Another Peek Into Our Office

Almost all of the news is more of the same, tightening credit internationally, more lenders in trouble, the National Assoc of Realtors fighting for legislation to induce some action to "help" borrowers, more realistically to help realtors however, and Wall Street also looking for some sort of bail-out so the consequences of poorly thought out investment strategies can be shifted from a few of them to all of us. Reminder of the savings and loan bail-out of a few years ago. Pretty predictable behavior. In light of this media saturation with reporting and commentary about the mortgage mess, a look into our office to see if much has changed in real estate agents attitudes. I don't know if everyone is old enough to remember the Sonny & Cher hit of 1967, "The Beat Goes On", but it jumped to my mind when an offer from another office came in for one of our listed properties. The offer was for less than the listed price, not unusual but a tad excessive in this case, but most importantly asked for a 3% seller concession to pay for closing costs, and was predicated on the prospective buyer obtaining 100% financing. Didn't we understand that much of our current mortgage problem arose from people buying homes they couldn't afford? I would submit that if you can't afford a down payment or the cost to close the transaction, you should not be looking at homes to buy. Our listing client rejected the offer. As real estate agents we are obliged to present all offers to our clients. The decision to accept, reject, or negotiate is entirely theirs to make, but had we been approached to act for the prospective buyers in this case, as real estate agents we would have counseled them to wait for some greater financial strength. As mortgage agents we would probably have declined to represent them. There could be extenuating circumstances, but for a mortgage guy or gal, the question always comes down to, "if you can afford the payments for a 100% mortgage, which with taxes and insurance is undoubtedly higher than the rent you've been paying, then how come you haven't been able to save enough for closing costs and some sort of down?" As I said, "The Beat Goes On". Apparently agent greed has not taken a holiday, and putting people at risk is still the appropriate thing to do.
Maybe doing the right thing is attractive, maybe pure chance, but our commercial loan activity is moving nicely, and our real estate sales are good. Not great, but good. I'm continually surprised that more sellers don't seek us out to list their properties. We're running strong in that respect also, but since we do everything so well, and for so little in comparison to the % offices, I think we should have all the listings. My own form of greed probably.
As usual,
Thanks for visiting.