Is A Virtual Tour Right For Your Property?
I get asked all the time, "Bob, what advertising works best?"
Fsbo sellers want to know what works that doesn’t cost anything, sellers want to know how their listings will be advertised regardless of effectiveness, agents want to know what they should stop wasting their money on, and brokers want to offload the entire issue on agents.
My answer is always the same, regardless of whether we’re talking about the San Diego real estate market or Middle America.
Congress Looking To Change Short Sale Tax Implications
The Bush White House endorsed two new bipartisan bills aimed at eliminating the 1099C lenders are required by law to issue to sellers who "benefit" from debt relief realized with a short sale. The current tax code treats this debt relief as earned income. With the proposed legislative changes to the tax code, sellers would be off the hook for this increased tax burden.
60 Minutes, NAR and Real Estate Commissions
On CBS the other night, 60 Minutes ran a story that featured a real estate company called Redfin. Redfin is not the traditional real estate brokerage business model and the focus of the story keyed on how commissions are charged by different models. Needless to say, it didn’t go over very well with many Realtors who believe that you can’t possibly pay enough for their services.
In NAR’s May 14th response to the CBS 60 Minutes story, they listed a few issues where NAR felt that the "facts" presented by 60 Minutes were less than accurate.
Here is one such example:
Error: The six percent commission is "sacrosanct."
Fact: All commissions are negotiable. The average commission rate is not 6 percent, but 5.1 percent, according to Real Trends.
After playing Point/Counter Point, NAR then hits on some other points that they believe 60 Minutes misrepresented or overlooked:
NAR supports all business models and favors none. Our 1.3 million members include REALTORS® who work on a full-service basis, as well as those who consider themselves to be limited service, fee-for-service, minimum service, and discounters. We think it’s great that consumers have a choice today.
The used the following labels:
- full service
- limited service
- fee-for-service
- minimum service
- discounters
All but the last one, ‘discounters’, refers to service. ‘Discounters’ refers strictly to commission. Why even have it on that list?
When you state that all commissions are negotiable, but then use the label ‘discounter’, just what do you think is implied?
The End of an Era
For someone who is seldom lacking something to say, I find this first post a bit more difficult to craft than I expected; even more so as I just watched Andre Agassi hobble off the court at Flushing Meadows after his 3rd round defeat in the U.S. Open. Instead of doing the customary interview with on-court reporter Mary Joe Fernandez, he took her mic, walked on to the court, and gave an emotional, eloquent, Lou Gerhig-esque farewell speech.
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