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Replace These People with an App Already
By: Chris Tell at http://capitalistexploits.at/
I spent a recent weekend looking at some real estate. It used to be a favourite way for me to spend time and I realized how much I really miss it. I was reminded of how 99% of real estate agents are completely useless.
No, I mean not just incompetent but really useless and thick... really thick. Sometimes it's easy to tell thick people apart. You can ask them random questions or just initiate conversation, and when their knowledge fails to extend beyond what's on TV and the weather, you've probably got yourself a thickie.
Alternatively, you can measure the distance between their eyes, measure their arm length to height ratio, count the number of times they repeat the same meaningless words such as "fab" or "retro" when trying in vain to describe a crappy box of a house, or you can leave them in a room full of banana skins and see what happens. I say this because it's important to try to steer clear of thick people. Your sanity demands it.
To be fair, I had one great experience amongst 4 dismal ones. Pareto's law seems to run true.
Normally, I don't pay a heck of a lot of attention to peoples attire, what car they drive or such things, just ask my wife. That said, some things stand out, and like a goat in a fish tank you can't help but notice.
The first agent I met for the day was such a "goat". He arrived 20 minutes late, pulled up in a 20 year old Ford Falcon complete with a purple sparkly paint job, lowered suspension, darkened windows and a Fatboy number plate. I was immediately worried. The car screamed "I want to be a Fatboy but can't afford a Ferrari and I have no style."
Of course, driving around in a Ferrari for work as a real estate agent, selling anything other than multi-million dollar mansions screams, "I am a shark" and would probably distract clients from the houses they're meant to be buying, while they instead glare at the car thinking ill thoughts about the agent. Let's just say that as a salesperson's appearance matters.
When it comes to looking at the property, whether it be land or buildings, any monkey can look around and see what there is to see. What an agent needs to be able to do is to explain what can't be seen by the naked eye. In this instance any modicum of knowledge outside of "there is the dishwasher" would have been useful. Clearly my expectations were too high.
I looked at 4 properties, all in the same area, and asked the 4 different agents the same questions:
- What is the areas growth rate?
- Who is coming to live here and why?
- Are there any major projects in the area that are going to affect demand - either positively or negatively?
I'd done a bit of research prior to stepping out the door. I referred to this earlier in "6 Ways to Improve Decision Making". I hate wasting time so I'm not going to bother looking at something which I haven't got at least some level of knowledge about. As such I could have answered all of the 3 questions above but wanted to use them as a starting point to find out more. Alas, I completely flummoxed all 4 of these "experts".
It would have come as a gigantic surprise that a 14 ha development was already underway for a very exclusive private school just 2 kilometers away. A simple Google search would reveal this but that might interrupt getting Facebook updates. Growth rates in the area have been off the charts for the last 10 years and employment opportunities have been opening up causing demand growth. Anyone living in the region should have some level of knowledge of this but don't go expecting to be educated by most real estate agents.
This is far from my first encounter with real estate agents and it is not unique. What this means is that the buyer has to do the work themselves. This is a good thing really for the buyer, especially if you're an educated buyer and know what you want.
I recall for example buying a property some years back. I wanted to put a contract to the vendor and the agent was unaware how to proceed. I walked out to my car, and 5 minutes later came back with a signed contract. I always used to keep a few copies complete with the relevant clauses I needed. The agent, a middle-aged woman, obviously completely in a flap as to what she was meant to be doing, began recoiling and actually trying to dissuade me from buying. She'd probably never had a sale before and had no idea what to do. I helped her out in a big way. I explained to her how difficult it would be to drive home without legs and that, unless she took my contract to the buyer immediately, that was the only way she'd be traveling.
Back to my weekend fun. The absolute best agent by far was a woman who clearly was running multiple things in her life. Namely being a mum as well as selling real estate.
How do I know this? Well she drove one of those chest freezers on wheels as the car salesmen call it. People mover. The only reason anyone would drive such a horrible box is to transport screaming, messy kids around. I know, trust me.
This woman was awesome. She knew the demographic because she lived in the area and her kids went to local schools, she also knew about the new school coming in, she knew what arterial roads bordered the property she was showing me, she knew what traffic was like, what demographic was living in the area, what zoning existed and where, she knew that 80% of people living in this area were home owners not renters, she knew what the typical yield on properties was, what it had been in the past and how cap rates have collapsed, and she had a list of recent comparable sales drawn up to provide me. Hallelujah, I was in love!
What then is the solution?
Well, I propose using technology. Everywhere I look people are far more engaged with their phones than with real people. Let's further this trend and profit from it. Heck, why fight the trend?
Let's develop an app for real estate buyers. At the push of a button we can find out area details, historic growth rates, median incomes, median sales prices, strategic plans such as highways being built etc. In short, let's take that wonderful woman, driver of the chest freezer, and put her onto your smart phone. We could even use her voice to guide you through the topics you browse. That will take care of the generic statistic driven data.
Then what we'll do is combine that technology with another technology which is far from fictitious and a company we have invested in via our Seraph private syndicate. This technology is augmented reality. Check it out here.
Now imagine for a minute what can be done with this technology. In the real estate space you could "virtually" walk through that property you want to view while augmenting yourself into the picture, or perhaps augmenting your furniture in the lounge, your dog chasing the cat in the garden. I'm sure you can think of a number of amazing uses yourself. Let's get it done before Google snaps up this company making shareholders, yours truly included, very happy indeed.
Most importantly we'll do away with countless unnecessary real estate agents and we'll have our own virtual agent at our fingertips. Like it or not, this is coming. Based on my weekend experience I can't wait.
- Chris
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C Clarke
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I have been investing in real estate in small town Canada since the early 70s and in that time have never met one competent real estate agent or broker.
The best I ever saw was a complete airhead who knew nothing about real estate or anything else, but didn't stop her clients from buying. She couldn't answer a question about the property, but if you wanted to make an offer, it was OK with her no matter what the offer was.
She collected commission check after commission check, and took 2 or 3 expensive, exotic vacations every year.
The rest of them specialise in telling their clients what they can't do, and trying to make them do things they think they ought to do, and not what they want to do.
I agree with you completely. 6% to these idiots who have never seen the home, don't live in the area and walk away with $30K cash on a million dollar home for doing nothing because you already did it for them. Outside of Wall St. this is the biggest fraud that ever existed.
One more thought: a direct transaction between Seller and Buyer does not involve a Bank printing debt-money out of thin air.
In theory direct transactions would be less inflationary in both the price of homes and in the general economy where newly created debt/money flows from mortgage loan originations...
I will never fuck with an app
Who the FK says a development is 2 kilometers away?
Realtors are obsolete in today's world. All legal documents can be had for free online. You can negotiate directly with a seller. I'll repeat what i've stated many times. Damn the flippers. Damn those basterds for totally ruining the first time homebuyer's opportnity. I've been home shopping for a few years looking for a reasonable deal, and there are so few. THe assholes buy a $30k property and put ~$10k into it then ask for >$100k. assholes. There is no reason to go that much into debt just for a place to crash.
I was a Realtor back in the Eighties. In 1988 house prices started to slide and didn't recover for TEN YEARS in my area. I had sold every friend and family a home. They went underwater on their mortgages. Of course they blamed me. I also went way underwater and went bankrupt and went through foreclosure. I still feel like I have a target painted on my back.
I got of the business because I was no longer selling a thing of value that appreciated. Houses now go through boom and bust periods that turn their ownership into high stakes speculation.
These days I can use Zillow and Realtor.com to find out most of what I need to know. Sites like www.city-data.com give detailed breakdowns of demographics. Google Street View can drive you around the neighborhood.
It's true. It's just not all on one app yet.
i have bought and sold all of my properties using the real estate agent only for first shot at the mls(i have the password to an agent's mls account) and to bring buyers. of all salespeople real estate sales people are the worst in terms of skill. to be fair, most buyers are at least as "thick" as the salesperson.
Which Ford will it be,
It's as easy as 1-2-3:
Falcon, Fairlane, or if you please
The beautiful Gal-ax-y!
In general you may call it "Cynthia's Law": Nobody knows how to do their own jobs anymore.
I've been is sales my entire life what he says is absolutly true.
I spend more time on product research than the actual selling process.
If your an effective sals person you'll be exhausted at the end of the week and richerer
20-year-old Ford Falcon...
Either the guy had a time machine or lived in Australia, where the Falcon is still produced.
Personally, I haven't found human intellect worth bragging about under the best of circumstances...
That goes with the eternal question: Is there any intelligent life anywhere in the universe?
After the transaction, just throw nails into the seller’s agent’s driveway. And sometimes a quart or two of miss-tint paint onto their roofs.
Rebate some of the commission into the local economy.
They have these apps, zillow, homes.com etc.
They are all handicapped by Fair Housing rules in the US.
Certain things, such as the neighborhood demographics, are a violation of Federal law to reveal.
A useful real estate salesperson is going to give you this info... off the record.
That's why an app won't work for your purpose, critical information is censored by Federal law.
Doesn't take a genius to drive around a new area to figure out where you DON'T want to live...
*Are there any major projects in the area that are going to affect demand - either positively or negatively?
My heart fills with joy that my taxes are going into public projects that will line the pockets of landowners and banks with vast unearned wealth
*Who is coming to live here and why?
Their hearts are filled with joy that their increased earned income is going to be syphoned off by landowners and banks
I can't wait to replace my wife with an App (sarc! just in case I strike a nerve)
I used a realtor in 1996 to buy our first home, and a different one in 2009 to sell that house and buy a new one. The second experience was better than the first.
Our first realtor was more interested in potential value appreciation, where we wanted a place we could just move into and live without having to do upgrades first. We didn't have a lot of money and had a firm price range. We knew the area well and quickly had narrowed our list to about 3. We chose the one she liked least, as it happened.
She was a bit odd. She drove us to one showing in her (messy) van, and while driving mentioned that she would be unavailable over the coming weekend because "The Warbird is gathering." I knew what that meant and kept a straight face, but my wife took the bait and asked the question. Yes, the Realtor and her husband were "Klingons." They would meet with a like-minded group, put on costumes and makeup, including prosthetics, and spend the weekend speaking Klingon and pretending to be space warriors.
But hey, we got a solid little house at our price in the neighborhood we wanted, and we'd live there still if there had been a way to add a bedroom as our kids grew up.
Our second go-round, we selected a realtor through recommendations from our credit union, and a friend who recommended the same guy, which we took as a good omen. It was a great experience. We could reasonably have priced our home anywhere from $80,000 to $150,000. In 2009 in our market, pricing was completely illogical; either still bubblicious or post-apocalyptic. Long story short, we priced our starter home at $119,000 and had 8 offers the first day; sold it for $140,000 or so. We paid off all our bills, the small remaining mortgage balance, and put down over $100,000 on the next house. That realtor did a fantastic job helping us sort through the next-level-up houses we were looking for, and we got a fair (not great, but fair) deal on the new house and are quite satisfied. He did let us use his MLS log-in so we could see things not generally visible, like the true pricing history of the house, how long it had been on the market, etc. That was very useful information.
I've heard horror stories but I'd recommend people use a realtor. Like any professional, they have the things they do and don't do and the customer needs to educate themselves on how to use professional services. That said, no doubt there are utterly incompetent realtors and we as customers need to become knowledgeable enough to know the difference and get rid of a bad one.
Housing Bubble 2.0.
...."Growth rates in the area have been off the charts for the last 10 years...." I did not realize Mars was being developed and/or they have pimped out Ford's in Panama.
"Ease of Entry" is the number one reason for many human beans ----who have no specific talent, energy, or passion----that go into real estate sales, employment agencies, and other service industries that hire ex-cons, like trash truck handlers, and many minimum wage positions.
There are billions of people who have not been endowed with genetic markers for success. They are the vast unwashed and comte d'herblay is one of them.
When you have no discernible ability----matched by hundreds of millions of others----- what can you do? The government bureaucracies are loaded with average, below average and slightly above average humans who can be replaced by a monkey.
Manual labor of the skilled variety can only be populated by those with some capacity to understand complex theories, and practices, with good eye/hand coordination.
The most pernicious myth perpetrated on the people, particklerly the children, is this:
"You can be anything you want to be".
Whoever thought that one big con up, should be tried for criminal intent.
The truth is you can not.
Whether you like it or not, you are born with severe handicaps that you are not permitted to notice until you reach your 30s when it becomes obvious that there are about 10% of us who are so endowed with above average intelligence in the cognitive thinking arena, blessed with a temperament that lends itself to the laws of attraction, genetically one in a billion good looks, and all the other characteristics needed for a successful assault on the bitch goddess of success.
A wise person is one who has early on found his or her limitations, and discovered whatever attributes that get him/her beyond just survival.
If you have children it will only come back upon you as disaster, disappointment, or worse if you encourage your kids to become Derek Jeter, Arnie Palmer, Hawking, Jobs, Gates, Buffet, Fleming, clinton, Johnson, Henley, Jagger, or any other famous, rich, accomplished person in any endeavor if they don't possess the energy to pursue their innate talents.
As should be obvious to everyone by now, the discovery of what positive qualities we possess, and our negative ones needs to be a top priority in our lives and yet get very very short shrift, resulting in the default career of"real estate agent".
This is not to say some don't possess outstanding traits to be the best Real estates agents operating today.
city-data.com does a pretty good job of this, down to the zip-code level. The traffic data is another thing though.....
From your link:
"2. Surround yourself with people better than you"
Catch 22
If the people better than you follow that advice they'll never let you be around them. OOPS
This guy sounded lile a pompos asshole
thick
You've either never bought or sold a home, or are a practicing real estate agent.
My guess would be both.
goog /maps/street view, w/address and I scope out 20 properties and nearby areas before I need a sandwich...then if I like the looks of it, go check it out.
Sounds like what is really needed is for Banksters and Brokers and appraisers and RE Agents and the rest of the finance skimmers to be removed from the equation by a return to the old-fashioned direct sale.
Get rid of ALL the middle-men.
Do your homework and buy directly from the Seller. Agree amongst yourselves on terms: form of payment, if a loan is involved the amount and the rate. Value? -do your own fucking comparisons with Zillow, the County Courthouse, etc...
Just the savings from tossing the Broker/RE Agent out of the picture is around 6% gross of the sale. ...On a $250K home this amounts to $15K. Get rid of the Broker/RE Agent AND the Appraiser AND the Loan Servicer and you probably slash about 10% of the gross sale price...
Get RID of those fucking parasites if you know what your doing!
No big commissions. No banks. No bullshit.
Same for the Seller: check the prospective buyer's employment and employment history, prior property ownership records, criminal record, credit report, etc... yourself.
IF you want a nice income stream take 20% as a down-payment and arrange a loan when you get the interest instead of a bankster!
Nobody needs a fucking app! Do your homework, have a conversation, and cut a deal.
Direct sales might not be the norm presently, and they might even be precluded by shitty local ordinances in some places; but, as recently as the late seventies my own grandmother and father did just this to buy and sell homes.
Double Post
Ahh yassss... the old FSBO route. But then you're a "buyer" not a "seller" so that would be to your advantage.
The important thing in the above article was that you DID find a good RE Agent. They're out there.
I used to be a RE agent... but I didn't last long. Honest buyers and sellers have to find what you were looking for - just the RIGHT agent with an HONEST Broker. I couldn't find one in my area. When I became a RE Agent, one of the first things I did was study up on the types of houses in our area. Terms like "Craftsman House", "shotgun house" and the different types of "Victorian" houses, and the differences between a REAL Victorian and a faux Victorian (which were often advertised/sold as "Victorians" when they were no more "Victorian" than that Wausau home mentioned above.) The actual classifications were IMPORTANT and made a lot of difference in the value of the house. But I couldn't find another agent in my area who knew the differences!!!
Why is FSBO bad? Well, if you're selling a 30 year old Wausau Home on a block of 20 others just like it - just different colors in a HOA, it's not. I'd in fact suggest it - IF you can go to the court house for yourself and do just a little research on what a place like the one you're looking at has sold for recently. Then go and bargain with the owner yourself. The paperwork is pretty much standard boilerplate, (make sure you have a title search done!!!) and you and the seller can save the 6% of the agreed price RE "Commission" - maybe split the difference.
BUT - if you're selling commercial property (like farm land or a factory, or a building that's zoned commercial), or something "special" like a Victorian, then you want an agent who KNOWS WHAT THE HELL THEY'RE DOING!!! (And remember - unless you've contracted with the agent (ANY agent) to represent YOU - the agent ALWAYS represents the interests of the SELLER - not YOU!)
(I once walked into a courthouse in a different State, looked the place over, and then asked the clerk if it was built around a certain year. I hit it right on the money because of the building's style and embellishments.)
My experience has been that in many of the deals I witnessed and some I ended up involved in, brokers actually worked AGAINST the interests of the seller!!!
* Example - a Second Empire ten BR home in a sparsely inhabited area, small town WITH CABLE INTERNET!!!. House had a complete sprinkler system, new roof with new support beams, a carriage house that contained ALL of the original wood trim for the house, and the stained glass windows in the LR. The list price was $60K. I tried to get my broker to let me advertise it on the E and W coast - he said NO! (It was an "open listing.") I SAW similar houses being sold around the country for as much as $200 - 300K - the key was the cable internet. The house ended up being sold at auction for $50K.
* A FSBO farm - I tried to get a listing but the owner didn't like or trust RE Agents (wonder why?) He ended up selling the farm for about $300K. On the then current market, it was WORTH about $1 mil. - but HE knew BETTER than I did what it was "worth." Not my loss.
For some, but for most, the time taken to have to "show" the place, particklerly in a mediocre or poor market, is worth every cent, unless you have nothing else to do.
I have been trying to sell my parents' unoccupied home for 5 years. If I had to take the time out to show that place to the hundred or so people who have traipsed through it since 2008.......well. just say that I think the 6% is worth my time.
Those who work hard at other ways of earning their living would have beeen hard pressed and likely fired by now to have taken so much time showing.
I am no longer a RE agent - so my "advice" now is no better than that of the waitress who serves coffee at the local truck stop. Which doesn't mean that I don't have opinions. ;-D
You do know that the housing market is in a long-time slump just now? And that it might/will continue for maybe a LOOOOONG time? K. Just checking. What that means is that the house may be priced right by 2007 standards, but the people who'd want to buy it can't because they can't get loans (it's a Bankster thing).
If you want/need to move the property, you either have to lower the price, or lower the price. (:o) But understand that you'll probably have to go WAAAAAY down in the current market.
If you can afford the maintenance and upkeep and don't need to sell, or if you have a relative who needs or will soon need a house - it could the the familial bargain of the month. Sell it to them (private contract) or rent it to them. (A way to preserve pricing value, and cash flow it).
If you DON'T need to move it, and can maintain it, just sit on it - but understand that we're heading for maybe 30 years of economic hard times before the house MIGHT be worth anywhere close to what you think it's worth now. In a world of zero-interest bonds and negative interest "savings accounts" - if you don't HAVE to sell, don't. It's a hard asset... you know... the things that the Big Money Boys are goiong to? Yeah... one of those - only on a smaller scale.
F
just get a realtor friend and use their MLS login to do all your research.
also the fact that those realtors didn't know shit is more reflective of your average homebuyer and less reflective of the realtors themselves.
Real Estate agents are just 'skimming'. Taking a payment for adding no value. A number of software companies have tried to create sites that eliminate the estate agent 'middle man'. Todate they have been thwarted by the Real Estate mafia. What would ex Real Estate agents do for a living?
@Nexus789 "what would ex Real Estate agents do for a living?"
Mow the lawn?
They're not cut out for manual labour... sell fridge's, perhaps?
Can confirm. 10 Years ago i took a realtor course to get my license because i had two weeks off and was interested in real estate. Most of the class were either high school graduates or people in their mid 50s starting a new career. I aced the test without studying and everyone else in the class struggled. Also... NAR puts no limit on these licenses. The number of agents is truly staggering.
Used to be that these realtors kept their business because they had a monopoly on the MLS. Now that Zillow is almost as good, they keep their business usually because:
-people are confused and or scared about the sale process
-people have family members who are realtors and feel guilt
-sellers are too lazy or stupid to sell a house themselves and buyers don't pay commission in most states
-FSBO's still have a little bit of a stink about them (usually over-priced, often difficult to deal with, unbranded, NAR slander, etc. etc.
)
An aside.. in the 5 housing transactions i have been involved in, along with another 4 or 5 bids I have lost, I have seen some shady and / or illegal shit. I think a lot of this would go away if commissions did.
Luckily, i think the model is starting to crack.