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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tradelite who wrote (15115)	11/15/2003 1:00:21 PM
From: bobby is sleepless in seattle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

It's interesting to see the experts come out and suggest that this is just a very simple profession that charges excessive commissions. Put on the hat, roll up the sleeves, get ready to handle the emotional baggage. Selling the home is the EZ part. Keeping it together is where the fun begins! Most homesellers, if asked to sell it on their own without the help of an agent, will submit that they do not have the time, the knowledge, nor the avenue to produce a sale. Bottom line, what's their time value. Most home sellers would rather utilize an agent and pay the fee for services. The part that consumers should realize is that the fierce competition amongst agents will take care of the commission issue. Buyers in general, don't care because they know that they are not paying a commission, unless there are extinuating circumstances. On this thread, there are a few who should stick to fsbo, as they have exhibited their know it all material. Even with an agent, they tend to forget about choices, other avenues that allow for access to multiple without paying "standard" fees that have been discussed. Perhaps these are the same folks that would rather unclog their own toilet as opposed to hiring the overpaid plumber. That's their choice and it's OK. As a plumber, I would rather let those folks handle their own s*it anyway and help those that genuinely appreciate the help....

To: Tradelite who wrote (15115)	11/15/2003 4:12:06 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Respond to of 306849

If you have more accurate figures regarding the "Welcome Home Realty and Discount Feed Store", in your town of Hooterville, we'd love to see you post the information. Barring that, it seem fairly clear that the "Welcome Home Realty and Discount Feed Store" dominates your local market, just as NRT/Cendant and Berkshire Hathaway do in Los Angeles and Long & Foster does in Washington DC. I just love how NRT/Cendant prints on their stationary "Each Coldwell-Banker office is independently owned and operated." In Southern California, each office is independently owned and operated by NRT/Cendant. They own the Coldwell-Banker Franchise (as well as ERA and Century 21) and in addition they own each Franchised Coldwell-Banker office. I guess that's about as independent as you can get - no one's going to tell them what to do. The Coldwell-Banker in your town of Hooterville is most likely an independently owned Franchisee, with NRT being only the Franchise owner. But if the Hooterville office becomes genuinely profitable, you can count on NRT purchasing the Hooterville franchise as well. Of course the figures at the bottom of the page of this website are from the year 2000. Since that time the largest firms have taken over even more of their markets. realsure.com As an example, Long & Foster in 2000 owned 164 offices with $14.22 Billion of real estate sales in a year. Their 2002 Annual Report claims ownership of more than 200 offices with more than $23 Billion in real estate sales making them, in their own estimation, "the third or fourth largest real estate firm in the nation." They claim to have more than 10,000 real estate agents crawling over the Washington D.C. area, like a bad piece of meat infested with maggots. longandfoster.com