Real estate listings suck

[David]

Most of my experience's with realtors has not been stellar. Constantly showing me houses that did not match my must have list. However when I was looking for my first bungalow I did have a great realtor, and he told me I would have to be patient as there simply wasn't many houses with oversized garages and the other must haves in my desired neighbourhood. So I was patient, and after quite a while he called me with a perfect match. He did not waste my time showing me houses that dud not match, I appreciated that.

The realtor we use has a service that provides us with listings that match what we're looking for. I think that realtors have access to more details than the general public can..
When we see something that we like we call her and talk about it before we ever bother looking at it.
All that said, the market has softened here and we're not planning to move anytime soon.

 

[Susquatch]

All that said, the market has softened here and we're not planning to move anytime soon.

Personally, I don't think market conditions have much affect on those who already bought a home. In most cases, they are trading up or down a bit and the conditions affect both ends of the deal. For those new buyers who are trying to buy their first home or cash out at the end of their lives, or move to an entirely different value range, it's a completely different situation.

My heart goes out to new buyers. For their sake, I wish the market was much softer than it is.

And let's leave those heartless blood thirsty banks out of it please.

 

[David]

Personally, I don't think market conditions have much affect on those who already bought a home. In most cases, they are trading up or down a bit and the conditions affect both ends of the deal. For those new buyers who are trying to buy their first home or cash out at the end of their lives, or move to an entirely different value range, it's a completely different situation.

My heart goes out to new buyers. For their sake, I wish the market was much softer than it is.

And let's leave those heartless blood thirsty banks out of it please.

Not to hijack Mike's thread but for us it's also combination of my age, proximity to retirement, aging parents (hers) and an unwillingness to take on debt at this point.
Plus realtors fees and taxes are nearly a $100K hit.

 

[Warlock]

My heart goes out to new buyers. For their sake, I wish the market was much softer than it is.

I am old enough to remember that you go married saved a couple of years and took out a 20 or 25 year mortgage. Then up sized as needed or wanted, then when you were ready or wanted to retire the house was paid for. Now it will take 25 years to save the down payment just in time for retirement. Next thing will see are multi generational mortgages and multi generational family homes. I have clients that have rental costs higher then the most expensive mortgage I ever had then add their vehicle payments.

Must be so disheartening.

What I was taught it doesn't matter what you make as a salary it's what's left in the old wallet that counts. You may make $200,000 as a salary in a big city with a fancy title but at the end of the year your costs for student loans, car payments, mortgage / rent payment, food, insurance, taxes, etc. are $201,000 you are basically bankrupt.

 

[SightlessSeer]

Must be so disheartening.

You're right on the money.

I was born in 1999 and I am one of two people I know my age who owns a place. I was able to buy my place by being cheap my whole life, having part time jobs from grade 9 until graduating university, staying at my parents place during uni, getting a good job right out of school, and moving about 50 km out of town (about 50 km from where I work as well). Take away any one of those factors and I probably couldn't have bought a place.

Pretty much everyone I know my age is catastrophically pessimistic and extremely cynical and who can blame them. I've heard sentiments like "I can't wait for the boomers to die so I can buy a house" expressed on many occasions. In the city, if you're doing well you're earning maybe 90k/year to try and buy houses that are frequently over 1M and sometimes as high as 2M. And as you said, rent is high enough that unless you're living at home or some similar situation it's really hard to build any savings. On top of all that we had 2-3 years of major inflation, which if you didn't have an assets that move with inflation tanked the value of any savings that you did have. And on top off all that, prime interest rates are about what they were during the 2008 financial crisis.

It's a rough time to buy your first home.

 

[Mike R]

Thanks for the discussion. I've used realtors a total of 3 times now, first house search started in 1999 and 6 months later finished in March 2000, second was in 2014 and third was 2015.
Lets just say that 2 out of 3 were not to my liking. The 2014 2015 were a purchase and a later sale after renting the first house out for year ( I don't talk about that...)
I will say that both houses we bought I've been very happy with, just the process was really long for the first. Like I said initially - I need to train the realtor on what I'm looking for.
The very first one was a referral / family friend and it took 3 months to get her to listen to me and not just my soon to be wife. By that time the market had dried up and prices were rising fast, we got into a house just in time to see the large % increases in house prices over the next few years. It was great for a starter home, pie shaped outside corner lot with no backyard neighbors and a big back yard for the city. It was good for the time, but we outgrew it, and my love of yard work got flipped to a big pain (literally) after breaking my leg mountain biking - I just could not do the yard work anymore. Recovering from that was years...
The second purchase was better, the agent was a referral from a friend with no strings attached. He took far less time to train, understood what I told him, sent us stuff to look at right away and I think I had him sending real good candidate material within maybe 3 back and forth exchanges. I think we got a bargain (divorce sale before Christmas).
The sale of the 1st house was another thing altogether. Instead of sticking with the proven guy, and despite my desire to sell without an agent, I was over ruled by SWMBO. I was travelling with work and she didn't want to deal with it. Anyways - I think this time I may get my way on selling privately...

Just an aside - I can be very cheap (its a fault), and the idea that selling a house is worth anywhere near 2% to each agent is ludicrous to my mind. On a 3/4 million to million dollar house thats $15000 to $20000 each, for what probably amounts to maybe a few days work if all the hours are added up and thats probably being generous, minus a small MLS fee and maybe some others.

So in a nutshell if I pyscho analyze myself I'm saying that I don't see value for money in real estate agents.

I can be convinced that 1% is appropriate, if the agent is knowledgeable and experienced and can help avoid costly issues by knowing things to look for. Like I just learned about "linked properties". Or if they can cut to the chase and warn you of upcoming zoning changes for industrial neighbors, building restrictions, flood plain zones, rights of way, weird by-laws, etc. but my experience is that they don't know these things and you need to do all of your own looking.

BTW, as good as I had it price wise - interest rates on my 1st mortgage in 2000 was ~7.5% for 5 years...

I'm also not in this alone. My wife has an equal say, so that will temper any ideas of buying a shop in the country and living in it if I want to stay married, and divorce is too expensive (I said I was too cheap to a fault). Its still early days, and I'm still not 100% sure what I'm looking for, but its good to get feedback early from others to add to the considerations. Also the buying tips (door knocking and letter dropping).

 

[David]

When I moved from Edmonton (South Cooking Lake actually) I sold our acreage myself. It was listed with ReMax but couple drove up, asked if they could view it. As the owner I knew the place inside out and sold it hard. Got an offer the next day. Single agent deal too so that hurt less.

 

[Mike R]

I should say one good thing about realtors - the buddy network. If you have an agent, they can tell other agents about the listing before it goes full public, helping the buyer be at the front of the line for good listings. Only really an advantage in medium to hot markets, too hot and its bidding wars, cold and theres no need to hurry.

 

[Mike R]

I'm leaving this place feet first.

Too bad, your place sounds like its exactly what I'm looking for!

 

[JustaDB]

The listing for the place I bought wasn't very good.

Real estate agents are inherently cheap. Often they don't like to spend money on photography or on large listings. I have friends in the business in Langley. Their yearly photography budget is well into 5 figures & they turn houses faster than anyone in the company. Beautiful professional photography.

In another life I was a professional photographer & I tried to break into real estate using my friends as templates. No go. Local agents were more than happy taking a photo w/ their phone hanging out the window of their car going past at 30 mph. Cloudy skies, dark front door areas, out of focus, poor composition, bad lighting, I could go on.

 

[Warlock]

And on top off all that, prime interest rates are about what they were during the 2008 financial crisis.

Can you imagine what would happen if the interest rate went to nearly 30 percent in I think like it was in 1980. But back then if you had no debt you could only get a mortgage equal to 3 times your salary. Once upon a time I would say get a university education now when the topic comes up I say go get a trade. Less debt so less student loans and there will always be employment for those that are willing to do a days work. I did the engineering BS and it was a means to an end but it was never my passion.

"I can't wait for the boomers to die so I can buy a house"

A lot of us old geezers aren't ready for the dirt blanket, just yet.

 

[Hollow-Grind]

It's not that hard to hit 200k of tools these days

To be fair I said tool’s and toy’s. 20k 4 wheeler, 80k side by side, 40k Swimspa, 140k car. Haven’t touched tools yet lol.