The Norris Group Blog

California Real Estate Headline Roundup

Posts Tagged ‘rating agencies’

175-TNG Radio – Bill Shipp 5-22-10

Friday, May 21st, 2010

 

Bill Shipp 

Bill Shipp, California Real estate Investor

(Full Bio)

 streamitunesdownload

rss

This week Bruce is joined by Bill Shipp. Bill has been investing in Riverside real estate for many years. Bruce thinks Bill is Riverside’s best kept secret.

Bill believes it is important to be true to your word when doing business. Bill has been working with his contractors for 10 years, and he has never had a bid on a home repair. These contractors know that if Bill hires them, they will get paid at the time he specifies. This is even more important than having people skills.

Bruce has taught many real estate investors. Some of them have great people skills, and that is what gets them business. There are also people that are trustworthy, and that is also attractive to business partners.

In the last segment, Bill said that he is willing to do his job every day, and that attitude has allowed him to accumulate a wealth of knowledge. Bill’s knowledge of his market place allows him to live in Utah while still making good investment decisions in Riverside.

Bill has never closed an escrow with a person in it, and he has never bought a house at the steps. Bill does not want to deal with those hassles. This is why he uses the MLS and agents who know what they are doing. Bill gets over 50 percent of the houses that he makes offers on, because his realtors know not to call him unless a home shows promise. Bill works regularly with two realtors, but he receives calls occasionally from other REO agents as well.

Bill has a specific skew number for the paint which he uses on all his houses. Because he uses the same paint for his houses, it is easier for him to calculate how much repairs will cost when buying a new home. This also makes it much simpler for his repair men, because they know exactly what to do for every new job.

Bill discourages investors from traveling to see their investments. Do it for the first two properties, so you can figure out how to do the job. After the second, you should know what kind of property is worth your time, and trust your contractor to do his job. Traveling to your investment homes will cost you money and time. Also, Bill suggests that investors not bring their wives. His wife always has minor problems with his investments, such as the amount of flowers in the yard.

The typical repair cost for Bill’s investment houses is $15,000 or less. However, he has had home repairs that cost $100,000. In the early 2000s, he bought older homes. The oldest home he ever bought was developed in 1828. The house was so old that the home began to dissolve when the repair man tried to pressure wash it. Bruce once bought a home in 1898. Bruce had a termite investor inspect the home, and the inspector told him that there were no termites because the wood was petrified.

Bill does not have a construction background, but he has learned some things about that trade over time. When you buy a lot of older homes, you have to be creative to find a style that people will want to buy. In the late 1980s, Bill only bought homes that were 5 to 10 years old and did not need work, but Bill now only works with fixers built before the 2000s. Bill does not like to compete with home owners. When you are flipping new homes, you are not creating value. Bill thinks that working in the trustee market requires too much work. This is what Bruce’s company does, and Bruce agrees that the trustee market is too much hassle for Bill’s business model.

When reselling a property, Bill uses the listing agent that found the home for him, and he only uses two agents to keep the process simple. Using a large number of agents makes it difficult to determine whether or not those agents are doing their jobs correctly.

When Bill is selling his properties, he tries to control the escrow, but he never controls which lender is used. Bill’s buyers are always cross checked with the lender. Bill’s agent will not tell him that he has an offer until the buyer has been cross checked, and until he can know if he will get a good offer.

Bill is constantly educating himself in real estate. He reads many books, he has attended Bruce’s seminars, and he has been trained as a certified financial planner. Bill believes that many people know how to make a lot of money, but they do not know how to spend it. People do not often plan for downturns in the market, and their lack of planning ruins their financial health.

In the early 1990s, Bill had 40 rentals. It took 8 years to get those homes sold, and it was very frustrating because the market kept going down.

Bill began investing in Texas during 1989. He bought homes for $10,000 each and he owned them free and clear, but he was receiving negative cashflow every month because of property taxes. Repairing one roof could wipe out your positive cashflow for a year. In the end, he only made money on one of those homes. Do not buy real estate in other cities and states if you do not know what you are doing.

In 1986 Bruce was asked to speak on a panel of real estate experts. There were two well known attorneys on the panel, and all of their claims regarding out-of-state property ownership contradicted Bruce’s practical experience. When Bruce asked those attorneys how they came to their conclusions, he discovered that they had no out-of-state investment experience and were relying on theoretical knowledge. When people come from other states and tell you to buy homes in their areas, be careful. Why would someone travel across the United States to encourage you to buy their property if they cannot even get the people from their own state to buy?

If there are more listings in a region than sells, you should be nervous. On the other hand, if there are more sells than listings, then you should be happy. This is all Bill looks at when predicting whether or not he should be investing. Bill does not pay much attention to economic forecasts. He only pays attention to Riverside’s market, so he does not have to worry about general market forecasts.

The best deal Bill ever had was a wholesale in Corona. The property sold in 2 weeks and he earned over $100,000. If you want to find deals, you need to be watching the market every day. You never know why a seller might want to get rid of their property quickly. An agent once called Bill and told him that the seller was offering five houses and two lots on one street. The seller was the chairman of a bank who had stock options which were about to expire. The banker needed the money for those properties quickly, so that he could buy his stock. This deal shows that you never know why and when a great deal is going to show up. Bruce once bought a house from an agent once who was getting into the plastic extrusion business. The agent needed to buy an extrusion machine for $10,000, so Bruce bought two of his homes for that amount.

Bill has been approached with bulk buying opportunities over the last few months. The people offering these bulk buy deals told Bill that they have had bulk buys in the past that sold quickly. When Bill asked for an example of one of these bulk deals, he never received a response and he still hasn’t. Bill received a bulk buy opportunity from a company in Los Angeles as well. Because the company seemed professional, Bill had his agent check out the properties. The agent discovered that all 20 of the properties for bulk sale were short sales.

Bruce will be a moderator for Fannie and Freddie in June. These companies are putting together bulk sale divisions, so perhaps bulk sale opportunities will be available in the future.

For more information about The Norris Group’s California hard money loans or our California Trust Deed investments, visit the website or call our office at 951-780-5856 for more information. For upcoming California real estate investor training and events, visit The Norris Group website and our California investor calendar. You’ll also find our award-winning real estate radio show on KTIE 590am at 6pm on Saturdays or you can listen to over 170 podcasts in our free investor radio archive.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Radio | No Comments »

174-TNG Radio – Bill Shipp 5-15-10

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Bill Shipp 

Bill Shipp, California Real estate Investor

(Full Bio)

 stream

itunes

download

rss

This week Bruce is joined by Bill Shipp. Bill has been investing in Riverside real estate for many years. Bruce thinks Bill is Riverside’s best kept secret.

Bill began flipping homes in 1986. He did his first flip deal when he was 18 years old. He had a family member who had bought the lot but could not afford it, so Bill agreed to buy it for 2,600 dollars and he sold it a couple years later for $6,000.

Before his first real estate investment, Bill was an airforce brat. He moved around a lot which made him wish he could own a house. Prior to 1986, Bill was working a corporate job and strongly disliked it. He had a good friend who was a real estate investor in the Long Beach area. This friend encouraged Bill to learn real estate. Bill’s friend explained that Bill would most likely not become very wealthy if he continued to work in the corporate world, and he would always have to worry about his job security. If you own your own business of buying and selling real estate you can never get fired. This encouraged Bill to quit his job and begin working as a real estate agent.

Bill did learn some important lessons from the corporate world. He learned to run his real estate business the same way as if he was working a corporate job. He did not sleep in just because he owned his own business. He would begin working at 8, and he worked normal hours.

Bill’s mentor taught him how to buy homes, and how to figure out prices and fixing costs. His mentor was very regimented. If Bill was even a minute late, his mentor would leave him. Bill listened to all of his mentor’s phone calls, and he learned how he conducted business with other visitors.

Bill’s mentor never got into educating people. He simply picked a few people that he new personally to work with him. Bill thinks he was the lucky person to be picked by this mentor because he showed good discipline.

Bill has bought and sold 360 houses. He does not have make many deals in which he personally speaks to the home owners he buys from; he probably only talks about 10 percent of these home owners. He never used mailers or signs.

If Bill was beginning to invest in Riverside with all his current knowledge, he would first call his agent and show them his accomplishments. Agents hear from many people who claim to be real estate investors but are not truly serious. For this reason, Bill keeps a portfolio of every house he has bought and sold. He shows this portfolio to agents during interviews. He then tries to persuade these agents that working with him is a good idea. He interviews multiple agents until he finds a couple of agents who are willing to be trained for his specific style of work.

Bill has not tried to develop relationships with people who control the most popular sources of REOs, but his name is somewhat well known by these people because of the business he does.

A typical investor will receive a call from an agent in which the agent explains what kinds of new inventory have recently come up. This agent might tell the investor that 20 new listings showed up. The agent and the investor would then look at many of those houses and attempt to narrow down their options. The kind of calls that Bill receives from his agents is very different. Bill’s agents will tell him which one of those 20 properties he would most likely be interested in. Bill would then ask who is listing the home, and the realtor would be able to tell him whether or not he had done business with that person previously. His Realtor would also be able to tell him what kind of neighborhood it is in, and whether or not he has done business in that area before. This Realtor would also give him a description of the other houses on sale in that area, the price they are listed at, and a description of the property Bill wants to buy. He would then make an offer slightly below the typical asking price of that neighborhood, and his offer would be made within just a few hours of being listed. This is how you beat the competition. You have to be able to make offers and close deals before the competition arrives.

What really gives Bill an advantage over his competition is the ability of his realtors to identify houses within specific streets of his city. Bill’s realtors are so familiar with their areas that they can look at a specific street, compare the prices of the other properties for sale on that street, and quickly determine whether or not a specific house is a good deal.

Agents are often skeptical of whether or not there are whole sale deals on the market. Part of the problems is that they are not disciplined, they are not experienced, and they are not accustomed to doing their job every day. It takes time for agents to spot a good deal quickly. Bill can buy properties out of the MLS even when the market is going up, and people claim there is no way to find a deal. When Bill told Bruce this in 2004, Bruce was very surprised and it taught him something.

During the real estate boom, everyone was an investor; you did not need to be good at investing during that time to make money. During that time, Bill was not worried about competition because there was so much business.

Name familiarity is very important when dealing with people who control the source of inventory. People who know Bill know that he has only backed out of 1 offer in his entire real estate career. If people know you are going to go through with your offers, they will be more willing to do business with you.

Bill typically puts a $5,000 deposit on his offers regardless of the home price. Bill recently lost an offer to someone who gave an offer for 100 percent of the purchase price. This was an investor trained by Bruce Norris.

Bill usually offers a 10 day close, or the seller’s preference. He has actually lost offers in the past because the bank felt the closing time was too quick, so allowing the seller to choose the closing time is best.

When Bill discovers that he has made an offer on a property with multiple offers, he simply responds by giving them his highest and best offer. Bill doesn’t have a problem with making only $20,000 on a property which gives him an advantage when making offers. Some investors will not bother making a deal if they cannot buy it for 62 percent of the price.

Bill may be one of the biggest investors in California, but he actually lives in Utah. He has developed a business model which does not need him to make full time deals. Bill cannot think of anyone with a business model like this, and that is why he sticks to one city. Having all his properties within a very specific region allows him to easily manage all his properties. Bill does not invest at all in Utah.

Bill typically buys under the $200,000 price range. Many of his buyers are FHA buyers, and many of them are conventional. When the market gets slow, Bill does not fight it, he just quits and waits until things pick up. Bill did have some trouble getting back into the market not long ago, because many rules had changed since his last transaction. When Bill re-entered the market, the 90 day FHA rule was still in place, and Bill did not know about it. His first offer was an FHA and the appraisal came in $15,000 low. He chose to be satisfied with the $10,000 dollars he made off the property and move on. Bill encourages people to not fall in love with their properties, so they will make smart selling decisions. Bill decided to leave the market in 2007 because he was receiving multiple offers on all his homes, and the offers were too high. Things were getting too crazy. When Bill looked at the loan documents, his buyers would have a 10 percent interest rate with a 700 FICO score. Bill wanted to tell these people, “What are you thinking?”

Bill does not buy and hold rentals. Bruce thinks that is interesting because many people think that is the best way to invest. Bill believes that if you are a full time investor, flipping houses will be more profitable then renting. However, renting is a good option for passive investors. Passive investing is what Bill did when he first started investing. When he first starting buying properties, he bought 45 rentals and he eventually ended up with negative cash flow. When times get tough, people start moving which leaves you with vacant rentals.

For more information about The Norris Group’s California hard money loans or our California Trust Deed investments, visit the website or call our office at 951-780-5856 for more information. For upcoming California real estate investor training and events, visit The Norris Group website and our California investor calendar. You’ll also find our award-winning real estate radio show on KTIE 590am at 6pm on Saturdays or you can listen to over 170 podcasts in our free investor radio archive.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Radio | No Comments »

173-TNG Radio – Leslie Appleton-Young 5-8-10

Friday, May 7th, 2010

Leslie Appleton-Young

Leslie Appleton-Young,
Chief Economist of the California Association of Realtors

(Full Bio)

 stream

itunes

download

rss

This week Bruce is joined by Chief Econ0mist for the California Association of Realtors, Leslie Appleton-Young.

The peak of the median home price in May 2007 was almost $600,000. Bruce believes there were indications that we were no longer in the peak in May 2007 despite the fact that median prices reached that level. Transactions slowed in the 4th quarter of 2005. In Sacramento, there was a lot of new construction, affordable housing, and subprime borrowing. In areas like Sacramento, homes were purchased in 2003 and 2004, but they began adjusting in 2006. These properties started faltering for a full year before they showed up in the data. Sales at the moderate and low end shrunk, but sales at the high end were doing fine, so the median home price became skewed. Prices went down in 2007 and 2008, but at the same time, sales were increasing by over 25 percent.

We have never experienced a price decline like this recent one. However, the San Fernando Valleys had a significant drop in 1990’s when there were fires, floods and riots. At that time, the median went from $225,000 to $165,000 in that area.

There are many owners who put down 20 percent on their home, but now owe more than their house is worth. There were people with good jobs and good mortgages, but got in trouble once prices decreased. In the future, we need to be more aware of cash-out refis. People who had equity would use it for vacations and toys rather than investment. We had such a long run –up in price that people began to think that real estate could not hurt them. They thought that pulling out equity now would be replaced by more equity later, and that was not true.

There are many people who are defaulting strategically presently, because they don’t want to pay for a property which won’t return to its previous value in many years. However, you have to weigh this benefit against the damage done to your credit. Strategic defaults are becoming more prevalent, and it is becoming more socially acceptable. It was once considered bad to choose to stop paying on a mortgage, but now people find it acceptable. Fannie Mae just came out with a statement which allows people to get financing within 2 years if you will give a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. This new rules will come into affect July 1st. The new mortgage you get in 2 years will likely require 20 percent down.

Distressed sales have never been this high. ForeclosureRadar.com provides a tremendous educational opportunity for those interested in learning about the distressed sales market. In areas like Riverside, distressed sales represent nearly 80 percent of all sales. Short sales are also beginning to increase.

Distressed sales have been more common in the lower end of the market. However, now that the downturn has been going on for so long, foreclosures are becoming more common in the upper end of the market.

In Riverside County, there are approximately 3,000 homes with over 3,000 square feet which are pending for sale. Bruce doubts that we have buyers for all those homes, and the loan balance for many of those homes is probably over $1 million. Bruce thinks that we are going to have a price hit and glut of inventory in the upper end of the market.

Leslie thinks that first time buyers are in good shape with the stimulus package, but the trade-up buyers are having trouble. When you have a median price of $600,000 and the government programs are specifically designed to help people that owe less than the Fannie Mae maximum loan balance, then you are probably missing 35 percent of the market. People who owe $1 million dollars have no encouragement to buy again. Bruce thinks that having a home above 3,500 sq. feet will be less meaningful in appraisal values than ever before.

The spread in the jumbo loan market has come down to 1 percent. Many of these borrowers are putting down 30 to 40 percent down for jumbo loans. To get those loans, you need to have a large down payment and a strong FICO score. Many loans are being held in portfolio by the lender, because they want to have a cushion going forward.

People have different reasons for buying now than they did in 2006. People are not buying homes expecting to get rich off of their homes. They thought they could sell their homes once the interest adjusts or refinance, and when the adjustment time came, neither of those options were available. Now people realize that they are not going to get rich over night just because they own a house, and they are looking for a place to raise a family.

There is a strong disconnect in the mind of a person in congress between the word investor and speculator. In this market, the speculator has gone home, but investors are working to fix up houses and they are needed. Banks do not have the resources to rehab and get homes onto the market in a timely fashion.

Bruce will be a moderator on an interestingly panel coming up in June for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These two companies are starting bulk divisions. Bruce wonders what size of bulk deals they are planning for, and whether or not there will be restrictions on detaining those properties. Bruce is not sure when Fannie and Freddie will finalize their decision on this subject. Bruce is also trying to get Sean O’toole from ForeclosureRadar.com to be a moderator as well. REO agents can benefit from listing homes ten at a time, rather than 1 at a time. There is a huge chunk of negative equity properties that need to get through the process, and anything that speeds that process up in a reasonable manner is a good thing.

There are many people in California who are showing tremendous character by paying for an upside down property. The best way to reward these people is to show them that there is hope for equity replacement in the near future.

60 percent of people are not buying homes, yet very few are renters. Leslie thinks many of these people are moving in with their parents and children. The housing downturn has affected very aspect of the economy, so people need to save.

There is a statistic showing that 200,000 homes are built every year. Builders are looking at this statistic and thinking they need to build more houses, but you have to be more realistic than that. The reason why builders aren’t building homes is because nobody is willing to buy. However, all these people that have moved in with their families to save money will someday want to move out. We are artificially skewing our building to the low side right now. There will be a day when builders will be behind the curve, and demand will accelerate far faster than the inventory.

Many jobs have been lost in the California construction industry, but these jobs are starting to return. Leslie thinks that this industry will make a comeback in a few years. We need to make jobs from new products and services. We usually expect construction to provide jobs at the end of a downturn, but that will probably not happen this time. Consumer confidence increased in March, but it is still only half of what it was one year ago. The opportunity for builders lies in creating multigenerational housing.

A report was just made on the demographics of California through 2050. The numbers show that we are very different from the other states, and that we will probably grow. Our growth will cause more demand for housing, but it will not happen over the next few years because of the problems we’ve had.

In Riverside, unemployment is close to 15 percent, but that probably translates to around 20 percent because many people have stopped looking for jobs. Riverside County used to be the leading county in California in regards to employment growth. People will always migrate to places with more jobs. California is currently losing people to other states with better employment. Uhaul recently came up with a report on moving destinations, and one of the top destinations was Sacramento. People are moving there because housing is more affordable and they have been able to find some sort of employment. It will take time to work through California’s negative equity position, but we will improve eventually.

Unemployment is usually an instigator of foreclosure, but this time unemployment has lagged from foreclosure yet is increasing the problem. There are areas that were not subprime focused that are being dragged into the overall problem because prices have gone down.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Radio | No Comments »

172-TNG Radio – Leslie Appleton-Young 5-1-10

Friday, April 30th, 2010

Leslie Appleton-Young

Leslie Appleton-Young,
Chief Economist of the California Association of Realtors

(Full Bio)

 stream

itunes

download

rss

This week Bruce is joined by Chief Econ0mist for the California Association of Realtors, Leslie Appleton-Young.

Leslie has had a tough job for the past few years, but things have changed for the better this year. Leslie can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and people’s expectations of the market have become more realistic. People are not as afraid of the downturn. However, she does not feel that this is true in all price bands. Over the next 24 months, the upper end of the market will experience many more price reductions. In the moderate to low end of the distressed market, Leslie predicts that prices will remain flat, and possibly increase slightly. The upper end of the market has seen some adjustment, but nothing like the lower end of the market. As the economic turmoil hits upper end markets, sellers will have to be more realistic about what they expect to get for their homes. In Riverside, there are some great homes with loans on them worth $1.5 million, but they cannot even sell for $700,000.

The lower price, subprime inventory has been absorbed, and that part of the market seems to be coming back. The stimulus for first time buyers and the decreased rates have had a significant influence on home purchases.

Every area in California is unique and different, but the dichotomy in today’s housing market has more to do with price than location. Part of the problem is that people are having trouble qualifying for loans. Demand for homes at the low end of the market exceeds the supply, but the opposite is true for the high end.

In the past, Bruce has found that inventory levels are pretty accurate leading statistics. When you are below a certain months level of inventory, you can often reasonably assume that things will turn around. There are a lot of lenders with properties that are not on the market. Default rates have also exploded, but the lenders will not file NODs. There is a penned up group of buyers, and there may also be a penned up group of buyers. Leslie thinks that government intervention will determine how this problem is rectified. It is difficult to predict how the government will deal with this problem.

California has benefited from the stimulus programs. We are starting to see more green shoots, and Leslie thinks that the iPad may have positively affected our economy. The state deficit has decreased over the last few months. California is an outlier. We boom harder, we sell more, and we improve quicker. However, our recovery is generally rather flat. We had a 5.9 percent GDP growth in the 4th quarter of 2009, and 4 percent of that was inventory restocking. Leslie wonders how much of our retail sales growth is tied to all those homes that are behind on their mortgages. We are not out of this downturn yet, but we are improving. The government stimulus is going away, and that is why there is some uncertainty about the outcome of the second half of this year. We will likely see interest rates increase. They have already increased a bit, but only by a quarter point. If interest rates climbed above 6 percent, Leslie thinks that there would be a strong negative reaction in the market.

Sometimes when rates increase, people feel encouraged to buy before rates become unreasonable. It is important for people to remember that it is not clear that prices have bottomed in all categories, but it is pretty clear that rates will be higher in a year than they are now. People need to measure the tradeoff between the cost of increased rates and decreased prices.

When Bruce became an investor, he refinanced his home in 1981 at 17.5 percent. One year later, he was delighted to refinance at 12.5. Very smart people told him that rates would never go below 10 percent, but now many people would feel jipped if they bought at a rate above 6 percent even though that is a historically incredible rate.

One thing that is really different this time around is the role of equity, or the lack of it, has played in the cycle. If you don’t have equity, you are not a homeowner. The policies for home buying and selling during the boom caused many of our current problems. When you have to pony up 20 percent, and you have equity in your home, you treat home buying and selling very differently than someone who is buying without documentation and zero down. In 2006, 40 percent of Realtors working with first time home buyers said that the buyers did not put down any money.

Bruce thinks the timing of the no down program was atrocious, because the price to income level was absurd. However, Bruce actually thinks we should have a no-down program in our current market. We have to create households that are fit to own. We have just taken back hundreds of thousands of homes from people that wanted to be owners, which are now credit damaged and cannot re-enter the market. We could make a no-down payment program, but when somebody doesn’t make a payment, we could let the loan go forward to the next owner without qualifying just like how the FHA once operated. The other option is to let the opening bid for the next 5 years to consist of just the late payment. If we used this program, there would never be an REO. The nothing down program would create a lot of interest in new owners, and we might retain the current percentage of homeownership that we already have. Bruce fears that we will have a national decline in the 62 percent range, and California will have another downturn in homeownership. Bruce loves the statistics that Leslie puts out.

There is a big difference between the net dollar amount coming to the seller now in comparison to the past. It was once around $200,000, but now its only about $50,000. One-third of these sellers sold at a lost. This creates a negative perspective on real estate which discourages people from investing in a home in the future. In a recent survey, 60 percent of past homebuyers claimed to have no future interest in buying again.

California homes are very affordable right now, because of the price decrease and the low interest rates. However, we are still feeling that it is necessary to encourage potential buyers to enter the market. The tax credit was truly a present to first time buyers. First time buyers are now approximately 50 percent of the volume of current home buyers.

We now have a healthy volume of sells. For 19 consecutive months, we have had a pace of over 500,000. We never even passed the 500,000 pace until 1999. The accumulative dollars are very different now from the peak. Commissions earned by realtors are very different from 2006 and 2007. Incomes have changed the membership of CAR, but not as much as Leslie was expecting. In 2007, there were 211,000 realtors in California. This year, we will probably have around 172,000. That is a significant drop, but considering the significant drop in profit volume, that is a rather small drop. This isn’t surprising though because the economy has not left with people with many other job options. If you work hard enough, you can still be successful. This market works well for the first time agent because there are a lot of first time buyers.

Website presence is critical right now. A recent buyers’ survey asked, “Did you look in the newspaper during your home search?” The results showed that only 10 percent of people were using the paper as a reference. People are searching for homes using very different methods, but it is actually very cheap to advertise online. All of the brokerages have cut back on overhead and expenses. A realtor may not have an office, but they can still be visible online if they have a laptop.

The internet has allowed the consumer to shop around without spending the realtor’s time. However, Leslie has found that 85 percent of home buyers were shown their current home by an agent. Perhaps the internet is presenting too much information for uneducated buyers. Also, in a market where properties are selling quickly, you need to have an agent helping you to be the first potential buyer in line.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Radio | No Comments »