and refuse to talk to you and then not answer the phone when you have your LEACH call them. Or they will set a date to view the home and then not answer the phone and stand you up when the imaginary date arrives.

Unless you sounded very fishy and secretive on the phone, I can't imagine why they would do that to you. We *have* to ask you if you have an agent because if you do, the protocol is for you to have your agent call us. We are obligated to respect the possible agency of another agent and his/her client. So we ask.

I also spent a Sunday afternoon on "open houses" that I saw advertised. I looked up the addresses of three of them and drove to them. There was nobody home at all three of them.

Agreed. But get this, open houses are not designed to sell the house. They are designed and performed to get *LEADS*. It is an extremely rare event for someone to buy a house that they viewed as an open house. Home sellers never get that. They actually think the open house is for their own good. It's not. It is mostly to the benefit of the broker.

And I have seen a trend of agents who represent builders, who then advertise "open house" but are never at the house. They keep the door unlocked and then carry their lazy butts to the site office where they can actually sit in a chair and text message their boyfriends.

By now your very frustrated but you think your getting pretty good at this. You've got approval letters in every flavor you can think of. FHA, FHA 203K, Homepath, Homepath Renovation, and Conventional. Your just positive that you will be out of your rental home within a month or so, and you got your whole house boxed up and after all your troubles you've decided that your going to go after these foreclosures to save some money for all your troubles.

This is where it gets more fucked up than you could ever imagine.

Looking at foreclosures is like going to one of those swingers clubs.

Agreed. But again, you have options. Stop looking at foreclosures. And *really* stay away from HUD. Those pieces of crap are not what they used to be. Agents PUSH those things on buyers because they get full commission for them (don't have to split it with another agent).

They are all there, so cheap and easy, but something is WRONG with all of them. If its in a "transitional" neighborhood and your white, expect to be screwed around by the listing agent. If you actually get in to one of these homes you will find that theres been a drive by shooting there or maybe someone blew thier own brains out or performed an abortion all over the carpet. The asshole that lost the place took all the appliances out of it when they left.

Agreed. And yes, when disgruntled home owners find out their homes are being foreclosed upon, they try to snatch as much stuff out of the house as they can. They'll even break in to the home to get it. Most often than not, when you see a foreclosure that's been "broken into" it's been broken into by the previous owner.

Or some crackhead stole the A/C unit to re-cycle the $20.00 worth of copper in it. Throw in a couple cracked windows too, par for the course.

But maybe you were lucky or persistant enough to find a good one. Expect to get a multiple offer notice after you've submitted your offer, asking for your "highest and best offer." So you turn around and offer them 10k more than the asking price hoping to win and have to wait a week to see. I have yet to figure out if this is a B.S. move on the selling agents part to get a contract with a higher price or just the instructions that the seller gave him. None the less, the selling agent won't be able to tell you if you were at least the highest or not, saying that he's waiting to hear back from the seller to approve. Another yes/no question that will not ever be answered.

Agree. Many times those are stupid games that stupid agents play. You have options. Call their bluff. Don't budge on your price. I laugh when I'm told there are multiple offers in, especially when the piece of crap home has been sitting on the market for 6+ months with no price reduction.

Now you're at the mercy of the seller's agent (another degenerate leach), the seller's closing attorney ( degenerate leach with a law degree), and the seller him/herself ( the ASSet manager of the bank that ownes it).

Feel around for a non-degenerate leach of an agent. Don't you trust your own judgment? I'm sure you can find at least one who won't screw you over. The ones with integrity choose non-degenerate closers as well. You'll find that birds of a feather flock together. Start with an agent with integrity and usually the whole pack is a decent bunch - but trust your agent.

Most loans are backed by Fannie Mae and so that makes them the seller on most foreclosures. The problem this creates is if you are financing through FHA, Homepath, or any other number of lenders, you buying this property doesn't take the debt off thier books. It just moves some paper around, and they would rather have someone come in with a conventional non-FMNA loan where they get a check for the total amount of the home.

Well, you can hardly blame them for that. That's just good business practices and minimizing risk on their part. Of course they're going to pick the offer with the best terms. Wouldn't you?

Remember, the seller is the "asset manager" and he is managing thier assets. All that bailout money just wasn't good enough.

Oh I definitely agree with you on that one. Those piece of crap mortgage companies are the last folks on the planet to be filing bankruptcy. Just take a simple look at an amortization schedule. It totally blows my mind that they could screw that up. But they do. And thank our degenerate government for rewarding their bad behavior.

So what they do to is send you a 27 page contract with impossible dates to obtain financing or close with no appraisal adendums or anything making it to where your gambling or staight up going to loose your earnest money if you proceed to attempt to buy the home.

There's some history and good reasons for doing that on their part, but it's too long of a discussion. Again, if you don't like the terms, don't agree to them.

The buyer they are looking for is an investor that can put lots of cash down, and rent it out or sit on it but those folks are all dried up. Hence the fact that this "awesome deal" has been on the market for more than a year.

Yeah, because of stupid people living beyond their means, honest guys like myself can't get in to the foreclosures the way we used to. I'm just as disgusted as well.

If it is a condo or townhome, expect the HOA to be imposssible to deal with in anything that has to do with your closing because if you buy that unit for that steal of a deal, then it brings down the value of everyones unit thats for sale and now nobody can get thier asking price financed.

Yeah, they're not happy about it, but think about that one. Its got to sell, even on the cheap, otherwise the price keeps going down down down.

So you terminate your offer on your first "dreamhome" to save your "earnest money".Paying another months rent, with all your **** boxed up, scouring the internet nightly, trying to figure out a way to move and not get fucked.

I make 50K per year, have a 700+ credit score, and 10K to make the deal happen. I've had 5 different buyer's agents, approval letters for every kind of loan that google can turn up, had 4 contracts fall apart and paid for 3 inspections, AND I STILL PAY RENT for the 5th month in a row since I first secured financing.

Bit of good advice here: Stop going to all of those places for loans. You should only go to one or two *local* companies for your loan. Lord knows how many times your credit has been pulled already.

I wonder what the realestate market would look like if the people that are in the position to buy the homes could actually buy them?

As a country, we're going to have to pay back, one way or another, all the money we've squandered away in the hay days. Until then, you won't be in a great position to actually buy them. They equity is chewed up and spent. The values have been inflated...it's just bad all the way around.

I welcome your comments, but save that story about "how you hate it that theres realtors out there that make the rest of you look bad" for someone else. Even if you do select a Realtor with integrity, it's not going to matter because you got so many hands in the pot that no home buyer will ever make the transaction without running into a scab somewhere in the deal.

Disagree. I have much integrity (we'll all claim we do, right?) and the moment I see someone's hand in the pot who's not lagit, I dump them on their behinds and never use them again. Their actions will reflect on me and I'm not going to let them bring down my reputation. Again, you need to pick an agent with integrity. If he truly did hold to high standards, he would not tolerate anything less than high standards from those he chooses to work with and from those who he refers you to work with.

No, it's not just Atlanta. Hope that helped.

I Don't know why anyone would need a Realtor after reading this post. I mean seriously, why are there millions of realty agents in the workforce worldwide? Why would ANYONE pay us to help them buy or sell a home? Why is a REALTOR almost always viewed as a necessity when buying a home or putting one up for sale? Why is a REALTOR almost always turned to for an end all advisement in multi-million dollar sales and purchases?

Your an idiot if you truly believe everything that you have posted here, and your an even bigger idiot if you had those experiences over and over, because you should have taken the time to find an AGENT and not a salesperson. There is a reason that the REAL ESTATE business generates BILLIONS in revenue for REALTORS every year, and its not because we are leaches.

I hate working with people like you, and commission be damned, I would walk on the first meeting. We are here to help you and advise you, but apparently you have your mind all made up on how the market works. HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED that maybe the agents KNOW a little more than you do about your market? Maybe your AGENT was steering you away from an area that is know for issues? Maybe your Agent was taking your best interests to heart when they wouldn't show you certain homes.

I mean, do you really know how easy our job would be if we just waited for you to scan the "mls" zillow pages and pick a home. We could just sit back and watch you pay WAY too much for a home that is crashing in value, and then watch you burn as you find out two years later, that it has termite damage throughout, lead paint all over, a basement that floods, electrical outlets that shoot sparks, and a toxic dump in the back yard.

Damn I hate people like you, ***** and moan about our commission, yet you keep asking for our advice.

Originally Posted by J.Dean

I Don't know why anyone would need a Realtor after reading this post.

His point exactly.

I mean seriously, why are there millions of realty agents in the workforce worldwide?

Maybe I can take a couple of stabs. Because of the common misconception that Realtors are rich? They flock to this field because of the low requirements to get in, then become one of the majority of below poverty producers? Or maybe because the field is predominantly occupied by wives who have husbands making a second income and they can "fiddle" around in real estate since it's no big deal if they do well or not?

Why would ANYONE pay us to help them buy or sell a home?

Maybe because we have the choke hold on the MLS, which is the most important factor in getting a home sold.

Why is a REALTOR almost always viewed as a necessity when buying a home or putting one up for sale?

See above explanation.

Why is a REALTOR almost always turned to for an end all advisement in multi-million dollar sales and purchases? Your an idiot

That's not nice. Way to go in setting an example of professionalism.

if you truly believe everything that you have posted here, and your an even bigger idiot

That's not nice. Again, way to go in setting an example of professionalism.

if you had those experiences over and over, because you should have taken the time to find an AGENT and not a salesperson. There is a reason that the REAL ESTATE business generates BILLIONS in revenue for REALTORS every year, and its not because we are leaches.

If this customer had some bad experiences, then so be it. Listen to him instead of going all off the deep end with your reaction. You're acting as if he did something to you personally. I've always found that the folks who react the way you do are doing so from a guilty conscience.

I hate working with people like you,

Hate? Seriously? Hate is such a strong term. Again, great job on being the "good" example. It's agents like you who can't control their emotions that this poor guy is complaining about.

and commission be damned, I would walk on the first meeting. We are here to help you and advise you, but apparently you have your mind all made up on how the market works. HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED that maybe the agents KNOW a little more than you do about your market? Maybe your AGENT was steering you away from an area that is know for issues? Maybe your Agent was taking your best interests to heart when they wouldn't show you certain homes.

Well, sure, that's a possibility, but you nor I were there. He was. And that was his experience. If you are going to "what if" it in the positive direction, then it would make complete sense to "what if" it in the negative direction. Maybe all of the agents he dealt with sucked. As a Realtor who has worked with hundreds of agents in my town, I can tell you that the vast majority of them are incompetent, and have major emotional issues that they can't seem to leave out of the transaction.

I mean, do you really know how easy our job would be if we just waited for you to scan the "mls" zillow pages and pick a home. We could just sit back and watch you pay WAY too much for a home that is crashing in value, and then watch you burn as you find out two years later, that it has termite damage throughout, lead paint all over, a basement that floods, electrical outlets that shoot sparks, and a toxic dump in the back yard.

I think he gets that. Can you understand he had some bad experiences and as a customer, he has the right to vent?

Damn I hate people like you,

Ok, now you're way off the deep end. You are the kind of agent he's complaining about. You hate him? Get a grip.

***** and moan about our commission, yet you keep asking for our advice.

Please don't say "our." As a Realtor, I'm not on your team. I don't side with anyone who says they HATE customers who are venting from some bad experiences. You've got to take the good with the bad, it just goes with the territory. Learn to just shrug it off and try to understand the guy. I can only imagine how you would react in person, with a transaction you've been working on for weeks, and things got heated. I mean, this is some anonymous guy from a town that's not even in your State, with an experience that you weren't even a party to. You'd be one of those agents that would drive me to drinking just so I could survive your off the deep end emotional tirades.

FIRST OFF, I didn't say I hated HIM, I said I hate people LIKE him. SECOND OFF, HE wasn't complaining about one or two agents, but HE crossed the line when HE lumped ALL real estate professionals in to one group of lazy, incompetent W.I.C. cases.

I work VERY hard to satisfy EVERY requirement that is put forth by my clients, and I don't AT ALL appreciate someone lumping me into the group that he ASSUMES we all belong to.

Had HE vented his frustration on a single agent office, etc. I would have given him the benefit of a doubt and EVEN HELPED GUIDE HIM TO A BETTER CHOICE, However, he came to a REAL ESTATE FORUM and bad mouthed OUR industry at a whole, putting us all in a bad light.

Maybe you can handle being told your worthless by association, but I can't. Second, the last thing you need to be doing is protecting someone who calls your profession a CLASS OF LEACHES... or i'm guessing your not a real estate agent, and you just want to bash as well. So be it... No big deal.

But I will say again, I HATE PEOPLE LIKE THIS, that assume we do nothing except collect a LEACH fee... It's those people that expect us to jump at their beckon call and show 35 properties when they want to go sight seeing, and then get MAD when you ask them to get pre-approved.

You can deal with this person all you want, but I can assure you that after you do, you will be the next incompetent, lazy W.I.C. loser on his list. Do you really think of yourself that way?

J.Dean and mr1, you are arguing about a post from a troll in my opinion.

Originally Posted by J.Dean

FIRST OFF, I didn't say I hated HIM, I said I hate people LIKE him.

JD. Seriously? If my set theory classes serve me well, if you hate people like him, and he's the example, then it is true to say that you hate him and people like him. You can either google the proof or can accept it as truth.

SECOND OFF, HE wasn't complaining about one or two agents, but HE crossed the line when HE lumped ALL real estate professionals in to one group of lazy, incompetent W.I.C. cases.

Have you never dealt with angry before? Don't you have a wife? Anger is not rational, and anger typically deals in absolutes because it is not rational. He's venting. Let him calm down. An important point here is *you* are supposed to be the professional, at least publicly.

I work VERY hard to satisfy EVERY requirement that is put forth by my clients, and I don't AT ALL appreciate someone lumping me into the group that he ASSUMES we all belong to.

That is very thin skinned of you. To go off like that on an anonymous guy in another state on a transaction you weren't even involved in is just a bit much.

Had HE vented his frustration on a single agent office, etc. I would have given him the benefit of a doubt and EVEN HELPED GUIDE HIM TO A BETTER CHOICE, However, he came to a REAL ESTATE FORUM and bad mouthed OUR industry at a whole, putting us all in a bad light.

Maybe you can handle being told your worthless by association, but I can't. Second, the last thing you need to be doing is protecting someone who calls your profession a CLASS OF LEACHES... or i'm guessing your not a real estate agent, and you just want to bash as well. So be it... No big deal.

Please see my second reply.

But I will say again, I HATE PEOPLE LIKE THIS, that assume we do nothing except collect a LEACH fee... It's those people that expect us to jump at their beckon call and show 35 properties when they want to go sight seeing, and then get MAD when you ask them to get pre-approved.

Again, there are many, many, agents who fit the bill. If you don't fit the bill, simply and calmly state you are not one of them, and just understand that he's not speaking in absolutes.

You can deal with this person all you want, but I can assure you that after you do, you will be the next incompetent, lazy W.I.C. loser on his list. Do you really think of yourself that way?

That's one of many differences between you and I. I don't think of myself that way because I *know* I'm not that way, and no angry anonymous guy from across the country speaking in absolutes is ever going to change that. If someone thought of me that way by some personal experience, then I would ponder the thought. If an overwhelming majority of people think of me in the same negative way through personal experience, then they must be on to something. If some anonymous guy from across the country speaks in absolutes about a personal experience with someone not like me, then I understand. It would be to your mental and physical benefit if you understood too. I'm guessing here, but I think maybe you've had more than one person through personal experience think of you that way and hearing it from this guy set you off. Am I right? If not, chill out and thicken your skin.

Originally Posted by markbrian

J.Dean and mr1, you are arguing about a post from a troll in my opinion.

It has been my experience that trolls don't give as much time and detail that this guy gave. It's also my belief that while many posts are troll posts, there are many non troll posts that are artificially generated just to keep people like you and I coming here, thereby keeping the site alive. In either event, it's likely someone could come out of it learning a thing or two. So, all in all, it's likely not a total waste.