Administering Financial Pain People famously dread visiting their dentists; after all, who looks forward to having cavities filled? Unfortunately, for home sellers whose homes are languishing on the market unsold, a visit to their Broker’s office may be more painful, at least financially. That’s because, after 60-90 days of market time without a deal, a 3%...Read More
Omitting Seller-Paid Points Want to know why many real estate Web sites — never good at estimating home prices — are off by at least another 3% now? Because Seller-paid points are a fixture of many house deals these days, yet the government data that many real estate sites rely on don’t report that. Instead, Hennepin County and...Read More
Wall Street Dispatches At least as of 3 p.m. this afternoon, I can definitively report that there was no “blood in streets” in front of The New York Stock Exchange, notwithstanding this week’s market roller coaster. Instead, what I saw (along with my son and a family friend) was the semi-carnival atmosphere that’s usually on...Read More
Realtor-Speak for “No Go, Try Again” Personally, I’ve never understood the logic of “countering full price.” That’s what most listing agents advise their clients to do when they receive an offer that’s disappointing — or worse. Supposedly, that conveys to the Buyer that the offer is too low to begin negotiating in earnest, and that they...Read More
Categories: Fiction and Real Life The winner of the award for “Rudest Cellphone Behavior — Fictional Category” would be the lawyer in the play “God of Carnage,” who advises his pharmaceutical client how to tamp down a drug recall scandal while his stunned hosts watch and listen, aghast, in their own Living Room. (I saw the Guthrie’s excellent...Read More
“Long-Time Buyer Needs” A fixture of most broker weekly meetings is the 15 minutes or so allotted to “Realtor Networking.” The purpose is to give office Realtors a forum to plug their current and upcoming listings; promote listings that have just had price reductions (“price improvements”); and to broadcast what their Buyers are looking for....Read More
