HousingPANIC message to realtors and mortgage brokers on commission: WE WON'T BE FOOLED AGAIN YOU BASTARDS!!!

September 09, 2007

HousingPANIC message to realtors and mortgage brokers on commission: WE WON'T BE FOOLED AGAIN YOU BASTARDS!!!

34 comments:

Anonymous said...: AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1; September 09, 2007 11:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Two dead professions; September 09, 2007 11:04 PM
Anonymous said...: F 'em; September 09, 2007 11:18 PM
Anonymous said...: .

Wanna Bet?; September 09, 2007 11:21 PM
Anonymous said...: REALTORS are toxic; September 09, 2007 11:28 PM
JimAtLaw said...: I wish it were so, but people are idiots (present company excluded of course ;-), in 15-100 years it'll happen again, depending on the eventual impact of all this on the rest of the economy...

However, one thought looms large in my mind for mitigating the impact to everyone else & maximizing impact to the REIC of the mess they made - we should all do our best to make it shameful & unacceptable for politicians to take money from the NAR & other REIC groups. Don't let them be spared blame & regulation by bribing their way through this.

When it's all over, every American should know that Realtors™, mortgage brokers and their ilk are out to rob you, that they make far more money by lying to you than by helping you achieve your objectives, and not to trust a Realtor™ as far as you can throw them, because they keep a cut of every dollar they fleece from you.; September 09, 2007 11:34 PM
Anonymous said...: SUZANNNNNNNEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!; September 10, 2007 12:06 AM
Anonymous said...: Phoenix is full of these fraudsters; September 10, 2007 12:06 AM
Anonymous said...: Who is that?; September 10, 2007 12:55 AM
az_mtb said...: I love it when Pete Townshend does the windmill.; September 10, 2007 1:19 AM
Anonymous said...: Yes we will get fooled again. Are you kidding? People will always be easily fooled by slick talking salesmen of various persuasions. Car salesmen are notorious but they seem to manage to continue fooling people despite this reputation. And their reputation is way worse than realtors and mortage brokers.; September 10, 2007 1:49 AM
Unknown said...: I thought this was funny, I blame the MSM for their inability to fight the neo-cons on all fronts...and how they went to sleep on this subject.

http://tinyurl.com/3yy94s

Funny...they are not an option as to one of the reasons for this happening.; September 10, 2007 1:56 AM
Anonymous said...: What a bunch of crooks they are. I had a realtor who screwed me out of ten grand due to their incompetence. A 100 point multiple choice exam should not qualify you to sell a home. I will never use a realtor again.My 90 year old grandmother on her death bed could do a better job.; September 10, 2007 2:33 AM
Anonymous said...: We will just do another bubble/ponzi scheme. Maybe its time to go back to Tulips I like Tulips; September 10, 2007 2:35 AM
Anonymous said...: I'm not even againt the concept of realtors but something about that profession attracts the worst sort of people. I don't even like shaking hands with a realtor unless there's soap and water near by.; September 10, 2007 2:55 AM
Anonymous said...: that is too funny.; September 10, 2007 3:23 AM
sk said...: RE:
=========================
BottomFisher said...

Who is that?
========================

LOL ! and Who are you ?

Gawd, I remember sneaking off to London from sleepy Rye, Sussex to see them in hmmm.. a long time ago.

But I agree - People WILL get fooled again. So sad.. Sometimes I feel so sad.

-K; September 10, 2007 4:05 AM
Anonymous said...: Real estate ride: From big bucks to bankruptcy

Even top-selling broker can't make his bills, is forced to shut offices

People lose homes in Las Vegas every day because they can't pay the mortgage.

But when real estate agents and brokers start hitting the wall financially, it perhaps is a sign of even more troubling trends in the home sales market.

Despite Clark County's apparently robust economy, home sales are doing so poorly that the first major real estate broker here has filed for bankruptcy court protection .

Jimmy Dague, who has sold real estate in Las Vegas since 1978 and whose business was the No. 1 worldwide in sales for Century 21 from 2002 to 2006, filed last week for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors while he reorganizes to pay off his debts.

The 54-year-old said that even when his business was Century 21's top seller in 2006, he still lost money. Dague said that's because his sales fell 60 percent from 2005 to 2006, but he kept the same number of staff - and the same overhead - in his nine offices.

"This is the result of an exuberant market and us growing and, honestly, I had signed leases for nine offices. Now I have five," he said. "As you can imagine, the four landlords are not happy."

Rather than fighting it out in civil court - "I can't afford to fight the market and pay attorneys, too" - he went the route of bankruptcy. In court filings, Dague lists assets of between $10,000 and $100,000 and debts totaling between $100,000 and $1 million.

A year ago, he said, 700 real estate agents worked in his nine offices. Today, he has five offices and about 500 agents . He also has cut 50 percent of his hourly staff.

Dague predicts that during the next two months, the Las Vegas market's army of more than 16,000 real estate agents will drop by 2,000 - measured by the number who opt out of paying their annual $400 dues to the Realtors association and hundreds more in Multiple Listing Service access fees.

To hear the stories of real estate agents getting out of the business - their existence in Las Vegas has for so long seemed as fundamental as that of casino workers - is jarring.

"Wow," said Jeremy Aguerro, principal of Applied Analysis, a group that conducts market analyses for developers. "Is it a harbinger, a sign that our economy is shifting?

Even those with passing glimpses of the real estate market here know of its renowned growth since 2003. In 2004 alone, housing values increased 54 percent. Trying to buy a condominium was so difficult that landlords were converting apartments en masse into condos at premium prices.

Those were glorious times for sellers , and everyone with a few bucks in his pocket was taking real estate courses and getting on the sales bandwagon.

And who would have thought it could end? No where else does the economy seem as robust as it does here. An estimated $40 billion or more of development is happening and planned in Clark County during the next decade. By 2012, roughly 45,000 new hotel rooms are expected to be built - and each hotel room is estimated to lead to the creation of 2 1/2 jobs. Downtown Las Vegas is growing up and out of decades of blight, with condo projects on the rise and businesses moving into areas slowly shedding their decidedly downscale image - and reality.

And jobs are being created for people who need places to live.

But for reasons that have added up to what 's been dubbed the "perfect storm," home sales have dropped drastically in the past two years. New home sales, according to the Greater Las Vegas Realtors Association, fell 42 percent from July 2006 to last July, with a 41.3 percent drop for existing homes.

The cause s ? Home prices inflated beyond the means of those who would normally buy them, rising interest rates and a halt in buying by investors.

And in Dague's words, "perception."

"If someone thinks if they only wait a few months, they'll be able to get that $400,000 house for $350,000, they're going to wait it out," he said.

Are they right to do that?

"Right now, they probably are," he said.

The price of a $400,000 home needs to drop 12 percent to reach $350,000. Already within the past year, the average home sales price has dropped 7 percent.

And the number of homes on the market has swelled to about 20,000, so there's more competition, which drives prices down. To compensate, businesses such as Dague's Century 21 have to do more advertising, which costs more money.

Which leads, in some cases, to bankruptcy.

"I think there will be more; I can't imagine how the smaller brokers are paying their bills," Dague said. "Maybe they can fund their overhead from their own personal savings. But I honestly don't believe there are five companies in town right now that are very profitable. There's just not enough sales going on."

Dague recounts the glory years in numbers of home sales. "In '05, we closed 6,000 sales, 5,945 to be exact," he said. "In '06, 3,700 sales. In '07, we'll do probably around 2,000."

Last month, there were about 1,300 home sales in the Las Vegas area; that was divided among 1,400 real estate offices.

"Do the math," Dague said. "That's about one sale per office ."

Does he think it's going to turn around? And if it does, will that be any time soon?

"Whatever I'd say, I'd be shooting in the dark," said Dague, sighing. "There are a lot smarter people than me out there already trying to figure that out."

http://lasvegassun.com/sunbin/
stories/sun/2007/sep/08/
566640424.html; September 10, 2007 4:16 AM
Anonymous said...: I love it when they lip sync.
It sounds better.; September 10, 2007 5:37 AM
Anonymous said...: Yeah that's what Realtors do, we rob you...yeah that's it. blame us for your fucked up decisions..
it's so common it's just pathetic; September 10, 2007 5:53 AM
Anonymous said...: False advertising snared the victims of subprime

From Mr Stephen Lange Ranzini.

Sir, Instead of Barack Obama's proposal to tax all the citizens who do pay their bills to bail out speculators who are not able or willing to pay theirs ("Fine unscrupulous mortgage lenders", August 29), legislators should look into solving one of the root causes of the problem: the flawed laws that protect truth in advertising in the US. As president of a bank that manages $4bn of mortgage assets, I constantly receive calls from consumers who have been hoodwinked into a mortgage transaction that sounded great in the false advertisements that litter the landscape, only to receive a "bait and switch" after they have paid application fees or after it is too late for us to prevent the loss of their money. Comparing notes with two other bank presidents recently, we all agreed that false advertising was rampant in the mortgage business.

For example, our local paper runs a listing of rates on mortgages each weekend. Each provider must fax in their rates and these rates are posted in the newspaper. Each provider is treated equally and the rates are ranked based on rate and points paid. However, most of the rates are absolutely false and cannot be gotten. Needless to say, we are always at the bottom of this list and never get called despite the fact that our rates are real. When a call is placed to those mortgage firms, they tell callers that "rates change all the time" and we cannot lock your rate until after we complete your application. They are merely a "come on" by unscrupulous mortgage brokers for whom lying is an honourable way to attract phone calls.

In the US, the Federal Trade Commission is delegated the task of regulating truth in advertising. They have delegated this task nationwide to the Better Business Bureau. Unfortunately, even if the Better Business Bureau rules that a firm is falsely advertising, they have no enforcement power, nor do they have any ability to levy fines or sanctions other than to expel the firm if they happen to be a member of the Better Business Bureau. Most firms are not members, however, so in my experience consumers do not notice. I learnt all this through hard experience by following through on one complaint against a major local competitor to the end.

Better or simpler mortgage disclosures do nothing when the consumers have already been delivered into the hands of malevolent, unscrupulous mortgage originators who will lie, cheat and steal as much as they can in order to manufacture a few thousand dollars' profit on a single transaction. False advertising creates an evergreen crop of new suckers. What is needed is a system to regulate truth in advertising in the US, with fines and sanctions for those who cross the line. Such a system would also have the merit of raising much more money than it costs to administer.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/
442ecbc6-5f36-11dc-837c-
0000779fd2ac.html; September 10, 2007 6:24 AM
Anonymous said...: All RE agents, mortgage brokers, appraisers, Orangzilla, etc......should be publicly executed and then made into pet food.; September 10, 2007 6:39 AM
Anonymous said...: How are your shorts on IMB and CFC doing ya dopes? LMFAO!!!; September 10, 2007 6:59 AM
Anonymous said...: That clip is from "The Kids are Alright" possibly the greatest rock documentary ever made. It made me a Who fan. I still watch it weekly.; September 10, 2007 7:00 AM
Osman said...: The idea that individual Realtors are pushing people to buy or sell a home like used car salesmen is fundamentally different from my experience as a real estate agent. I certainly won't speak for the industry, but the vast majority of my clients came to me having already made the decision to buy or sell. My job is to make the process easier, help them find the right home, and advise them on everything from negotiation to financing. To help clients better, a year ago I began sitting down in what I call a "work session." The idea was to try to think through the process, with the Realtor-only version of the MLS, my familiarity with the local market, and my handy (self-built) buy vs rent model available. By spending a few hours, over the course of a year the result was a handful of people I discouraged from buying or selling and many I helped find or sell a home to fit their specific situation.

Unfortunately, the additional work has meant a little less time to blog. Meanwhile - the comments on and continuing attacks on the real estate profession suggest either (a) I have no idea how the typical real estate agent behaves with clients (I admit there is a need for improvement and that's also the opportunity), or (b) some of you folks don't have a clue to the activities of a real estate agent.

Maybe it's a little like the advertising/marketing industry. As an individual, working for an agency (or as a solo consultant), individuals probably don't have much of an impact. But on the whole, the professions that support the advertising industry create artificial and unsustainable demand for goods and services that not only encourage people to spend beyond their means but severely damage our environment.

Like the world really needed a iPhone or a new Mini. Ah, but it's far easier to throw stones than self critique.

The good news? As my real estate partner mentioned the other day, the general quality of our clients has increased 100% over the past two years. Gone are the wanna-be's with bad credit and poor income histories, hoping to cash in on a bubble, shopping beyond their means, but who often (and rightfully) couldn't get over the finish line. Over the last year, our buyers in Boulder have been putting down 5-20%, using traditional fixed rate mortgages, and have been much easier to work with. And the market has been doing just fine.; September 10, 2007 7:03 AM
Anonymous said...: Greed, not false advertising caused the subprime mess.

The Realtors who work hard, are honest, advise clients not to buy when they shouldn't, and who add value to a transaction will survive. The "in it for the money" shucksters will disappear.

We should have higher barriers to entry in this profession - to screen out the uneducated & un professional newbies.

There are alot of good honest Realtors out there who understand how to market properties - but they are hard to find amid all the others.

I sell properties - and do a good job at it. My business has increased steadily over the last four years. Right now I've got several buyers on the sideline waiting to buy. That's where I want them to be right now.; September 10, 2007 9:05 AM
Anonymous said...: The next time housing is in vogue, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townesend will be passing wind in a nursing home.....; September 10, 2007 9:18 AM
Anonymous said...: what is the URL for this vid? it doesn't come up on my browser. thank you.; September 10, 2007 1:54 PM
Anonymous said...: anytime a person deals with anyone making a commission - they should assume the person is not looking out for their best interests. Most people are aware of car salesmens' reputations - a car can have a range of value but it is fairly limited. A realtor comes across as your best friend - they can play dumb about things they know about a property (even in states with disclosures) or they can gloss over something that can be actually dangerous (i.e., a crack house on the corner) and can play games driving prices and their commissions up by thousands(i.e., closed bids, phantom bids).

This will definitely happen again because people are lazy and prone to greed.; September 10, 2007 2:08 PM
JimAtLaw said...: 6%, the problem is that every Realtor™ tells you that s/he is "one of the good ones," and you'll never know which until it's too late.

But in my experience, and that of many of the posters on this blog, most Realtors™ will say whatever is necessary to get you to buy and nail that commission, and/or increase it, including telling you the market is going up when it's going down, that it never goes down, that there are other bidders when there aren't any, that you are guaranteed to be able to refinance before your rate resets, etc.

It's too bad - because there are no real barriers to entry in the profession and no oversight either, it seems the fraudsters outnumber the good agents by a wide margin over the last few years. If we're lucky, this will change, but the NAR and state and local real estate groups will certainly fight it tooth and nail - if the image of your business is to recover during your working years, the "good ones" will need to stand up and fight to wrest control back and impose tough licensing, oversight, and/or other controls.; September 10, 2007 7:43 PM
Anonymous said...: Just like Britney and Timberlake presentations at the MTV awards last night, isn't?

/sarcasm off; September 10, 2007 9:22 PM
Anonymous said...: Bernanke can you hear me?
Can you feel me near you?

Bankers can you feel me?
Can I help to cheer you.; September 10, 2007 9:24 PM
Anonymous said...: Great points JimAtLaw - and true. There is very little oversight right now - and that too needs to change.
Some other quality control programs - other than the "buy a credential" programs that exist now would be valuable, and I would even support a public review system whereby the public could rate Realtors on important criteria. Unfortunately an open system would be abused by the same real estate agents that we are trying to eliminate from the field.

And you are right, the NAR makes its $$ on membership - the more the better.

In any case - I understand the frustrations of many of the posters here, and the unprofessionalism of some agents frustrates the #$%^&*#$@ out of me too.; September 10, 2007 11:14 PM
Anonymous said...: Confession from an avid HP'er.

It was my junior year in college, 2003.

Friend of a friend was a mortgage broker making tons of money.

It was pre-peak and a six-figure job where you actually didn't HAVE to screw anyone.

You could refinance someone from an 8 or 9% rate and put them into a 5% 30yr fix or help them buy a house that was appreciating at 15-20% annually. Nothing wrong with that. At first.

Deep down, I knew it couldn't last. A house is just a house, the value can't go up indefinitely. And how many times can the Smiths refi and "pay off" all their bills and cashout before their lifestyles eclipsed the value of their homes? And then what would they do?

But try telling that to the average Joe Sixpack or worse Jane Sixpack. "They're not making more land ya know." Yea, I know Joe, but they sure are making more suckers. So go ahead and roll your 4yr car note out over 50yrs if you want. And sure, cashout all your equity, because like you said, it won't be at 100 ltv next year when you refi again will it? Dickbag. Now your upside down and you and your family are probably fucked.

Good job.

So yea, I might have helped a few people hang themselves, but believe me there was more than enough rope out there for 'em and they weren't going to let anyone talk sense into them.

And at the end of the day, I was willing to be the man in the middle (although I did a lot of direct lending, but nevertheless), I was willing to be that guy so that I would have the capital to make something out of my life and not wind up like the masses of people too stupid to not screw themselves into the ground.

Stayed in the biz 2004 (yes I got my bacherlors), 2005, 2006, averaged $125k/yr without barely trying - reading blogs like this most of the day in fact - because I really hated that business no matter what.

Mostly used car salesmen-types and snot-nosed G.E.D.ers, people who couldn't write coherent emails with average IQs of two digits for sure.

Real bottom of the barrel-ers.

Got out in May 2007.
RELIEF.

Enjoyed the summer watching it burn.

Fuck 'em.

THANK YOU HP.

The brokers can go back to selling cars now, demand for "pre-owned" should be up.
No more cashout refi to buy new.; September 11, 2007 6:03 AM

HousingPANIC - The Housing Bubble Blog with an Attitude Problem, 2005 - 2008

September 09, 2007

HousingPANIC message to realtors and mortgage brokers on commission: WE WON'T BE FOOLED AGAIN YOU BASTARDS!!!

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