Tag: listing

  • House Hunting Journal – You need an agent

    In many ways, it is a glorious time to be looking for a house, the Internet provides wonderful tools to search, Trulia, Zillow, and others are easy to search, and useful for checking out properties, but they do have a downside.

    Unfortunately, they are plagued with out dated information. Often houses you are looking at, and watching are under contract, or otherwise not available.

    Additionally, it is impossible to determine if the house is a short sale or other distressed condition. So a place that looks fabulous suddenly looks like a pig.

    Having a good agent is invaluable. They have access to details hidden from the public facing tools.

    Fortunately, we have a great agent, and he has been super helpful. We haven’t found our house yet, but the search has become more interesting.

    Yep, it sucks that the MLS has a monopoly on the inside track, but it is the state of the world.

  • Realtor Insanity

    We are relocating, and consequently our house is in the market in Chandler. No surprises there. Back in April we signed a 3 month (90 day) contract, as dictated by our relocation company.

    Fast forward to late June. 90 days is up, and we re-sign with the agent we selected to continue the contract. Unfortunately a snafu happened, and the update didn’t get reflected that evening, and our listing “expired” for about 8 hours.

    Ho-lee shit Batman, what a zoo ensued.  First I got an email from my agent letting me know that we might get some calls, and to not be worried. No big deal.

    Except that whole day I had other real estate agents contact me about picking up my listing. I stopped counting after the 6th distinct agent called.

    It was madness. There is a glut of houses on the market in the Phoenix metro area, and while I used to get fliers hung on my door to see if I was interested in selling, I had no idea that real estate agents were vultures.

    Just yesterday, I got two formal mailed inquiries, dutifully redirected to my new mail address.

    I guess I am glad to not be an agent.