All Forum Posts by: Alvin Sylvain

Originally posted by @John Burtle:

I'm going to look into getting my real estate license as well. It appears in Illinois I can do the entire training online and then go in person to take the exams. I plan to look more into all my options and go from there!

 Go Derrick! Go Derrick! Go Derrick! ( ... dances in the hallway, trips over a chair, suffers a disapproving look from wife ... )

Originally posted by @Jack Bobeck:

@Alvin Sylvain I am doing OO for a duplex in FL with Cardinal Financial and it’s only 15% down. Shop the market!

 Shopping is always a great idea, but I'm not quite ready to dip into inter-state investing.

Originally posted by @Andrew Johnson:

Now I'm rambling on what's supposed to be a vacation day... :-)  

 When you're saying stuff like this that makes so much sense, you can ramble all you want!

Originally posted by @Nik Moushon:

They fact that he refused to give your offer, did not explain why or did not give you advice as to why you should raise your offer is extremely unprofessional IMO. Makes it look like he just wants a quick sell and does not have your best interest in mind.

If I understood the situation correctly, the agent did give a reason why, and it was pretty much as you said: he just wants a quick sell, and a lo-ball sale would mean a lo-ball commission.

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

@Charlie MacPherson

If it takes you 2 hours to submit an offer you should become a novelist instead.

 Thumbs up for the LOL!

Originally posted by @John Burtle:

Originally posted by @Jay Hinrichs:

was this the listing agent.. ???  or your agent.??

this is why you should be your own agent.. then you can write all the low balls you want.  

The agent actually made the comment about how he hardly makes any money on selling houses under 100,000. Just his attitude in general didn't help.

OK, I can understand how an agent might feel. 1.5% of nothing is nothing, and the amount of work is still the same, whether you're offering a hundred dollars or a million.

If his attitude is bad, drop him like a lead balloon in any event. Things are hard enough without needing to deal with bad attitudes on top of it all.

But, attitude aside, if you DO find an agent you like, one who looks like he's willing to go the extra mile, consider pitching in a little extra for his troubles. I mention this based on an experience I had selling my primary residence some years ago.

We had gotten the Top Selling Agent in the area. His idea was to write up the sales pitch in the MLS or where-ever it goes that we were willing to pay an extra $500 to the agent who brings the winning offer. The AGENT now, not the AGENCY, because usually the agent has to split his commission with his broker. This $500 was all agent. And believe me, that certainly motivated the buyer's agents to bring offers!

Now $500 might be a lot in your market. I'm in SoCal, and we sold the house for something like $350,000. A buying Agent would get maybe $5000, depending on their arrangement with their Broker -- so $500 is a 10 percent motivational boost!

So, in the spirit of win-win-win, find an agent you like. Let him know that you know your offer might be considered "ridiculously low", but nevertheless you have the arithmetic to justify it. Then tell him, based on the offer being so unusually low for that market, you're willing to kick in a little extra something, some flat fee like 150 or 200 dollars, if he can SELL your offer to the seller.

Maybe that will help him feel motivated to help you?

(P.S. I use "he" and "him" in the spirit of generic genderlessness, since obviously the agent can be a woman just as easily as a man. It's just that I find sprinkling the text with "he/she" and "him/her" is terribly awkward)

@Kyle Murray 20% down? You are lucky. Where I am here in Southern California my lender is telling me for an investment property I need to have 25% down. Add to that the Southern California properties tend to cost an arm and a leg and a few extra fingers, this gets very expensive very rapidly.

@Matt K. You can not compare KC to CA. The median home price in KC is like $138,000. A closet with a kitchen in San Francisco will cost twice that. Oh, did you want a bathroom too? $300,000. I exaggerate ... slightly... but you get my point. The prices are probably starting to dip because they have been exploding for like forever. It's past time they started dipping.

@Ryan Keenan I never understand the phrase, "putting pressure on" someone ... is he sitting on you? is he locking you in the bathroom? is he threatening to shoot your dog? is he talking your ear off? . I expect it's the last one, and far as I'm concerned, he can talk all he wants. Your lawyer says you can wait 30 days, wait 30 days.

@Kyle Pockat Consider buying out of town. Chitown has a lot of suburbs!