MAJOR win for the Online Real Estate Industry

NEW -> Contingent Buyer Assistance Program
[quote author="awgee" date=1212142937][I have a private tax practice and I discriminate. If I do not care to work with someone, I don't. Are you an attorney? You sound like you know something about this law?</blockquote>


If you are just running your own small shop, you will probably get away with what you are doing because no one will call you on your practices (e.g. sue), unless you were really egregious such as refusing to take on any African American clients.



On the other had, lets say you had a restaurant and decided to only serve certain ethnic groups, then you would be in big trouble, see my point. If you have a business that's open to the public in the USA you are required to sell to whomever wants to buy your services without discrimination.



The problem with boards is that anyone who disagrees with someone or the few who tend to post a lot is flamed as a troll.



By the way,



definition of an accountant... what's 2 + 2, answer... whatever you want it to be....



so awgee's answer is whatever he wants it to be because that's the business he's in....
 
[quote author="skek" date=1212192586] Also, I'd love to see listings start to include floorplans. To me, that's critical info I'd like to know when I am pre-qualifying homes. If any agent posted a rough and dirty floorplan of a listing, I'd consider that a huge selling point..</blockquote>




I know, right?

<strong>

Why don't all listings include floorplans???</strong>



I find them so incredibly useful on the rare listings that actually have them. How does seeing a picture of one bedroom tell you about the layout of them to the bathrooms and closets? and a lot siting plan would be great too. even just a rough sketch.
 
IrvineRealtor -



I get the various "liability" aspects of your explanation regarding the brokers. Perhaps you can explain the line item I paid for Keller-Williams in my recent sale. It specifically stated "Risk-Managment Fee." What would this charge mean to you? And why shouldn't this have been part of the 6% to begin with? Thanks for your thoughts in advance!
 
I can't speak for KW, as far as their billing practices.



My guess, though, is that for risk-management all licensees must have E&O;(errors and omissions insurance).

I have mine billed at a flat fee annually, but I understand that some policies may be charged per transaction.

What was the explanation you received?
 
Thanks for the response. Well, yes - despite my rather pointed questions, that is the round-about-response I received from them. And yes, I think that it is a BS fee. It is part of doing business. You don't charge a percentage to conduct a sale, and then have line item add-ons such as "paper-work fee" or a "risk-management fee." When others have commented that the broker is where the rubber meets the road if there are problems in the sale, its fees like this that make me tend to disagree - because KW was unwilling to accept the cost of doing the very business it is engaged in. Actually, my payment of their insurance premium is where the rubber meets the road. And in large part, this is why I am so in favor of anything that helps open up the real estate market.
 
<blockquote>



So you think that by paying "brokers" thousands of dollars that this information somehow transforms into "trusted" and still public?



</blockquote>


No, I don't. Here is an example why, the Enron Coroporation was listed on the New York stock exchange as ENE. As we all know it went bankrupt and destroyed billions of dollars in false worth over a historically short period of time. The trusted market exchange for the goods, in this case the New York Stock Exchange didn't have anything to do with the quality of the accounting reports the Enron corporation made pubic. They were only responsible for providing a common market for the exchange of the stocks. It is the buyer of the stock who must evaluate the quarterly accounting reports and the management of the company. Don't fault the "trusted source" if you buy a house of cards. The trusted source will not ensure that all transactions are ethical and at REAL market value. They are simply the place where you go to list the property for sale. They are also the place to go for previous sales data. This is a free market and I can put a price on anything. If somebody buys it they assume the responsibility of their actions. In this case the "trusted source" simply means the embodiment of the current and historical sales data for a given region.



The brokers and the MLS are not the same thing where I'm from. The individual brokers come and go. You could even get your license. Right now the brokers have an association which allows them to group together and own stock in a private corporation called the MLS. With or without current broker fees and sales structure you will still need an MLS. So even if fees and structure change we will still need a common source of current listing data and previous sales history. I don't think that source is going to be the internet as a collective because if you google for long enough you can find just about anything! Hell just between realtor.com, trulia.com, zillow.com, and redfin.com I've already got 4 places which don't return the same search results when I hit the query button with a given parameter set. Which is the best? Right now I like redfin.com. What happens when somebody out googles them is the new hot thing in town? I don't know and I would hope that I can hold somebody accountable for to the ROOT source of the data.



BTW, I really enjoy kicking the tires of this subject. Lots of good ideas our there to get me thinking. It is fun to find a board like this were the average IQ seems to be up a standard deviation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top