The Real Estate Blame Game
Posted by Judy Orr on
I network with other real estate professionals on several different real estate forums and communities and I read through all of the real estate publications I receive 
as being a member of 3 separate real estate organizations I belong to. I have read a couple of articles that upset me with their implications. These articles state that we, as real estate agents, need to shoulder some of the blame for the current state of short sales and foreclosures, meaning the buyers we worked with that are now losing their homes.
I'm sure there might have been some unscrupulous agents that were in cahoots with bad mortgage companies that were working together to crank out one bad loan after another. But with the surge in foreclosures, I truly don't think this kind…
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works and the fact that no one is guaranteed a "deal" when purchasing one of these properties. In fact, I've seen many foreclosed and short-sale properties where the bank won't budge on price and the prices are simply too high for the condition of the property. On the foreclosed property I handled in Scottsdale, the mortgage holder was ready to reduce the price right when we got an offer. That fact made the lower offer more acceptable to the bank since they were thinking of reducing it anyway.
I rarely cite other blog posts even though I read quite a few and many of them are good. But I usually have enough to write about so don't need to talk about other people's blog posts. However, once in a while I find a gem that moves me. I recently read a post about Real Estate Speculators Establishing Bottom-dollar Price for Lender-Owned Homes in Phoenix written by Greg Swann of Bloodhound Realty. That's not even the whole post title. Of all the good blog posts I read, why would I share one talking about the Phoneix market, since I work in North Phoenix? I don't think this particular agent works in my area so I'm not worried about it. Phoenix is huge!
I am seeing more and more short sale listings as 2008 continues on it's slow course in Scottsdale real estate sales. These listings are competing with the many other real estate listings that are being sold by home owners that want or need to move. In some cases short sale prices and foreclosures are now being used as comparables by appraisers. I've been on both ends of short sales. I had a short sale listing and have presented buyer offers to several short sale listings.
I haven't posted for a while because we've been busy with our monthly real estate newsletter. We have been experimenting with different formats and have been forming a team of different real estate service providers that are sponsoring the newsletter titled Classic Dream Team, Eye-on-the-Market News.
I just read an article by Inman news explaining how the mortgage interest rates fell this week to lows we haven't seen since 2004. That's great news for Scottsdale home buyers who are indecisive about buying now or waiting until later. With the recent special Fed rate cut, buyers may think it's best to hold out for even lower rates. That could be a risky gamble. I'll explain why.
Recently I received a "cease & desist" letter from my local real estate board. I received copies of my offending real estate website pages that have links titled "MLS Search". Now our National Association of REALTORS (NAR) has made an addition to our Code of Ethics preventing us from using the term on our sites. A majority of agents don't really understand the big picture because many do not have websites and for many that do, they don't understand that having a website is one thing, having an Internet presence is quite another.
