# Real estate agent porn



## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

Love this stuff -apparently buying agents are an essential service..

http://www.moneyville.ca/article/900279--why-a-buyer-s-real-estate-agent-matters-even-more

Funniest quote ever - this guy must be living in a dreamland:


> It’s a little different for when you’re buying a home. Here, you agree to work exclusively with one agent to find the property you want. The agent protects your interests and negotiates the best price for you. This becomes important if you are involved in a bidding war because you’ll need an objective third party to guide you, to make sure that you do not get too emotional and end up overpaying for the property.


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

I offer to be anyone's objective third party, I make no commission and will refuse to allow you to participate in the madness. 

I will remind you that there are other homes...you will find one, and that there is no need whatsoever to join the madness. 

My favourite line is 

*One of the main reasons is that when a potential buyer approaches a seller directly, the seller has no idea whether this buyer is really looking for a home or even has the financial ability to afford the home. They may in the extreme case be a thief who is only looking to see whether they can come back to this property at a later time. When you work with a buyer agent, you know that they have already qualified any potential buyer so that you have the comfort of knowing that this buyer is in fact ready to buy and more importantly, can afford your home.*

Can you say call to fear "private buyer might be thieves" An agent will save you by qualifying the buyer... using the following methods.

1 - Breathing
2 - Willing to see the house

Thanks, my laugh of the day


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

It like the myth that any property offered for sale on MLS has a bonafide title. Oh yeah? So why do I need a lawyer to close then?

A buyers agent is a person that cannot get listings. Listings are the lifeblood of the real estate industry. Any realtor worth their salt will be going after listings.


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

Even since that mls judgement, I've noticed large colour advertisements on the subway, bus stops, radio commercials and tv promoting Realtors.


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## Cal (Jun 17, 2009)

Well they must have paid The Star some decent advertising $ to get someone to run a story like that.


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

Cal said:


> Well they must have paid The Star some decent advertising $ to get someone to run a story like that.


Every single week, every single day, agents & brokers run pages of ads of house for sales, in full colour. I'm not sure what that costs but a two/three line for rent ad costs me about $100 per week. 

That's not counting the full page ads from developers selling homes. 

Lately The Toronto Star has been sending me free copies of their paper every Saturday. A few weeks ago they had a half page devoted to how men are waxing their bits in ever increasing numbers. The next page was a piece about how the real estate market is fine. Pretty soon only the Men In Black will use the Toronto Star as a news source.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

RE experts around here (Berubeland, etc.) - can anyone explain why there is a sudden surge in non MLS listings by mainstream real estate agents like ReMax, etc.?
I'm seeing more and more home sales that are being marketed purely on the basis of door flyers, open houses, etc.
But these are not sale by owners, these are by regular RE agents.
When I asked one of the agents, I was told that "_we are so confident that this home is so great that it will sell at or above asking price and we didn't feel the need to list it on MLS_."
Something tells me this is BS, that there is a deeper reason.
Does it have something to do with the recent changes by the RE board?


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

A more likely answer is that..

A) The agent doesn't want the property on the open market because they want to double end the deal (make twice as much commission) 

B) Some owners don't want tons of gawkers or traffic through the house

C) They are trying to hide what's going on in the market

D) They are trying to protect their existing listings that are higher priced by doing a deal quietly for a lower price 

E) It's their own house

F) There was a thing happening a while back where the 5 major brokerages got together to develop a site competing with the MLS. I read something about it at the same time where the 5 for sale by owner companies merged into one. The next day, the CREA settled with the competition bureau. I have since lost that news article. Any search just shows the CREA fight. 

Other than that your guess is as good as mine.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

One of the claims by RE Agents is that private listings sell for more. So they go for an exclusive and say they will add MLS if it does not sell in 30 days.


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## Sustainable PF (Nov 5, 2010)

While I agree buying agents aren't always necessary, they CAN be helpful.

For instance, can you tell the difference between a lead pipe and galvanized plumbing? Do you know the different types of internal plumbing inside a home? (copper is easy, but plex or whatever it is called - the white vs the black plumbing - one of which is more prone to bursting). How about electrical. Experienced identifying knob and tube?

Some people really know this stuff, others not so much. Our agent when we bought used to be a general contractor. He got inside all sorts of nooks and crannies w/ his flashlight and warned us when we needed to be warned. He also had a lot of knowledge about re-modelling costs - especially structural.

Yes, I can tell when a pipe is wrapped in asbestos. Yes I can tell how many amps a panel has - but i'm not as schooled at all of the things our agent knew, nor did I have the time or inclination when we bought to figure all that stuff out.

The agent also picked us up, at work during our lunch hours, and transported us to houses and neighbourhoods we've never been to, saving some hassle and allowing us to go view homes when it was convenient for us, not the sellers agent.

So while you MAY negotiate a lower price by not using a buying agent (don't count on this 100% - many sellers are brainwashed by their selling agents that they will only accept the asking price, or close to it - buyers agent involvement be damned) it is not guaranteed. Sellers again can be duped by their agents that dealing w/ a person w/o a buyers agent is not in their best interest (not true, but you can't control what the seller has been led to believe).

A buying agent can be useful, definitely not "essential".


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

Sustainable PF said:


> While I agree buying agents aren't always necessary, they CAN be helpful.
> 
> For instance, can you tell the difference between a lead pipe and galvanized plumbing? Do you know the different types of internal plumbing inside a home? (copper is easy, but plex or whatever it is called - the white vs the black plumbing - one of which is more prone to bursting). How about electrical. Experienced identifying knob and tube?
> 
> ...


I agree.

It was very, very hard work, but I came up with 8 reasons why you should use a real estate agent.

http://www.moneysmartsblog.com/8-reasons-why-you-should-use-a-real-estate-agent/


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## Sustainable PF (Nov 5, 2010)

Four Pillars said:


> I agree.
> 
> It was very, very hard work, but I came up with 8 reasons why you should use a real estate agent.
> 
> http://www.moneysmartsblog.com/8-reasons-why-you-should-use-a-real-estate-agent/


repeated a few of my thoughts as comments on that post


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

I wore my fingers to the bone and managed 11 reasons to use a real estate agent 

http://landlordrescue.ca/1-reasons-to-use-a-real-estate-agent/

Also @ Sustainable, your reasons for using a real estate agent have nothing to do with his agent skills but rather his construction skills... I wonder what percentage of agents know anything about construction? Just saying...


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## Sustainable PF (Nov 5, 2010)

Berubeland said:


> I wore my fingers to the bone and managed 11 reasons to use a real estate agent
> 
> http://landlordrescue.ca/1-reasons-to-use-a-real-estate-agent/
> 
> Also @ Sustainable, your reasons for using a real estate agent have nothing to do with his agent skills but rather his construction skills... I wonder what percentage of agents know anything about construction? Just saying...


I understand that, but we also got to choose our RE agent and chose one with mad skills aside from his RE knowledge/ability. I'd rather have the RE agent showing me things up front than having to pay a home inspector after the fact to discover the house we liked was flawed. Not that we didn't hire a home inspector as well (actually, our RE agent paid for that ~$400 for us which was news to the Inspector when he was done his thing and wanting payment).

We "test drove" a few agents and did not sign buyers agency until we were prepared to make an offer. Found a team we liked and went with them after they showed us 50-60 houses over numerous months. In theory we could have just cut the agents out at time of offer but we felt they'd spent a bunch of hours with us and earned their keep. Heck, they still respond to our emails within 24 hours when we ask for 3 companies to get quotes for on various projects we aren't able to DIY (some brick/mortar work, gas fitters for our BBQ, furniture upholsterers, insulation companies).

Now, get me started on using them as selling agents ....  That commission hurt. However, after renovating our place to sell (it was soooo 80s) for almost 4 months I simply didn't have the energy to try to sell privately. The reno's made up for the commission though. (they wanted to list @ $200k pre-renos, we put $3500 into the house DIY, put the house up for $220k and got 99% of our asking price).


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

Sustainable PF said:


> ...
> 
> Heck, they still respond to our emails within 24 hours when we ask for 3 companies to get quotes for on various projects we aren't able to DIY (some brick/mortar work, gas fitters for our BBQ, furniture upholsterers, insulation companies).


I can guarantee the agent will receive referral fees from those outfits.

I would never use someone my agent "recommends".


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## Sustainable PF (Nov 5, 2010)

Four Pillars said:


> I can guarantee the agent will receive referral fees from those outfits.
> 
> I would never use someone my agent "recommends".


I don't mention to the company who referred me, and, I used to live beside an auto body shop who I also ask and they usually overlap close to 75% on how the agent has advised. Lastly, I ask co-workers too.

Living in a smaller city the choices are limited, but there are definitely "good" and "bad" service providers. Companies have maintained their community presence due to quality service at a good price. I'd be silly to take just the word of a RE agent. We also didn't pick our RE agent based on their sales pitch, we spoke to friends and co-workers and other trusted service providers when hunting out an agent. We like to choose service providers who contribute a lot to the community, who are "locals" true and through. E.G. we needed a new washing machine. Do I just go to the Brick? Yep, sure do. Then get the local guy who gives a darn to price match.


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## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

Sustainable PF said:


> While I agree buying agents aren't always necessary, they CAN be helpful.
> 
> For instance, can you tell the difference between a lead pipe and galvanized plumbing? Do you know the different types of internal plumbing inside a home? (copper is easy, but plex or whatever it is called - the white vs the black plumbing - one of which is more prone to bursting). How about electrical. Experienced identifying knob and tube?
> 
> ...


When I bought my very first home at 27 years old, the house was 100 years old. I could tell the difference between everything you mentioned. You know who couldn't, or didn't mention it? The real estate agent.

A better example? I was looking at a home, and the lot was 150' by 150'. I said, "That's about a half an acre,"

The real estate agent said to me " Is it? I thought it was more,"

I said " There are 43560 square feet in an acre, 150' square is half an acre. 210' square is about an acre."

He looked at me, flabbergasted.

We looked at dozens of homes when we tried to find ours, and spoke to dozens of sellers agents.

I found that they couldn't answer most questions, like room and lot sizes, age of renos, neighbourhood, future construction in the area, galv plumbing, knob and tube wiring, aluminium wiring, or really anything at all.

They're good for people who aren't interested in doing any of the work themselves.


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