NJ also priced itself out of the First time home buyer. First time home buyers are simply renting or moving out of state.

Its essentially over until prices decline and there is incentive to move.

I work in Information Technology and can tell you that a good 80% of the people in this field I wouldnt trust touching a toaster but they are in the same field as me and competing for the same jobs. I would expect thier are the same if not more than 80% of poor realtors because it was an easy field to get into to make a lot of money when the housing market was booming. Same thing with all the idiots who ran to Devry thinking they will make a ton of money in computers which is a dying field. Back to the subject that leaves about 1 in 5 that actually knows what is going on and 80% that are being mis guided.

The realtor I had in NJ sold her $800k house to live in a rental condo the same time we sold our home. She knew what was going to happen. I suspect she could buy her old house back at a lower price if she wanted to but will probably wait another year or two for the market to settle before deciding what to do.

The problem is you had 350K homes sell for 500K in a very short amount of time with no improvements done on the homes. Everyone ran to real estate because hey everyone can get rich quick this way. Some did. Just like there was a time you could have bought any stock and if they had a website oh my goodness they must be a great company they are on the web. Now those 350K homes are now 4-5 years older and now require additional repairs in a declining market. No changes have been made to any of them because people over extended themselves. Yet people still think its worth 500K or more. Now the sad part is its worth less than 350K because its still the same 350K house with an additional 5 years of use on it. It was hard enough to think that house was worth 350K much less 500K and now needs a roof, fence, pool liner, kitchen remodel, bathroom upgrades with a poor commute on pot ridden roads, and ever increasing property taxes.

NJ is not California with its sunny weather and beaches. There is no reason a lot of it was priced like it was.

I would expect to see prices of 5-6 year ago because of property taxes, increased insurance rates, declining job pay rates, rising health insurance, and finally increased interest rates. Companies in NJ arent simply going to give thier employees more money. Dont be surprised when Pharma companies start moving out of NJ.

I just feel there is too much free/bad advice floating out there, and people know no better.

dream: your comment is patently false – the whole “holier-than-thou” halo of fee-only is a ruse:

#1 it tends to be the most expensive way to conduct business – strategy is designed, but other than asset management, all costs are borne by the clients in the implementation phase.

#2 it focuses strategy on maximizing assets under management – ask a fee-only advisor whether you should make a bigger down payment on a house by removing assets from a managed account.

#3 shows a fundamental lack of interest in serving the public with less than roughly $500,000 in investable assets – often though the number is $1M in practice.

Your arguments make sense in theory, but in practice it falls down.

In many instances, the fee-only people are established businesses, and then shift to fee-only because they already have assets, and promptly drop their smaller clients, because they can’t be bothered.

Bottom line, don’t get hung up on the WAY people are compensated. Focus on competence, client service, integrity [a.k.a. fiduciary responsibility], and overall costs.

A compensation model does not make an advisor or real estate agent ethical.

The model that I find is ideal is “fee-offset”. My firm has 4 methods of compensation: hourly, flat fee, commission, fee-offset. We don’t turn anyone away, although we do focus on “fit”, and someone who is particularly troublesome is not going to be pursued very rigorously.

Sorry Chifi, nothing for me to reconcile. My gripe is that a fee-only financial advisor offers much more value than commissioned salesmen since there are no inherent conflicts of interest. And a fee-based structure in real estate will be a superior to the commission structure currently prevalent.

“I resort to ad hominem when the hominus in question deserves to get capped. Moron.”
 

QED.

I may buy a house this year or may not. I have paid commissions before when I bought and sold and I have much less at stake than you guys.

RL,

While I haven’t yet met Clot or KL, yet, I don’t think they’ve misrepresented themselves in any way. They’ve clearly identified themselves as agents, so the “lurking” title might be a big undeserved. This is very different from agents that post as if they were lay-persons.

I’ve met Chi on more than one occasion and he too is who he says he is. He is not a “lurking agent” by any means. I assume you haven’t seen the “bubble sitter” video?

jb

I’ve been working a lot this past week….and finally got to reading and this thread really got me.

re #86: it’s amazing how little many people know about personal finance.

a partner in my group of ER docs is buried in debt, funds his 401-k at 3%, carries large credit card debt and was thinking of a HEL to pay down some of it.

then, our group’s shareholder meeting…I mentioned “stepped up cost basis” and was met with about 15 pole-axed stares and a few “huh??”s in response.

I am all for mandatory personal financial classes. Even if just the basics in HS and then more in depth levels in college.

…let’s see the house in maplewood. Drive by it — and then the surrounding 3 miles. You’ll end up on Chancellor Ave in Newark. I went to UMDNJ for 4 yrs — you wouldn’t want to live there (or near there.)

…thanks for all of your time JB. I know this forum has educated me tremendously on so many topics with data and information (and many extraordinary people.) May your coral grow and grow.

Back to lurking…

sl

I like to do exactly the same thing, I am pretty picky and hate dragging someone all over the place for nothing. Plus I like to take the time to make my own impression. When a realtor assists me in that way, I tend to be very loyal, even calling them when I find something of interest on my own. I worked in sales for many years and am allergic to hard sell but will make sure that if someone is truly willing to work for me, they benefit in the end.

Fear of the customer is not a very good business model.

I use one Realtor(TM) site to quickly scan and track daily modifications, since they appear non-highlighted (Clotpoll, you know what I mean), then the other to look up addresses and many other details like room size. Saves time, eliminates phone calls to the agent and narrows my driveby list. If an address is not listed, I bag it. Ten others that have addresses will then take my weekly gas allotment. But in the end, I’ll still use an agent, because I value not being involved in the bid process.

Why can’t the seller be given the option to list address? This is America, right?

The crux of what people seem to be begging for is better customer service, derived from a shift from a paternalistic philosophy to one of teamwork and open sharing. What if Realtors were guaranteed the same fees but the information were given freely? Everybody gets what they want. You might ask, “How could this be?”

Realtors truly believe that they value-add. Customers feel information-deprived. Therefore, making the change will have no net impact in the long-term. Customers will continue to use their services. This infrequent and time-consuming transaction will continue to flow to the agent in all but a minor number of sales. In the short-term, some abberations will be seen until consumers understand the value. Tag-u-ass opinion.

——

C.F. I find your characterizations of engineers extremely insulting (hahhhahahha…kidding!)
I love the best parts of engineers, though- their fierce loyalty to a project and abject depression when you pull the development plug and force a go-live.

For example, I see too many financial advisors pushing people into horrendously expensive load funds screwing them on breakpoints, pushing variable annuities, universal life insurance…I could go on and on. In the midst of this Wall Street marketing propaganda, I think 90% of Main St. investors can do well by following some common sense, some of which is below:

dream: Allow me to point out that it is exactly the practices with which you take issue that allow these Wall Street firms to offer you the best paying IT consulting gigs. I guess your principles are more of an intellectual exercise, rather than something to live your life by, or have you found a way to reconcile you conscience and your paycheck? People in glass houses……

Still a huge fan of this site, unfortunately not much time as of late to post… but on the topic of realtors, I can say I dealt with a number who definitely tried to play me when buying (and I almost learned the hard way!) – but honestly when I went to sell, I had initally tried doing FSBO for a bit and then signed on with two realtors (partners) who were really excellent.

Negotiated to 4%, and they were there, week in week out, with open houses and showings until I got a couple offers which I was quite happy with. I knew my neighborhood and price points very well, but they and their colleagues provided access to a large pool of local buyers that I just wasn’t able to tap myself.

Honestly, having tried it myself it was a major hassle- a huge amount of “merely curious” neighbors and few serious buyers streaming in and out, despite my long conversations with each no bites. I also learned I could make a lot of friends, but I wasn’t gonna close anything.

In addition, I think that having the owner show vs. a third party makes a difference, sometimes people are just too self conscious to really look at the place with you hovering over them.

Being able to head out to the beach on the weekends, instead of sit home wondering if someone was going to show for an appt, was really nice. If you work a lot and value your free time, it’s something to consider.

They provided a lot of MLS info to confirm my gut feel on pricing, access to a large pool of solid buyers, and plenty of labor over a number of months showing- when I was at work, on vacation, or doing my regular day-to-day stuff. No question, for me, the 4% was worth it.

Steve