Yes, you can. You maybe able to from all the “knowledge” you have gained from Seattle Bubble. I assure you 99.8% of the people out there need a 3rd party to negotiate, assist in the paperwork, and let you in the homes. If you can do these 3 and get a better price(then I can get you) then represent yourself. In the end the sellers money(or Buyers as you call it) is well worth the .75% paid to 500 Realty.

http://www.500Realty.net

“It is clear the Ummels did not rush into a decision: They dismissed one agent and canceled deals on two houses before Mr. Little found them a prospect on a cul-de-sac in a five-year-old luxury development”.

That does not sound like the “innocent little lamb being led astray by the hungry wolf”.

These people were obviously savvy enough to fire their previous agent for whatever reason, and flip 2 deals that didnt end up meeting their expectations before settling on the house they bought.

Keep in mind:
1.) Many times the buyer has their own idea what the property is worth. They will offer that amount even if the agent says “i think it’s worth 90% of that”. Yes this happens all the time… loans come back because the appraisal came in substantially lower than the value offered and the bank wouldn’t write the loan.
2.) Even if the appraisal comes in low, many times the buyer still buys. They put more down, use their own money, etc. to make the deal go through. For whatever reason, the BUYER felt it was worth more. Are you saying in this situation the agent should be sued for mis-representing the buyer’s interests?

My question to the nut-job lady (if i could ask her one) would be… If there were so many homes on the same block that were selling for less, why didnt she buy one of those homes instead of the one she bought? It’s not like these homes were trying to hide the fact that they were for sale or their asking price… why did she chose the price she chose, and the house she chose. You can’t honestly believe she had no idea other houses in the area were also for sale? Her own appraisal puts the value at 1,050,000. (And I think we can agree she’s going to present the lowest appraisal she can find). Not to mention this is backward-looking and therefore has the advantage of hindsight… something you dont have in a “Hot” market. In her best case scenario we are talking about 150k out of a 1.2 million sale, or 12%. It’s a substantial amount, but I dont think it’s that far off considering she’s using the lowest possible appraisal, looking backward into a very hot market at the time.

While I believe there was a lot of incompetence and certainly fraud on both the sales and the buying side over the last few years, I think that whatever is frustrating you is clouding your thought process.

As far as reading motives into each and every poster here, you have your work cut out for you. There is a large and diverse body of readers and posters. Quite a few of them own property, or have in the past.

Regarding emotions, I for one am elated that I do not have a mortgage on a recently purchased house, right now. I am not quite sure how it would make sense that people would be angry, bitter, etc about NOT holding the biggest boat anchor of an investment that was possible to make over the last few years.

Detach your feelings on the lawsuit from whether either party is stupid or greedy. Do the facts on paper merit the use of the law? There certainly seems to be a reasonably solid logic to support that. The case would be decided based on discovery of facts, rather than which person was stupider, greedier, uglier, etc. I can’t believe this has to be spelled out for you.

Rant all you want about “personal responsibility”. We don’t exist in a vacuum, and functioning markets require a fair playing field and reasonable expectations of what a buyer’s agent is expected to do.

You might as well say that a used car salesman is not paid by the car dealer, or the sales person at Nordstroms is not paid by Nordstroms, because the money they are paid with is coming from the customer.
…
Commissioned salespeople are contracted by the seller, are paid by the seller, for working in the interests of the seller, i.e. getting the best price for the seller.

Period.

Here’s the thing though, it’s not as cut and dry as that. Because you definitely can say that a used car salesman is paid by the car buyer, and the Nordstrom’s sales person is paid by the suit purchaser. Why do you think it is so much cheaper to buy a car from a private party? One of the big reasons is because you’re not paying the salesperson’s commission.

I agree that the salespeople work in the interests of the seller, but if a buyer never shows up with the money, then they don’t get paid. So yes, they are still being paid by the buyer.

My main beef with this point is when people talk about hiring a buyer’s agent, and use the justification that “hey, you may as well, because for the buyer, it’s freeeeee!” No. It’s not free. 3% of the purchase price that you, the buyer are paying is going to that agent (and their brokerage). You can buy a home without an agent, and pay less. People do it all the time.

(See, I can use bold, too :) )

The real estate industry appears to want it both ways, they want to represent you as a ‘professional’, yet if you use their advice to make a purchase they don’t want any responsibility.

Yes, I don’t care to use a realtor in the future at this time, so call that a boycott if you want. I will hire a lawyer to write my contracts, who I will definantly sue if they intentionally misrepresent something to me that damages me.

I don’t know why it is Brian believes that giving people advice with whom you have a contract and withholding material information isn’t a good time to sue. I think it’s a great time to sue for the right reason.

If you are a professional and you materially misrepresent information to someone who is relying on those facts, you should not be able to skip out. It would make selling houses harder, but more honest.

Personal responsibility went out of style in the 80s. Now days sue your teachers, sue your parents, sue whomever, but never EVER admit personal responsibility!

From NAR’s code of ethics: “REALTORS® shall avoid exaggeration, misrepresentation, or concealment of pertinent facts relating to the property or the transaction.”

I don’t know if the agent was a member of NAR, but the bold part (my emphasis) is the basis for the lawsuit. The RE agent knew the value of the home, should have known about the other properties selling for less in the area, and didn’t relay that information.

In general I agree that people should research their purchases, especially big ones (that’s how I ended up here). I agree that paying someone a % commission gives them no interest to ensure you get the best price. I agree the lady may very well be a nutjob. But it’s far from frivolous, and the CA courts will decide whether her case has merit or not.

I do see a wave of lawsuits coming in the next couple years as people who bought into the promise of 10%+ annual appreciation discover it’s not there. That’s a different situation in my eyes, and I would not support those lawsuits. Those have nothing to do with the property or transaction; merely personal greed.

1. realtors are not simple sales persons… a buyer’s agent is hired and paid to provide a duty to the buyer so they can understand the market which is the realtor’s professional expertise… this lawsuit has good merit… she was duped by her agent who should have been looking out for her…. key word is fiduciary obligation… look that up in wikepedia..

a buyer’s agent is not a salesperson… they’re more than that… if you don’t understand this part… read back all the posts… there was deception involved…

2. she moved from San Francisco… she probably made off with tons of equity…

3. this would be a good reminder to realtors that the market has laws and it’s no longer a walk in the park… that’s why the commission is huge… (work for pay or get paid less for less service)

You forgot foreclosures – if prices really start to slide, people who have an interest-only loan who are way underwater and paying twice as much for their mortgage than they would pay in rent may just say “screw it”, and mail the keys back to the bank. Since Washington is a non-recourse state, the bank can only take the house – they can’t go after you for their loss on the foreclosure.

That’s what I said too (i.e. the salesperson’s job is to look after the seller), but the style of your post seems to indicate that you think you are disagreeing with me.

Such as…what was the asking price of the comp that sold prior to sale? What date were the offers and for how much?

I do expect to see quite a bit of this in the next couple of years and don’t doubt that the government will find a way to meddle in that too.

Let’s see what the courts have to say.

Common Sense…an oxymoron…tells me that with his published salary he should have been smart enough to know that he can’t afford a $1.2M home.

I read the emotional, tonal content of what you’re saying. But if you pull back and read a little, you’d realize that a real estate agent and member of the NAR has, as f’ed up as it is, something of a duty. Someone earlier provided a direct link. See also this: http://realestate.about.com/od/representationagency/p/client_remedy.htm

(my opinion: the NAR in general, and buyers agents are something of a joke, and I wouldn’t trust one with a purchase larger than a candy bar)

It’s pretty clear that you’ve become unhinged in the pursuit of your argument, but haven’t refined or clarified it. Heck, you may be a bored troll from RCG here to blow off some post-bubble steam. But when everyone but you remains unconvinced of your point, that’s a sign that you need to go back and think about the merits of your argument, not just throw up your hands and make increasingly exasperated posts, name calling, etc.

You keep saying the lawsuit is frivolous, but you haven’t backed that up with anything other than your opinion (which doesn’t seem very well grounded in anything other than… being against using the court system to settle contractual disputes and punish dishonest actions). It also appears that you think a buyer, no matter how stupid or smart, is better off starting a competing real-estate broker cartel, rather than taking an individual case to the courts.

*makes kuckoo gesture with hand in the air*

Be more charitable in your argumentative style, figure out some way of getting smarter, or just lurk for a while so you know what’s going on here. Or, alternatively, just go away. That might work, too.

The article is talking about a person buying a house that cost over $1M. It says nothing about the persons education. The person should have known what they were getting into.

Not sure why you are assuming so much about me. There appear to be a bunch of cry babies on this board that enjoy lauding the merits of frivolous lawsuits or crying about real estate. Apparently, you’re one of them.

According to statistics Seattle is one of the most educated cities in the United States, in fact it is ranked number one for literacy in some studies. The average household income in Seattle is somewhere in the range of $60,000 to $70,000 a year, depending on the source. If the average house price is $450,000 then to safely pay a 30yr fixed you would need MORE THAN $120,000 in household income. With a recession looming a lot of people could be out of work for at least some period and will miss payments. Buying an overpriced pile of drywall and broken promises is financial suicide. Real estate is the new Amway.

The smart move is to sell short the housing and finance sectors with a good short ETF. If you look at the prices for SKF and SRS you can see that the smart money to be made at the moment in betting against real estate. I love it. Agents, thank you for this wonderfully lucrative bubble, you’ve given me so much. I’ll be in the market around 2009 or 2010.

Brian, maybe you should quit real estate. You could go back to night school and finally get that GED that your mom has been nagging you about.

amoral

having no moral standards, restraints, or principles; unaware of or indifferent to questions of right or wrong: a completely amoral person.

Can you honestly say that you’ve never been mislead or manipulated by someone whom you percieved to know more than you, whom tauted themselves as the “expert”? Taking advantage of people’s emotions isn’t necessarily illegal, but it’s amoral and unscroupulous. Funny how you want to judge these poor saps who number probably in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. You are affected by their duping as well, look at the mess we have now. In society, what’s bad for your neighbor is probably going to be bad for you eventually. Maybe you should read some Rousseau, college boy.

Whereas this may be true, it’s also true that others will buy out of fear that they’ll be “priced out forever”

You might as well say that a used car salesman is not paid by the car dealer, or the sales person at Nordstroms is not paid by Nordstroms, because the money they are paid with is coming from the customer.

Does the used car salesman have an obligation to tell you that you could get the same car at another lot for cheaper? Does the guy at Nordstroms have an obligation to tell you that you could buy the same outfit cheaper at Sears?

Commissioned salespeople are contracted by the seller, are paid by the seller, for working in the interests of the seller, i.e. getting the best price for the seller.

Period.

I disagree that prices would have risen as much without the sales hype and manipulation of RE agents. They are paid on commission, plain and simple. It’s a broken system, but I’m pretty sure we’re seeing the revolution beginning. They will not be trusted for decades to come. There are exceptions, such as Ira. In two years, when I’ve raised my down payment and prices have plummeted, I just might look him up.

Agree that the hiring of newbie agents over the past few years is the responsibility of the Brokerages and I suppose the Errors and Omissions insurance will be rising shortly too.

It’s interesting that the agent had an appraisal done, why would he do this? If she had already decided to purchase (and did in fact purchase it without seeing an appraisal)… then he’s just wasting his own money. My guess is he tried to convince her to do an appraisal but she would not (cheapskate?… or maybe she loved the house too much to admit to herself it was over-priced… or maybe she plain didnt care). If she paid for the appraisal and he with-held it there is no question he would lose his license immediately. Since she has picketed the office for a year and he still has his license, i’m guessing she is exactly what the realtor said she was… a nut job. It also tells tales that her husband is basically like “ok hun go do your thing just dont talk to me about it”. You would think he would care a bit more about his 1.1 million dollar purchase?

If you are wronged by someone and you have a legitimate case, you sue them. You don’t picket their office for a year. This lady is crazy and wants revenge. I can’t wait to see her not only lose the suit, but have to pay the realtor’s lawyer fees.

I like to read this blog, I own a condo in seattle, bought in 2005. Yes I’ve made some good appreciation on it but there’s nothing i’d love more than a 50% drop in real estate prices. I’d happily lose all that nice appreciation i made in the last few years so I can upgrade to a house at a realistic price.

You guys need to realize it is not the realtor’s who drove up the housing market… it is the buyers who were willing to pay X amount per month for X amount of square feet. Take realtors out of the picture and homes would have sold for the exact same prices. It was a bubble fed by many things – easier credit