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August 26th, 2010 - Housing market is the best ever if you have some money!
The supply is still larger than the demand for houses. Housing is more affordable than it has ever been! I can’t believe I am actually saying this but; I looked at houses that were priced at $50,000 last weekend with an investor. Some of these houses actually sat on 1 acre lots! Yes, the house has to have new carpet, paint and a little clorox, but it was shocking to see what you can actually buy for $50,000! Never before has this been possible!
If I were in the market for more rental property, I would have taken a few of these houses, fixed them up, which probably meant spending another 5-10 thousand dollars and wallah… I would be collecting at least $500 -$600 per month in rent from a qualified renter. I would have the house paid off in 6 years and then the rent would be all free money. Who wouldn’t rather be in a house than an apartment? We are talking garages, yards for pets, a house for goodness sake! No noisy neighbors.
Call me if you are in the market for houses that are under $100,000 and you have cash.. don’t call me if you need a loan to purchase them because it is not worth it. This is a much better deal if you have cash and don’t have to finance.
Rebecca Currie, Home Buyers Agent, 770-587-1187
July 8th, 2010 - Idiot buyers need not call me!
Ok people this is really making me mad. Recently I spent several days with potential buyers who came to Atlanta specifically to buy a house. (so they said) They didn’t care that they came on the weekend of 4th of July without asking me if I had any plans! They spent days in the car with me, I showed them at least 20 houses and they didn’t bother to tell me that they were not really even moving here. How rude and inconsiderate can someone actually be? This was WAY rude and inconsiderate of them.
I have spoken with several agents who are telling me that this is also happening to them as well. One agent told me that the buyer just didn’t show up for the closing. After she spent months, finding him a house, negotiating the contract for him, going to the inspection with him and then he doesn’t even bother to show up for the closing! What these people don’t understand or care about is that this is our livelihood, this is how we make our money. I can assure you that anyone of these buyers would not go to work for two solid days and then be told that they won’t get paid! That they just came to work for absolutely nothing….and they spent hours doing research, spent their own personal gas money and didn’t make plans to do anything else because the time would be spent working for someone who will pay you nothing. And then not even an apology. Don’t send me any frigging fruit. Last time this was done to me I got fruit!
Listen up people: Real Estate Brokers and Agents are people too. We work very hard, maybe you don’t think so because we are not in a cubicle or out side doing landscaping, but we do work extremely hard. We trust the people that we put in our cars, who tell us that they are actually going to buy a house. We wouldn’t spend the time with people who aren’t going to respect us and our time if we knew a head of time that we were going to be stolen from: Yes stolen from: It isn’t even harsh: You are stealing our time, our faith, our gas money, our confidence… it is thief any way you look at it. It is fraud… it is mean.
June 21st, 2010 - Weddings, Buying a House and Reality
My daughter recently opened a concierge service for Brides. We have been amazed at how many women have been dreaming about their weddings since they were very little girls. The problem is; that when they actually get engaged they are shocked to learn how much they didn’t know about the process. The cost of the actual wedding is astounding and they quickly learn that they have to have a bigger budget than they anticipated.
This is also what happens when you buy a house for the first time. You dream about the kind of house you are going to buy, you envision raising your kids there and you think you will stay there for many years. Then reality sets in! You need more money, you have to compromise, and you have to live farther out into the country than you wanted to live to get the house you really want. This is when you have to make some major decisions.
There’s the hard way to buy real estate and there’s the easy way. This isn’t your parents or your grandparents market. This is a totally new ballgame! There are people out there who will say anything to get you to buy a house. The banks are not interested in protecting you, if the house is a foreclosure, then you get what you pay for.
In the early 1990′s we moved away from “Buyer Beware” but then the industry circled right back to it. So “Caveat Emptor” and have a good day! So beware and still use a buyers agent.
June 17th, 2010 - Technorati
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June 4th, 2010 - Beware of the real estate agent recommended by a radio talk host!
Ok here’s my rant today… I recently listened to a radio talk show host who is a wizard in helping you get out of debt…I thought; now here is a person who is a consumer advocate and he cares about his listeners. So I called to see how I might be added to his list of preferred agents and was told that I don’t close enough sales to warrant being one of his preferred agents! So of course I said: I don’t get it.. I would have to sell at least 150 houses a year to become one of your preferred agents? That breaks down to 12.5 houses a month! ~ It isn’t even possible to represent 12.5 people buying houses in one month.. How could I possibly actually represent my clients if I tried to juggle 12.5 clients a month? That is insane! To which his representative said: well unless you are producing that many sales, we won’t recommend you. So the real truth is they are making tons of money recommending discount real estate brokers to his listeners and it is not actually about the quality of the agent, it is about the amount of money the agent makes the radio talk show host! So it is simply a numbers game.
If it walks like a greedy person, sounds like a greedy person then it is indeed a greedy person.. so beware. The money is in the recommending, not the actual wanting to help consumers.
May 26th, 2010 - Foreclosure ramblings
Today I had a long conversation with a buyer who is trying to buy a house. It can be a brutal process because you have no idea who you are dealing with when you are buying a short sale or a foreclosure. But there is one re-occuring theme that runs through out the process every time ~ the person who is making the decision has no where to go, has no sense of urgency and pretty much could care less if the buyer gets the house or not…
This isn’t the good old days when the buyer made and offer to a seller, the seller got mad, made a counter offer and then the buyer and seller reached a meeting of the minds. Nope, not anymore! There is some random person talking to another random person, taking their sweet time while they make the buyer wait for days, weeks, months and even in one case a year before the poor old buyer got a response…
So what do you do when you want to buy a house but the people who are responsible (I use that term loosely) for making the decision on the purchase price could care less about the buyer (and let’s don’t even get started with what they think about real estate agents). Well.. #1. you could send a message to your congressman or congress woman and tell them that the banks are stupid.. and it is time that they do something about them… #2. You could go to the nearest window and stick your head out and scream: I am not going to take it anymore! #3. You could fire your real estate agent, #4. You could go buy a house from someone who actually cares about the fact that you want to buy their house, that they have actually taken care of.
Think about this: Foreclosures and short sales may not be the smartest move you could make anyway…. Do you really think that someone who is losing their house has actually taken care of that house before losing it? Most of the time the seller takes the appliances, light fixtures and anything else they can put in the trunk of their cars… so why would they change the filter in the HVAC? I would think twice about that… sure inspections are a must… but what can you really tell about a house that has been abused… “just a thought”..
April 29th, 2010 - Hello world!
This is my first blog and I think I might like sharing my opinions with the curious. I am constantly amazed at how the real estate market is changing and I am actually worried about what it is going to be like in the future. Obviously I am a little biased. I have been in this industry for 30 years and I have seen many changes. Back in 1987 I started the very first “exclusive buyers Broker” real estate company and I was treated like an outcast by the other real estate agents. I was going to be the ruination of the Industry. Change is hard, lets face it… no one wants to mess with the way things are, unless it is to their direct advantage.
My mission then was to change an industry… In fact when I called the Clark Howard show back in 1987 and explained to Clark the difference between being “sold a house” verus being “represented in the purchase of a house” he actually invited me to do an interview with him on his radio show. Then I was contacted by the Stuart Varney show and found myself on CNN Money Line as a guest talking about the Real Estate Industry and the difference between a buyers agent and a sellers agent and why it was necessary to get your own agent in the real estate transaction.
So I tell you this for one reason only: That was a major change in the real estate industry over the past 30 years and now there is another major change coming. I will talk about it in my next blog.
Till then, Rebecca