rmasse10's Blog: Ranting

My wife and I sell in the Tampa Real Estate market, or more like my wife sells the real estate and I "Do real estate by Not Doing Real Estate".  It seems like everyone is all of a sudden an expert in the field or they have a friend that is an expert.  "My friend says that I should by short sale properties and go in real low on the price"...who told you that, "My friend told me that is the way to go".  Although this may work sometimes, the likelihood of this working is a long shot.  The only time you should try something like this is if you have no time frame for moving, you don't really care if you get the property, you don't mind waiting for possibly 6 months or more, and you will not get insulted if the bank does not respond to your…

I know, I know, this sounds absolutely absurd, but here me out for a sec'.  The old way of doing real estate, the knocking on doors, meeting people face to face, saying "Hey I am your local Real Estate Expert, Buy with Me..." doesn't work anymore.  I tried them all.  I tried what all the real estate companies told me to do, mirror matching, where my name badge, talk about real estate to everyone you know, call everyone in your sphere list, didn't work for me.  Some 9 months ago I was getting to the point of giving up.  I had decent sales last year doing it the old fashion way, but felt that this was way too hard for me and I was way out of my comfort zone.

My Wife and I out of total frustration, decided to blow off some steam and create a youtube account…

We have some new agents in our office and for someone that has never really done anything like Real Estate before, it can be overwhelming especially if working a deal and another agent is trying to take advantage of the fact that you are new.  I won't go into the details of what is happening with the deal other than I overheard her say that the house blew up (it didn't really but sometimes new agents over exaggerate things), the other agent, who has he buyer is trying to get her and her clients to pay for a bunch of "stuff" that is not needed.  I coached her what to say and if need be I would be more than happy to take the reigns and have a discussion with the other agent.

Long story short, please, we work for our clients, yes, but we have to work…

I can understand with the way the banks have mucked this whole thing up with the Bank Owned Homes and Foreclosures and Short Sales...the Agents still are taking on the attitude of the bank and the Banks are actually turning us fellow Realtors against each other.  Here's a thought, stop taking what the bank says it needs to get to sell the house in a short sale because the number they give you is bogus.  Maybe it is what they would like to get, but not necessarily what they are going to get.  I have seen banks hold out for another $2000 only to have the property finally go to foreclosure, become bank owned and now the property is listed for $50,000 less than what the offer was originally, I don't get it.  Then to make things worse, they wait until they have…

In the Tampa Real Estate Market and our MLS states that when an agent puts in a commission on a listing that is a short sale or bank owned, the commission that is in the system must be paid, no negotiating.  So here is the dilemma, I have a short sale that is basically approved and the bank is only willing to pay 3.5% commission.  OK, so now the other agent wants me to split my commission...Like I said, don't ask because the answer is no.  But wait, it gets better...I may have felt some level of compassion, but the listing also states that the current price is approved by the lender and I know for a fact that the contract has fallen thru twice because of financing.  In addition, the property was never put into Pending status as the MLS rules state that it…

OK, so this happened to my wife today.  She has been trying to get paperwork together for a Tampa Bank Owned Homes.  She has approval on the offer so that is no problem.  The problem comes in when she is trying to submit the paperwork to close.  The company hired to be the middle man to put together the paperwork is totally incompetent.  We have had to resend original copies now 3 times overnight each time $20/mail and now they want it sent again.  This over things that if they read all the paperwork completely the first time, we would have been limited to 1 overnight max.  I watched a cat fight occur on the phone between my wife and the woman on the other end as they both were screaming at each other.

My wife, after the phone was thrown across the room,…

I haven't had any of these happen to me lately but I have had my fair share and have heard around the office of other agents suffering from Rude Clients, Clients that expect agents to take them on a Taxi Ride around town just so they can write off their trip for taxes, babysit, you get the picture.  I think with the Tampa Real Estate Market the way it is being a buyers market, some buyers seem to feel that they can make everyone run around like mice in a cage and we Realtors will just do it.  Guess what, that will only last so long with un-seasoned agents, and won't fly at all with seasoned agents.

Like I said, I have had my share, and I give everyone that I deal with (since I am no longer a buyers agent it doesn't matter but every now and then I will…

OK, so I think the banks are starting to figure out that they stand to make more money (or should I say loose less) by processing short sale offers instead of making it to the foreclosure process.  Working in the Tampa Real Estate Market, which is improving, the Tampa Foreclosures market is moving quicker in terms of offers, but not closing.  Lets take a look at a few examples.

Example 1. My wife takes out some first time home buyers and they are interested in this one property.  The price is listed at $125,000 and they put in an offer of $97,000.  The bank, after  4 weeks says no way.  Ok, so the clients move on and are still looking and then we see that the property went thru foreclosure and is now bank owned.  The property is now listed at…