This is a real possibility now: Bill Colson, who is preparing to sell his Maryland home next year and purchase a retirement home outside Blue Ridge, Georgia, believes the changes will create more costs. Colson, who is 57 years old and retired from the Navy, said a...
Whenever I have a buyer who loses out on a bidding war, I try to get them right back on the horse. Thankfully, there are several houses sitting around that aren't not selling in the $3 million range, so we made another offer yesterday. First, I went to the open house...
On Thursday, we closed escrow on our latest listing in Terramar. Other than the new roof and furnace, the house hasn't been touched in 30 years - and it looked rough. As it has been happening more and more, we only received one offer in spite of the intense interest...
This will probably be the day that the real estate world changes forever. It will end up being the day that more paperwork buried the participants, which we'll get through but it will take a few months before consumers get comfortable with it. I'd like to memorialize...
It's not really oceanfront with a 4-lane road in front, but it's close. You have the traffic-controlled crosswalk at the corner for easy access to the staircase down to the sand (that the City of Carlsbad is spending $14 million to repair and replace). It's close...
After the appraiser butchered his appraisal of our sale on Los Robles in May - he brought it in $220,000 below the sales price based on one bad comp when I gave him five others that justified the higher price all day long - I had some concerns about going 0 for 2 on...
This is why I'm so skeptical of 'seller concessions' being a viable solution. If agents were united in appreciating buyer-agents (doesn't every realtor represent a buyer occasionally?), then everyone would take a stand to ensure buyers get adequate representation, and...
Brokerages are at the crossroads - they can either encourage sales with all buyer-agents, or go the same way as C.A.R. and make it harder on them (which promotes single agency) and add blustery headlines. I think brokerages should stand up for all buyer-agents; not...
The new 19-page listing agreement is out! They didn't waste any time getting to the listing agent's pay. Boom, right at the top of the newly revised form, it commits to the commission rate plus a little extra if the buyer is unrepresented....
The California Association of Realtors had to re-write a few of their new forms in order to comply with the DOJ critique. These revised forms get released tomorrow, and they will probably help chart the final path for buyer-agents. There are two noteworthy points in...
