Buying a house stinks....

[Greatwhite]

I love that no representation play, Severum.   Money talks, in the end.  We thought initially that the reason we were declined on Friday was that the selling agent had a client herself and was after the double commission.

I still haven't heard if they are willing to accept my "take it or leave it" offer yet.  I suspect they're scrambling, trying to contact the other people who were in the bidding war to see if they want to try harder. 

Oh, and I didn't give the same offer I gave during the bidding war because at this point, I'm the only one playing and I don't NEED the house.

[Fishnut]

Hmmm... Seems buyers remorse got the best of the people who beat us - and they walked.  We got a call from our agent, saying that it's still available if we are interested and the sellers wanted to know if our offer was still on the table.

Well - no, that offer was only valid until 8pm, and then it expired.  TODAY's offer is their asking price, our closing date.  They can take it or leave it.  I love the yard, but the house needs work. We don't love the house enough to come in with $20k over asking (which was our final offer when there was a competition)...

I love with these "shady" tactics blow up in peoples' faces.  When emotions run a negotiation, no one will win.

HAHAHAHAHA...sucks to be them.  Good on you for taking your extra 20K off the table.  They don't deserve it   PM me with the name of the listing agent.  I'm curious who it is and who they work for.

sounds like a pro move to me man... well played.


I always wondered (and assumed) that there are even more shady deals between some agents... you take $1000 out of your commission on this one for my buyer and I'll give you $1000 on the next one we do... or things of this nature...

There are rules that prevent that.  If someone gets caught by a client or another agent, it's not just a slap on the wrist.  Plus there are over 2700 agents in this city.  Some of the big guns might meet more than others but the chances of us doing a deal with the same agent again and again are slim, IMO.  I certainly wouldn't trust someone who offered me that.

Why do agents have such a shady reputation?!

[Fishnut]

• fantastic
• granite
• spacious
• state-of-the-art
• !
• Corian
• charming
• maple
• great neighborhood
• gourmet

here's the answer. The words in italics are good. Why? Because they say something positive and definite about the house. You may or may not like granite, but there's no denying the implication of rich and aspirational. The same goes for corian, maple, state-of-the-art and gourmet. Whatever you feel, you cannot deny the meaning. Now look at the other words. Spacious? What does that mean? Is it impractical, badly laid out, cold, roomy, who knows? Charming is just as banal and ambiguous. And as a writer, I know that using anything like fantastic or ! means you have nothing of substance to say. When a house is fantastic, you don't have to say so....it sells itself. And great neighborhood basically means it's not the best house on the block. When you know how to read the code, and it's not difficult to figure out, you know what the agent is trying to do. Through the use of this language, they're saying "this house isn't so hot...maybe you should make a lowball bid, it may just get accepted."

I forgot to comment on this...

We're not allowed to say negative things about the houses we're trying to sell.  Yeah, some agents totally misrepresent.  I've been frustrated on too many occasions when I think I found something great to show a client and it's a POS house.  Makes me feel bad, but the clients never seem to fault me because they read the same description and get equally excited.  When I'm asked for feed-back though I'm not shy in what I think of their description.  Unfortunately there is a code to that wording...it drives me nuts.  If on doubt, I call the listing agent and ask directly.  I have gotten real answers..."yeah, this place needs a lot of renos...."

[Hookup]

Why do agents have such a shady reputation?!

My thoughts are that everyone, kind of selfishly, wants their agent to know all the tricks, all the angles and all of the savvy to get you the best deal going... to get you maximum dollar value etc...  subconsciously there are shades of gray there... from yoda white to vader black...  This image transfers to real people... then along comes the really shady person, who did things in a darth-vader-black way... which solidifies the fear/image...

This is further compounded by the fact that the overall process lacks validation.  There isn't, nor can there be, any external entity validating that you got the best deal.  So again your mind wonders, did my agent do the best job, or did the other agent do the best job...  If you then find out something you didn't know about your house, you naturally want to blame someone... and the agent takes the blame because they represented themselves as "THE EXPERT"... 


Same problem with Lawyers...  they're all leaches feeding off of the pain and suffering of others... (as an image)


btw, this is not a good image or process... but I think that's where the image comes from...

[Hookup]

I forgot to comment on this...

We're not allowed to say negative things about the houses we're trying to sell. 

WHAT!  Are you kidding me?  Now that is interesting... and thinking back to my agent interactions i do not recall every hearing her talk about the negatives, or bringing up anything negative... they would point out the positives only...

OMG What is the logic behind this??? 

[Darth]

WHAT!  Are you kidding me?  Now that is interesting... and thinking back to my agent interactions i do not recall every hearing her talk about the negatives, or bringing up anything negative... they would point out the positives only...

OMG What is the logic behind this??? 

am I missing something? Fishnut said they are NOT allowed to say anything negative, so why would you (as an agent for the seller ) point out anything bad? Good way not to sell your house, you only want to go with the positive....So I am confused.
On a side not coming from someone who can never afford to buy a house I love this thread, its a wealth of information lots of good ideas and info from both sides of the coin. I have learnt more reading this than I would have imagined, now if only my friend would have read this before she bought her money pit, she might not be in her predicament so kudos guys keep the comments coming

[JetJumper]

WHAT!  Are you kidding me?  Now that is interesting... and thinking back to my agent interactions i do not recall every hearing her talk about the negatives, or bringing up anything negative... they would point out the positives only...

OMG What is the logic behind this??? 

I don't think they are allowed to say this place is crap.. but they have to disclose if there are issues that needs to be addressed if asked.  Take for instance if the place was a grow op, they don't have to  come out and say it was a grow op, but it has to be disclosed if asked.  I think that's the correct law behind it?  Correct me if I am wrong. 

[Darth]

I think that may be the loophole "if asked" there are so many what ifs maybe it wasnt a grow op but a porn studio LOL can you picture that conversation so tell me was this house ever used to film adult movies?

[Fishnut]

I don't think they are allowed to say this place is crap.. but they have to disclose if there are issues that needs to be addressed if asked.  Take for instance if the place was a grow op, they don't have to  come out and say it was a grow op, but it has to be disclosed if asked.  I think that's the correct law behind it?  Correct me if I am wrong. 

Yes, we can't say the house is crap, etc on a listing or to potential buyers but we absolutely have to disclose major defects if we know about them.  If it was a grow up, that disclosure is on the listing for all to see.  Even if it was fixed and lived in, etc...it's a stigma that sticks.

Another thing that you guys don't see is another section of comments on the listing.  There are sometimes certain things that are disclosed to other realtors on listings that don't make it to the MLS.  That's not hiding it, but it lets us qualify properties a bit more accurately for clients.  Unrepresented people will be told if they're inquiring about the property.  Keep in mind, the MLS is nothing more than an advertising venue, so everything we put there will be roses.  We want to get people to call!!

[bizfromqc]

Our experience with agents was great, especially when you're buying your first house.

Our agent knew it was our first house so spent the extra time to go over the + and - of each property given our situation. We even saw some of his own listings and never felt pressured to buy those instead of "another agents" property. In the end, we bought the house that met our requirement and not for his "commission". I guess that's what separates good agents from not so good ones. I appreciate that not everyone's experience would be the same but that was ours.

Don't know about using an agent to sell a house but I'd strongly recommend anyone looking to buy their first house to use an agent.

[Greatwhite]

Our first house buying experience soured us a little on agents in general - or at least some agents whose name may or may not rhyme with Smangelo Smoscano...  We were uneducated in the fine are of looking at homes, and saw this house on the MLS site.  We saw that we just missed an open house, and called to see if there was another planned for the following weekend.   We were told "no, there is nothing planned - but we can schedule a showing if you want"

Fine.. Scheduled a showing...  Met with some some Angelina Jolie looking  agent that Mr Smoscano pimps out to show the houses.  She says "Oh, we couldn't schedule that one because of a birthday party - but here, let's look at a few other houses in the area".  .... o..k?? 

We were shown 3 houses that were run down, one had some old people sitting on the couch, farting - who couldn't leave the house if they tried.  They actually carpeted the en suite bathroom, which was reeeeal nice.

The agent rescheduled our showing of the house we liked for the following weekend.  When we got here, it was during an open house.  *sigh*  SO we wandered the house and - compared to the other 3, it was amazing!  Put an offer in the next day and Mr Smoscano swooped in last minute to make the deal.  He represented us both, and walked away with a double commission. 

At christmas, we received a real nice (read ugly) painting, depicting kids playing street hockey in front of a house with a sign saying "Sold - By Smoscano"..  That painting is now hanging in the office of my friend who owns a local magazine about Homes and Land....

I didn't like how this dude pimped out agents to do the real work, and then swooped in to cut the deal last minute.  It is my own fault for getting wrapped up with these people at all, although I knew what they were doing as soon as I we met the agent the first time and she was immediately trying to force paperwork down our throats.

This time, we have a friend who is an agent - and he's doing A LOT of legwork to find us a perfect house.

[Hookup]

Yes, we can't say the house is crap, etc on a listing or to potential buyers but we absolutely have to disclose major defects if we know about them.

First, the law calls for everyone to disclose major defects, so that's nothing unique to agents, no one can miss-represent their products. 

I cannot express how much this disheartens me... 

Sylvia, i hope you will correct me and tell me i've miss interpreted things... but from what you've posted this is what I understood.

Moral ethics seem to be thrown out the window for agents as they cannot say... "in my experience, this house is not good or well designed... the walls are crooked, the windows are etc... the layout is non-functional.. the kitchen is poorly equipped... the condo company has had problems in the past... I sold three of these units and all of them had issues with the home inspection... etc... etc..."

The agent comes to the table for 5% with all this experience and stands there watching you flounder around in a house full of sub-optimal design features, etc... and says nothing...

[blizzack1]

Someone posted earlier in the thread (I don't think I've seen a thread with such a high 'words per post' average) about what the alternative way to buy/sell is.  Here is an interesting article about why it costs so much to sell a home in America (and, by extension, Canada, as we use the same model) relative to other places (eg. double what they pay in Britain):

http://www.economist.com/node/21554204

Three theories:

The business used to operate like a series of local cartels. In a typical area, a handful of brokers controlled a shared database of available homes, and limited their cheaper rivals' access to those listings. In 2008 in the United States and 2010 in Canada, regulators struck deals with realtors to open up these databases. Yet since then the average commission has actually risen, from 5.0% in 2005 to 5.4% in 2011, according to REAL Trends, a research firm.

Why are high fees so persistent? One counterintuitive theory is that America's housing bust has buoyed them. Selling a home is easy when prices are rising. But when financing dries up and volumes dip, sellers may need an agent's expertise and energetic marketing to find a buyer.

Another theory is that clients are suckers. Agents routinely tell buyers not to worry about the fat commission because "the seller pays it." Meanwhile, they tell sellers not to worry because they will jack up the price of the home to cover it. According to Steve Murray of REAL Trends, two-thirds of clients choose an agent because of a prior personal relationship or referral. They may be reluctant to haggle with realtors to whom they have social ties.

A third theory is that the industry is less competitive than it looks. In most areas a few big brokers handle most transactions. They set high fees, which lure ever more people into the profession: between 1998 and 2005 the number of members of America's National Association of Realtors grew by 67%. These agents waste time competing with each other for the exclusive right to sell each home, sapping productivity. According to Norm Miller of the University of San Diego, an average agent in Britain closes 40-50 deals a year, compared with just seven in America.

Cynics say the industry has captured its regulators. The property commissions of American states are usually made up of brokers. Perhaps this is why many states have banned commission rebates—a form of discounting—or set up "minimum-service" standards that stop brokers offering fewer services for less money.

The biggest cause, however, is probably the interdependent nature of the business. Since both the buyer and seller are represented by agents in most transactions, brokers must collaborate to close deals at the same time as they compete for listings. Buyers' agents have an incentive only to show their clients homes whose sellers offer them a standard 3% commission.

To solve this problem, many sellers' agents offer to cut their own fee while still offering the full price to the buyer's agent. Alas, word soon spreads that they are giving rebates. That makes many buyers' agents steer their clients elsewhere—either in solidarity with full-service brokers or because they fear a discounter will leave them with the lion's share of the work.

Such stealth discrimination is hard to prove: buyers' agents can always say they ignored a listing because it did not meet their client's needs. But Colby Sambrotto, the founder of ForSaleByOwner.com and USRealty.com, a discount broker, says that after trying to sell his own home in New York by himself, he was forced to hire an agent to get it shown to potential buyers.

[Greatwhite]

First, the law calls for everyone to disclose major defects, so that's nothing unique to agents, no one can miss-represent their products. 

I cannot express how much this disheartens me... 

Sylvia, i hope you will correct me and tell me i've miss interpreted things... but from what you've posted this is what I understood.

Moral ethics seem to be thrown out the window for agents as they cannot say... "in my experience, this house is not good or well designed... the walls are crooked, the windows are etc... the layout is non-functional.. the kitchen is poorly equipped... the condo company has had problems in the past... I sold three of these units and all of them had issues with the home inspection... etc... etc..."

The agent comes to the table for 5% with all this experience and stands there watching you flounder around in a house full of sub-optimal design features, etc... and says nothing...

Although the LISTING agent can't SAY anything bad about a house, the BUYING agent can...  Perhaps it's not direct, but my agent is sure to point out flaws as we're doing our walk throughs...  He once mentioned that he spoke to the listing agent about one house, and the listing agent basically said (to him) that the house is over priced, listed poorly - and that they JUST did some work to fix some issues recently.

Another agent called my guy after we saw a grossly overpriced house, and asked for feedback -- "aside from being so over priced"...

Agents can talk to agents, and they do.  Shoot, my agent is constantly texting the selling agents to get more info while we're walking through places...  And, like Sylvia mentioned - there are sections in the MLS listing that "we" can't see so that agents CAN pass on info that might be important.

[Fishnut]

Outside of the laws, it is the buyer agent who is responsible for pointing out the flaws and uncovering the opinions of the listing agent.  It says right on our buyer contract that although we are aware of many aspects of the home buying process, we are not inspectors, not mortgage brokers, not insurance agents, etc.  Worded in legalease, of course.

I tell people what I think, I point out what I see and I'm not shy about it.  I sometimes burst bubbles and upset people.  Other times, they see all these things and this amazing house isn't so amazing any more.  Yes, agents will often be more open with other agents, especially if direct questions are being asked.

Now as far as all the US stats...that's US.  Perhaps it is a similar model but that's the US.  This is Canada.  In most cities, the standard total commission is 5% and not going up.  I wouldn't pay much attention to the real estate stats of another country, unless I was planning to work there.  Pay attention to the stats of THIS country...specifically this province and this city.  Every city has it's own stats because every city is unique.  Ottawa is different than Montreal, which is different from Toronto, which is completely different from Vancouver.  So, although the US is a neighbour, it's stats are not our stats.

[Nerine]

We had a decent house buying experience hehe despite one agent puking in the back seat of the car hahahaha (So glad I decided to sit that viewing out! whew!)

and one house that looked amazing on paper and in the photos, we get to it and start looking about when we get a phone call from the selling agent saying "oh by the way, this place used to be a grow-op" ....that killed it for us right there as there was too much mold!!!

But once we had Sylvia things ran smoother!

Hoping everyone has better house buying /selling experiences!! This has been an interesting thread!!!

[Stussi613]

When we bought our first house 3 years ago we started off looking at Grapevine places on our own.  A friend mentioned that a lady at a party was his families real estate agent and we got to talking. She had worked in tech before so we knew lots of the same people. I mentioned that we were looking at Grapevine listings and that we were seeing lots of crappy places, and that we weren't really up to speed on the neighborhoods etc so she offered to come with us to a few the following weekend without any commitment, if the sellers would allow her to.

She literally saved us from buying a massive money trap and we signed with her the following day.

She eventually found us the perfect house and even though she was dealing with an agent from the same company, she advised us that the house was overpriced and that we should stick to our guns. We made an offer, they countered a thousand less than asking, we offered five thousand more than we first offered and they came back another thousand off of their first counter. I got pissed that they weren't moving at all so I told her to forget it and went fishing. I got home that night and they had come back and accepted our offer. The moral of the story is that there are good agents out there and they really can help. 

I've never dealt with Sylvia, but she sounds like she actually cares about her clients and follows the rules.

All that being said, my sister just listed her townhouse in Orleans. They are very rare on the market on her court and very attractive to new buyers since they are in the low-ish 200's. She put the house up on Grapevine and I'll be conducting the open houses for her and her husband so they don't get emotionally involved.  She's got lots of time (her new place won't be ready until October) and she wants to give it a try since the agents she spoke to quoted her 6% since she isn't selling and buying. 

It's a condo many of the issues that people would worry about aren't really a problem since the condo corp covers them.  My sister is very much like GreatWhite and wants to sell her house for a reasonable amount and not jerk people around with bidding wars and duplicitous games.  I have a feeling it will sell fast, and I have no problems negotiating with people since I do it for a living. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are benefits to both sides, and the most important thing is to find a good agent if you're going to use one.

[Greatwhite]

By the time we're doing buying and selling - over $1million will have changed hands.  2.5% of that goes to my agent... That's $25,000 paid to the agency.  I don't know how much of that goes to the actual agent, but I really don't feel bad about making my guy do a little work.   I should have gotten into real estate.

[Greatwhite]

Incidentally.. I'm sure some of you are sitting on the edge of your seats...  We decided to walk away from that house after all the ups and downs.  It seems that they are going to court for the whole breach of contract thing now and they can't legally accept another contract until the first one is cleared.

They will likely have to re-list the house (at a higher price) to try to get the money that way before the buyers are chased after for the remainder.

The whole process could take MONTHS.

Even if things were cleared up tomorrow, I'm not sure I want to deal with sue-happy people like this.  I'm not sure what the big deal is, really - they had 2 offers that they were seriously considering.  They chose one, it fell through - the other was still on the table....  Logically, they could have just taken my offer.

Back to the nicer house with less yard!

[salvini55]

this thread is great! I will be putting my town house on the market in the coming week and there is some good info/experiences here to learn from. I tell ya, this is stressful business! I got the house staged perfectly and all the landscaping is done out front (fingers crossed the patches in the lawn take). It seems that everyday I have to clean the place just to stay on top of it (I hate cleaning!)

Anyone have pointers for us regarding using ComFree or Grapevine to list our home? First time we will be selling a home... Its a nail biter!