Entries from Searchlight Crusade tagged with 'negotiation'

Buyer's Markets: Time for Listing Agents To Earn Their Money

One of the most common things I'm seeing as I roam about the East County looking for bargains: Agents not doing their jobs. Even when there were 40-plus sellers per buyer, single family detached homes that are priced appropriately were...

Real Estate and the Tale of Aesop's Dog (Greed Envy)

At a very young age, my parents bought me a book of Aesop's Tales. Aesop has gone out of style, probably because these are stories with a moral lesson, and it seems the modern society is actively averse to moral...

Dual Agency: Using the Seller's Agent as Your Buyer's Agent

Is it unwise to use the listing realtor as your purchase realtor? A house I'm interested in purchasing is being sold by the realtor selling my house. Although she's done a decent job selling my house, I fear she...

Two Things Sellers Need To Understand About Buyers

There's an old saying in sales: "The best way to achieve your dreams is to help others achieve theirs". I wasn't able to run it down to the original attribution, but it is as true a saying as can...

Buying Without An Agent - My Own Experience

I had the idea for this article some time ago. It took me a long time to decide to share it publicly, because quite frankly, knowing what I know now, I was an idiot. I was still young enough to...

Asking Price Versus Sales Price

Hard as it may be to believe, I've never done an article comparing asking price to sales price. It's way past time. Asking price is quite simply, a written representation of an offer the seller would be willing to...

"Contractor's Specials"

I was looking through some real estate listings and saw one property described as: "Contractor's special, first time buyers and investors. House needs TLC." Does contractor's special mean u better be a contractor if you wanna buy this place? It...

Assuming Seller Concessions On Loan Quotes

I recently received an email asking about a Good Faith Estimate on a $200k loan. The person asking my opinion attached the actual "estimate" to the email. In addition to a point of origination and a point of discount...

Some Offers Are More Equal Than Others (Even If They Are For Less Money)

The phrasing in parallel with Animal Farm is intentional. Sellers need to understand this, and so do buyers, especially in a hot real estate market. Some offers are more equal than others, and knowing how to choose between competing...

Working with Multiple Agents While Searching for a Purchase

If you have three real estate companies sending you emails with multi-listings, if you want to see one of the properties, who gets the commission? There five properties that I want to see the inside of the houses. Company A,...

How To Keep Listing Agents From Filtering Out Offers

This is a real, major and pervasive problem in the industry. For a while, it mostly went away as listing agents were desperate for any offer, but it has come back. At least two properties my buyer clients have...

Short Sale Negotiators and the Interests of Potential Buyers

I am seeing a very disturbing trend these past few months. Rather than do the work they should be doing, listing agents are treating the entire short sale process as a kind of "Black Box", delegating the negotiations with the...

Why Sellers Should Counter All Reasonable Offers

I just got off the phone with an agent who claims to have three offers on the property, but he doesn't want to counter the offer. He just wants my client to voluntarily throw more money (or more something)...

The Tollbooth Model of Real Estate Agency

Over the last couple of decades, there's been a rising movement, mostly on the part of those who want a piece of real estate agents business, to sell agents as a toll booth. Tollbooths sit there, guarding the entry to...

"I'm Working With Someone Else, But Could You Just Help Me With..."

I recently got an email from a reader that was coming into a property as I left. I dropped my card and we did the lockbox shuffle thing, then there was an email when I got back to the...

The Sperm Donor Theory of Buyer's Agents

Some fathers, sad to say, are not involved in their children's life beyond conception. Maybe it was just a one night stand and they have no idea they even have a child, maybe they were involved with the mother on...

Some Secrets to Good Transactions

Be prepared for trouble before it happens, know how strong your position is or isn't, and don't ever overplay your hand. Real estate transactions are the largest transactions most folks get involved in. Even small percentages of $500,000 or more...

I'm Competing Against Multiple Offers. How Do I Proceed?

The first thing to consider is that maybe you shouldn't. You never want to get involved in a bidding war. There's a classic riddle I ask every single one of my buyer clients at least once. "How often does...

The Seller Always Knows More About the Property Than the Buyer

Real Estate information is asymmetrical. One of the central facts of real estate transactions is that the seller always knows more than the buyer. They've lived in the property for years, and had to deal with any defects first hand....

The Measurement Unit For Desirability Is Dollars

I have been asked by more than one person how to measure desirability of real estate objectively. Fortunately, the Phoenicians did all the hard work for me three thousand years ago when they invented money. Precisely what that measurement unit...