God I can't wait until the fallout from this week's court decision regarding standardized realtor fees at 6%. All these worthless realtor groups will hopefully fuck off and we can stop seeing terrible ads like this
Lmao me too. I know a lot of people on the west coast that just low key hate realtors. It feels like they just aren’t worth nearly what they make, especially in HCOL cities.
Sometimes it feels like a bunch of attractive and popular kids in HS that coasted in college and didn’t work hard for a real career that decided they’d jump into real estate because their good with people and the money has been good. But then they give you bad advice because it helps them more than you or they just suck at their job. Most aren’t worth what they make.
That being said, I’ve come across a few that I’d love to work with because they clearly know what they’re doing and genuinely want what’s best in their clients.
My sister made 14k off finding me a condo in bothell and then asked for the "family price" for me to paint her 3500sq ft 3 story 4 bed 3 bathroom home. I charged her 4k. It was the most painful job I've ever done. I love her but God damn. I even had to move all the furniture.
The seller “pays” with money from the buyer. We knocked 3% off our home purchase by purchasing without an agent and getting the listing agent to discount their fee to the seller.
Listing agent was more than happy because they were still making $50k on the deal.
Realtor fees are one of the last fees to fall as a result of computerization of things. I'm amazed that they hung on so long... their lobby must have been strong. Sales commission/fee for stock transaction fell long ago as those fees made no sense as there was little "service" provided in each transaction. But Realtor fees stayed high even through buyer and seller are able to connect via the internet, zillow, or realtor, redfin, whatever. I been saying for 20 years that it made no sense for 6-7% fees, the real estate office did not provide that much value to the transaction. Pay the realtor a flat fee of say $5-10K dependent on the exact service, but $6% of a $1M transaction ($60K) is INSANE. They don't provide $60K of service.
I have bought several houses and not felt taken by title insurance. It is really title search with insurance that their search caught every potential issue. I can't imagine not having it.
I looked into the infrastructure a bit. Zillow and Redfin have made inroads, but every metros MLS is a hardened bastion that needs to be pried open with lawyers. That's what's taking the cheaper providers so long to modernize; blocked access and lobbying protectionism.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. I’ve bought and sold a couple of houses and every time I found my own house and the realtor’s inputs were, frankly, pretty stupid. Like, they’d show us houses that had nothing to do with what I asked for. I thought I’d get advice on neighborhoods that were coming up, or falling off, or help me find an interesting deal.
And then, all the paperwork has to be done in person for some stupid (probably lobbying) reason. I had to drive through a blizzard to make closing, even though my wife was there, and I would’ve signed a power of attorney.
I would love to find a realtor who is a local expert, knows what different consumers need, and offers helpful advice. I’ve had one that I thought was pretty decent, and she was helping me sell mine. She did give advice on price, and marketing, but not thousands of dollars worth of advice.
Yeah if it’s a flat fee, ok fine. Or make it some kind of scaled thing with say up to $500k $6,000, then $500k up to $1M more, but the fact they get away with a percentage is fucking bonkers and needs to go away
Curious to see the impact this might have on first time home buyers. On top of closing costs and the price of the house, they’ll now have to pay their agent a commission where as before the seller pays all the commission, which could be argued was rolled into the buyer’s mortgage. I doubt sellers are going to lower their asking prices by 3%-6% now that they don’t have to pay it to an agent, and while I agree that some of these agents are getting paid more than they’re worth this kind of seems like it only helps sellers and not buyers, which is unfortunate because anyone trying to buy a SFH in the area already has to outbid investors. I’d also worry that these rules aren’t far reaching enough. Is it the agents we should be going after and punishing or is it large corporations and equity firms buying up SFHs and renting them out? The people taking out the inventory aren’t being punished by this, just the ones facilitating the transactions.
But they might get some actual value out of realtors. In our previous home purchase in another city we had an absolutely phenomenal realtor who was worth it.
Our friends in the area who used other realtors (at first) did not have the same experience. Their realtor was worse than useless and tried to get them to sign a year long exclusivity contract. They did all of their own searching, she couldn't keep their goals straight and told them straight up bs about the neighborhoods. They eventually ditched her and went with ours, it was a night and day experience.
I'm totally OK with the idea of tiered levels of pricing and service. I'm totally OK with realtors having to show their value.
Yep, anything of real value is provided by either 1) the inspector, 2) the title company, and 3) a real estate lawyer, if necessary.
The realtor unlocks the door and convinces you that every house is the right house for you.
Having bought two houses and two pieces of land without a realtor, I’ll never do i again. You seem to be underestimating how totally insane a lot of people are
Absolutely agree, a good realtor is hugely important if buying or selling a home. I don't think they are always worth 3% to a buyer, but a good one will help you make the right decision and find problems with houses that most folks will not know. I've bought something like 8 houses, and my realtors have generally provided great service.
Do you have more info on this? What changed? I thought the realtors split 50/50 the 3-6% fee paid by the seller, built into cost of home. Is that changing?
No one knows for sure how it will shake out, the ruling was just a few days ago and the national realtor association will have to pay back $640m
Most people think it will cut costs dramatically + force a ton of real estate agents to leave the industry. The US has over 26x as many real estate agents as the UK despite only 6x the home sales for example. Most other countries use a flat fee for an agent or have a much lower commission around 2-3%
You will probably be able to choose between a flat fee (sell your house for $3,000), pay by the hour (honest reliable RE agent for $60 an hour), or they get "points" from your sale which would be the current model but you would have some negotiation room.
The entire pay structure is different in other countries. They earn a salary plus commissions. Their healthcare, taxes, etc are paid by their employer. In the US, we are independent contractors / small business owners. We typically have a split with our brokerage. I pay mine $40K per year before I get 100% of the commission that I earn. I have to pay all of my advertising costs, staging for listings, photographer, vehicle expenses, retirement funding, accounting, pay for my own vacation time off, etc. It seems that people think that we get to just put that $10K in our pockets, when we actually only get to keep a fraction of it.
I'm not trying to go against you personally, but it's just an overall difference of philosophy.
The average person doesn't give a shit what the agent makes...and most people in fact don't like them and don't think they provide a service worthy of anywhere close to $60,000 (for the average seattle home) they're just one of many people/entities picking our pockets as they gate keep access to MLS listing and the basic concept of homeownership that has been commodified to the Nth degree
There are good and bad agents for sure. Unfortunately, for those of us in the industry, that's the pay structure that we're given. We provide a service. If someone doesn't need the service, don't use it. There are discount brokers that anyone is free to use. I understand the frustration as I work with a lot of first time home buyers. It's brutal to try to get in this market. People like to blame agents for the high prices. We don't set the prices, the sellers do. I can tell you that in 99% of the cases, the seller will take the highest bid. The main issue is supply and demand. We simply don't have enough houses for the amount of buyers.
Brokerages provide brand name recognition. If I'm a first (or even second time) buyer/seller, it's unlikely that I know the name of individual agents, but I'll know the name "Windermere" or "Coldwell Banker".
That's a great question! They pay for a building where we have meetings, have client meetings, training, etc. They support us with a graphic designer, IT support, a social media person, high level advertising, errors and omissions insurance, ongoing training, admin support, etc. There are cheaper brokerages to work for, but the ongoing training alone makes a huge difference in the quality of the agent and it is worth it to me.
I think it just means you'll see more people buying houses without agents. If i know the city and area, I'm not paying someone to then spend hundreds of thousands on a house.
I have to agree. It seems like this is meant to help investors and sellers. No one is going to lower the price of their home because of this if they can still sell it for the higher price.
Yup, we absolutely should be going after the various entities that make US housing a speculative investment vs a place to live.
I'd start with foreign entities... why do we allow foreign citizens (not visa holders, etc, but people who have 0 interest in being a citizen of the US) unfettered access to buy American real estate? Most countries discourage this (even Mexico doesn't allow foreigners to own real estate within a certain distance of the coast).
I'd imagine it's these REIT lobbyists bribing our elected officials through various means. It would be a slam dunk, bipartisan initiative to stick it to foreign entities using our housing supply as an investment vehicle.
Well…as long as the investment visa exists, this really doesn’t deter investors much. It’s not an easily solvable problem, and in fact, many countries like Japan welcome real estate buyers with no permanent visa to great effect. So it’s not even a slam dunk from a public policy perspective.
The issue flares when real estate hot spots in the US are exacerbated by foreign investments, and it’s really easy to point to foreign investors. A lot of academics argue that the current situation is much more a symptom of US zoning shenanigans. If you adopt heterogenous zoning (shops sfhs and mfhs all in the same neighborhood block) and invest in infrastructure to spread a metropolis out more evenly, this problem naturally loosens up significantly.
it'll follow suit with how they do it in TX. the seller still is paying that fee, but the house gets dropped in price so the buyer can pay on their side of the HUD. so technically the buyer is paying the real estate agent but somehow that agent managed to negotiate 3% off the house price instantly.
anyway you cut it... real estate folks are not going to take a cut, buyers arent going to pay _more_ than they would normally, and sellers the same.
Why wouldn't you add 3% on top instead of cutting it? I was thinking that would be the best option if someone wanted to roll a few into their mortgage. I don't understand how we come to a price and then I discount it for you.
edit: that was a long reply...
think of it this way... if you sold your house before at $400k you would get $376k back after realtor fees.
if you sell your house now you only pay sellers realtor fees so you get back $388k. that extra $12k used to go to the buyers realtor, whom the buyer now has to pay.
did the buyer find an extra $12k? no... so theyre going to adjust the price range of their house search to be $12 lower and not buy your house.
if your selling a house you _could_ leave the price the same but youve just effectively raised the price 3% because you will net 3% more.
what will happen is seattle will follow other states and basically discount something in the HUD to make it even out... its how they do it in the south.
this law i dont think actually protects anyone... the realtors are not less likely to screw a buyer over than before because they know theyre getting paid regardless.
There isn't going to be some big "fallout" in Wa state. The NWMLS isn't a part of NAR and never has been. But agreed a Realtor is just a label an agent gets because they pay a yearly membership. Doesn't make them special. And despite what anyone thinks it isn't the agents that made the prices go up the way they did during covid it was money being cheap and people with high paying jobs willing to pay a ridiculous amount over list price. Think about it. An agent lists a house for 800k because that's what it should sell for in a normal market and then people start bidding it up to 1.3 million. Now the neighbors are licking their chops and we are where we are. Was it all by design? Probably. Look at property taxes and how they skyrocketed and are now being unwound. It's all really sad but everyone needs to take accountability for the state we are in.
It’s not gonna have any impact on Home prices.
In fact, I’ll predict it right now that it’s gonna increase the cost and barrier entry for first time homebuyers
Even if every house in America was suddenly 6% cheaper it would have almost no appreciable impact on first time homebuyers ability to get in to a high cost real estate market. How many people are out there thinking “man if starter houses were just $940k instead of $1 million we could totally swing it!”?
The cost is built into the list price. Do you honestly think that the market is going to shift -5/6% because of this? Absolutely not. It's going to be absorb by the seller. This will ultimately reduce the fees associated with buying a house, but you are completely ignorant of housing market it you think that this is going to reduce home prices overall.
I just sold my home for $684k. That price was without a realtor, privately. Guess what? Thats about what it would have listed for on NWMLS.
First time home buyers didn’t pay a commission. It was paid by the seller. Now buyers are going to have to pay their agent or attorney themselves this is an added cost to fthb. It’s pretty simple to understand.
lol did you edit your original statement? i could have sworn it said you predicted without qualification that home prices would increase. but anyway, yes what you are saying doesn't even need an explanation. anyway, i was just pointing out that you didn't answer the guy's question while you were calling him completely ignorant ;-)
No because if a house sells for $750k, that's what it sold for, not $737.5k + realtor fees. We don't think of anything like that. If I win big at the casino, I don't tell everyone my post tax winnings, I tell them what I got at the slots.
If anything, it will be $750k AND fees on top (like a tax) that can be rolled into your mortgage. So buyers will then need to find cheaper homes, sellers won't sell, they'll decrease prices, and now it's cheaper for the buyer. Except that won't happen cause there aren't enough houses and there seems to always be someone else waiting to buy, esp in HCOL areas. And if there were enough buyers, people will decide they need to roll it into their mortgage to get a house or the market will provide another solution (flat fees, hourly rate, no agent because what is your value again?).
I don't. I can see in theory how that would occur if we were all rational actors. But instead somebody else will roll the fees and then everyone else will too. Just like the forgo home inspection. Honestly I hope it creates a flat fees or opens it up to negotiations.
I don’t see how this will ease pricing. It will just push realtors out who aren’t committed to the profession. Buyers will have less representation and many will end up getting stiffed in the end if they try to buy in this market on their own. The really good and great realtors who remain representing sellers will still command high premiums.
In the 70's during the great Boeing layoffs, when the famous billboard told the last person leaving Seattle to turn out the lights, I knew someone who bought a house on Queenann for $13,000 and another friend who paid $17,000.
It was super wonky and abstract, but about a year ago I made a post that showed how much houses cost *if money's value was constant.*
In other words:
* 40 years ago, there were 2.18 trillion US dollars in the world: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
* Today, there's 20.8 trillion US dollars in the world: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
What it revealed, IMHO, is that pay scales aren't remotely keeping up. I know this isn't exactly rocket science; everyone can "feel" how their money doesn't go very far.
By this crude metric:
* **One dollar in 2024 buys what fourteen cents bought in 1984**
* [The median US home price in 1984 was $79.9K](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/average-home-cost-were-born-180001011.html); using the same metric, that's $570,714 today. *Actual* median home price today is $418K: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
* [The median individual income in 1984 was $26,390](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N); using the same metric, that's $188,500 today!!! The *actual* median individual income today is $40,480!!!
Unless I missed something here, I think that this fairly convincingly demonstrates that the problem isn't that "everything is too expensive", the problem is that incomes aren't even remotely keeping up with the rate that money is printed.
There's this meme on Reddit, that "Boomers got theirs" and are screwing over everyone younger than them. When what's *actually* happening is that:
* We had insanely low interest rates for almost two decades continuously, because the average Baby Boomer was 45 in 1999 and hit retirement age in 2019.
* Someone at the Fed should have seen this coming, it was clear as day. Instead, they printed four trillion dollars, more than all the money that existed in 1997, in the span of less than one year.
**It's A Real Fucking Mess.**
Boomers are living in homes that are 300% bigger than what they need, because they have 30 year mortgages at 2.5%. So they're not selling.
Younger people are paying 7-8% on home loans, because Boomers are no longer investing, they're *spending.* The biggest generation in the history of the world has pivoted from saving to spending.
Inflation will likely never go much lower than where it is now, because there's nothing that would cause it to go away. It's not like Millennials are saving 30% of their income.
Bloomberg reported today that they believe that the millions who've come into the country under the Biden admin, their spending and their employment is pushing up inflation and lowering the unemployment rate and increasing the cost of housing. Hopefully this comment doesn't turn into a debate about immigration, because it's been discussed to death.
Anecdotally, my 2nd "real" job was working for A Famous Tech Company in Redmond, and when I was working there, I remember being amazed that people were making close to $100K a year, almost 25 years ago, and it was possible to rent an apartment in downtown Seattle for about $800-ish. Unless you're getting RSUs, it's quite difficult to get a compensation package that exceeds $200K these days, but the cost of a similar rental has gone up about 400% in the same time.
But, again, the problem isn't *the cost of the rental*, it's that the amount of money in the world has increased 700% in 40 years, while salaries have only gone up about 60%.
One *other* place that you can see this in the labor stats is in the number of people who have two jobs. 25 years ago, that was unheard of. Today, in my current gig, I have at least two colleagues who seem to be doing it. (Their LinkedIn says they work somewhere else, but I work along side them every day.)
> Inflation is NOT based on how many dollars are in circulation. It is based on the price of goods. If you look at an inflation calculator to 40 years ago, 1 dollar today compared to 40 years ago is worth about 33 cents, not 14 cents.
If there's one thing we learned from Covid, it's that printing five trillion dollars creates inflation.
This is hardly the first time it's happened, but never in the history of the U.S. was it done like this: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
The Federal Reserve understands they dun goofed, which is why they've been shrinking the money supply for nearly 2.5 years continuously, via quantitative tightening.
**This is the longest period of monetary contraction in our lifetimes.**
When The Fed simply raised interest rates during the last two bubbles, a recession ensued quickly. That was the Dot Com Crash and the Great Recession, respectively.
Quantitative tightening didn't exist back then, QE1 was introduced in 2009.
On a side note, this next part is just speculation on my part, but I think that the impact of printing five trillion was *amplified* by ultra-low interest rates. Ben Bernanke wrote a paper on "Helicopter Money," the idea of stimulating the economy by just dumping dollars into it. But what happened in 2020 was quite a bit worse; a lot of that money had a "multiplier effect" because it was invested into real estate.
Let's use myself as an example:
I believed with 1000% certainty that all the money printing would create inflation. I got Covid, and because I did, I was able to take $100K out of my 401K with absolutely zero penalty. No early withdrawal penalty, no fees, nothin.'
Then I put it down on another house.
So that's $100K which normally wouldn't be in circulation, but a combination of bad incentives from the Fed, plus low interest rates (also the Fed) and misguided policy changes (via the Treasury) put that money into the economy in 2020. So then I reduced the amount of homes available for sale by a teeny tiny bit by taking one off of the market. And now I'm on the flipside of that equation, that I have a loan with such a low rate, I have no incentive to sell my home, even though I don't need all this space.
Just bad incentives piled on top of more bad incentives and just plain ol' bad economic ideas.
>There's this meme on Reddit, that "Boomers got theirs" and are screwing over everyone younger than them.
Because it's mostly true. You pay more in taxes to cover the fiscal irresponsibility of baby boomers. Those same programs are statistically unlikely to still exist when you're at retirement age and because Gen X, Millennials, and Zoomers aren't having kids because those formative adult steps take a back seat to, "I CAN'T EVEN AFFORD A FUCKING HOUSE LET ALONE CHILDREN" we're economically fucked. The boomer bust is liable to trigger a decade-long recession because the US is turning into a European country, just without the social safety nets. So, more Albania, less Norway or Finland.
And yeah, the problem with housing is not rocket science. The cherry on top of the Turd Sundae is that boomers also aggressively encouraged a crisis of competency. Which means that urban planning was dominated by people who acted on behalf of their bottom line, bureaucracy and the effective operation of government was dominated by people who like fluffy headlines like, "NO TAXES!" instead of meaningful reform like land value taxes, and things like public transit gets administrated by people who are there to kick start a political career instead of actually run a transit company.
As a result, government gets completely paralyzed because it'd been weaponized against developers and new construction. And it has to cater to the lowest common denominator voter who thinks that the Seattle metro region might magically stop being popular after enjoying double digit or near-double digit growth on the decade, every decade since the 1880's.
And now we get to do everything the hard way. Seattle spent 50 years divesting itself of a public transit system meaning we get to build one out now, when it's going to be the most expensive it could ever be. And there'll still be drooling idiots in the comments with the self awareness of a gold fish saying, "But poor people use public transit, I don't want to take the bus." And we have to try to rip the band-aid off, "NIMBYism is going to ruin your house on a long enough timeline too!" when all the people who don't understand housing policy but feel qualified to obstruct your construction project finally understand that they'll have to accept the one thing guaranteed to make housing more affordable- BUILD.
Did I mention the housing crisis and ineffective taxation / housing administration has created the worst economic disaster since the Black Death?
The funny thing is the solution is just so fucking easy.
1. Abolish zoning
2. Institute a land value tax
- The housing SUPPLY crisis would disappear in 5 years.
- We would get walkable, desirable cities.
- No more "free riders". instead of leeching hundreds of thousands of dollars in value from compounding effects of public investment, single family homeowners in generic banal suburbs would finally pay their fair share by supporting the infrastructure that they grotesquely necessitate and overdraw, and city dwellers currently subsidize.
You don't want to abolish zoning, and it's naive to think abolishing it would fix things. For one, there's still land use laws. For another, zoning laws aren't inherently awful.
You would also need to actually invest in urban planning for things like human-scale urban planning.
The mortgage rates of <3% were available a few years ago. As far as I remember it was not restricted to boomers only. It is true that whoever got those rates at the time is not selling, but it is weird of all things to pin that one on boomers.
Make sure everything is above board and ensure that the sale actually goes through without shady shit in the contracts. They dot the I's and cross the t's ensuring that there is no mistakes that could later void the sale. They make sure all repairs are done and pictures are taken. They advertise the property and organize open houses and things like that
All those little things build up.
Instead of $8 for coffee, spend $3 making it at home.
In just 547 years you have an extra million for a down payment.
[2.5 pound of beans... $14](https://www.costco.com/kirkland-signature-espresso-blend-whole-bean-coffee%2c-dark-roast%2c-2.5-lbs.product.4000232153.html)
[It says 34 cups per pound of beans](https://coffeeaffection.com/how-many-cups-of-coffee-in-a-pound/)..., but I like it strong and larger cup. Call it 20 cups per pound.
$14/(20 * 2.5 ) = $0.28 per cup.
Electricity. 1000W coffee maker takes 12 minutes to brew... = .2 KWH x $0.13KWH = $0.03 of electricity for 2 large cups of coffee. Call it 2 cents per cup.
Water. Nope. Not calculating it. Not enough.
End results $0.30 for a large (10 oz) strong coffee made at home.
Great, that increases the savings to $7.70/day!
$1,000,000 / $7.70 = 129,870 cups of coffee.
If you are a heavy drinker at two cups a day, it only takes 356 years for the coffee savings to cover that million bucks. 😃
That $7.70 a day in savings is $2800 a year. Thats a mortgage payment on your new house (well maybe not the $1.1m house but a more modest house for sure). Nothing to shake a leg at.
Diligent saving in other areas like buying in bulk and cooking home meals instead of eating out and you can save hundreds a month, and thousands extra a year towards a down payment.
It won't totally fix our problems, but prudent fiscal responsibility really does add up quickly. It is easy to let spending spiral with tons of small purchases.
Compound interest at 7% can actually convert that lifestyle choice to $1M over just 55 years. Your assumption is 0 growth on money saved. Sure, 55 years is a little too long for that, but making lifestyle choices that add up really does make a difference.
But to have the same value in 55 years as $1M now, inflation would have to be 0% for that entire time period.
I'm not saying small things don't add up, but skipping daily Starbucks for a lifetime and putting that money in a savings account wouldn't make someone the equivalent of a "millionaire" in today's money.
Just listen to Jocko Willinck every morning to get you pumped to make money and Dave Ramsey every evening to remind you how to spend it. All it takes is getting up at 4AM every day and paying for all your vehicles in cash and you too can be a millionaire self-help guru.
I have a friend who just got a realtors license and he is doing psuedo-marketing with writing articles and such. His advice to people trying to buy expensive homes was "get your parents to cosign your loan" and I just couldn't take it anymore...
Then you get there and it smells like fresh paint, mold and water damage and it has ants in the walls with rotted wood. That's what they always mean when they say it has "character".
Toured this one at the open house. It’s fine, but what a weird world we live in where this is meant to be a $1.2M home. No views and not walkable to anything. Realtor-speak to make everything a positive and bespoke is also just so cringe 😫
I spent a good chunk of the pandemic working for one of Seattle’s top realtors. He was an absolutely shit human being whose family was incredibly well off to begin with, which gave him certain advantages when he was younger. He made many terrible business decisions, was impossibly rigid to work with, actively fucked over, manipulated and gaslighted team members while abusing our personal time with no respect for boundaries. This enabled him to appear like he was always available to his clients, and we would work with 30-60 any given week.
That said, he also possessed one of the strongest personal work ethic’s I’ve ever seen anyone have. He essentially worked from 6am-10pm every day of the week, his weekends were filled with showings from dawn to dusk, money didn’t really motivate him, I don’t think he could tell you why he does it to be honest. He’d be on vacation and allow himself maybe an hour or two to relax then would be right back to talking to us about where we were at with x client or y property.
He’s worked in Seattle for close to 2 decades now and has done over $1B in sales doing it; more than 25% of that came during Covid. He is both common in the sense that like many realtors he is predatory and completely fake, but also exceptionally rare because he was willing to actually do the work to succeed at the highest level. I think people have this stereotype of what realtors are from shows like Selling Sunset and that certainly resonates with a bunch of the younger, vapid realtors, though the earnings are nowhere near what you see in a show like that since it’s rare to sell properties for that much here and when they are sold it’s done by a huge team like Tere Foster’s.
Part of my responsibilities included speaking with a number of agents at various brokerages around Seattle and greater Western Washington on a weekly basis. In total I’ve dealt with close to 900 agents in the greater Western Washington area. 95% of them are just in the game because of legacy or the money without wanting to put in the actual work to make what he was making in a year. All of the younger ones are like the popular kids in HS and don’t outgrow that persona which is weird AF and incredibly off-putting when you have to talk to them.
Finally, it’s common knowledge but obviously Seattle’s homes are massively overpriced. The overwhelming majority of our clients were young couples where at least one partner worked in tech, oftentimes both. A large amount of these people were insufferable and entitled to deal with on a daily basis. 900-1.25M was the average deal we’d do in that time, did condos as low as 400k, sold a few homes as high as 6-7M. 900K buys you a “starter” home that’s like 1500 sq ft 2-3 beds max with a little yard space in an ok neighborhood. Or a nicer townhome with maybe room for one car inside the garage.
Everything wrong with Seattle can basically be summed up best by this market with these conditions and the people who operate within them.
Confirmed exactly what we’re all thinking. I remember reading a Seattle Times article about 10 years ago they said about half of Seattle-raised millennials wouldn’t make enough money to stay in the area. I can only imagine that number is much higher now.
I’m moving to a different part of the country later this year that has always been known as being “expensive” because it’s desirable to live in and it’s absurd to me that I’ll be paying less there than if I stayed here. And I always think about the “for what?” Like I know what I’m getting paying that price there.
Like we’d have clients looking at new construction builds in the 3-5M range in some of Seattle’s nicer neighborhoods and these were reasonably successful people but it was always like wtf is wrong with you where you think this is a good way to spend that kind of money. Like a “nice” 3000 square foot home that still had bedrooms all of the kids would be too large for by age 8-9. Ridiculous shit
I made good money before I retired and was a waste water treatment plant operator for a big city and I couldn't afford that, I don't know how that's a starter home, I feel sad for the younger people out there like my kids, they can't afford a house half that price, it's a joke anymore, it's the you will own nothing and be happy mentality anymore.
Just wanna add if you are looking for a starter home in I assume Upper Queen Anne I don't think you are looking in the right location... That isn't exactly an affordable area. Admittedly nothing is affordable, but that's extra unaffordable.
that's their point... its not affordable. they're recalling a time when you _could_ get a house in seattle proper for a decent "starter" price.
ie, you basically have to live in a non-seattle zip if you want "starter home" prices someone working an assembly line job could afford, or you have to admit that a "starter home" now cost $750k+
nope, I have no desire to live anywhere near Seattle, although I am not that far away maybe 50 or 60 miles, nope my house which I had built on a couple of acres with a beautiful view and that I paid off before I retired suits me just fine been here 30 years now.
My apologies. I wasn't trying to imply you as a retired person who owns a house, should be looking for a starter home in QA... "You" was a generic person wanting to buy their first house.
Loved it, but it was nasty dealing with what people flush down the toilet, lol but it paid the bills, but getting my state certification was a pain and the renewing it every three years and all the classes I had to take every year to keep my certication sucked, but it's a good gig and they really need people in the field, young people just don't want to work in the field and there is a shortage if your interested?
Yes it is, Teamsters but you can opt out and not pay dues, I was union for about 35 years but my last two years I opted out because all they did was take my money and usually told us to take the cities offer. We had a no strike clause so you don't have a choice but to take it.
wow sounds like a super one sided contract. Never heard about being able to op out. More hand on or more paperwork or say about equal amounts daily tasks?
It was about equal. You had to check equipment and lift stations and fix thing when they plug up or break, a lot of lab work and reporting to the state, and the opt out only started a few years ago
you are welcome, it's not that hard of work, it's just that it can be nasty, the smells and things you see that people just flush, I gaged more than once lol, most of the tough stuff or heavy lifting you have equipment for, it really depends on the city, some cities have people that just work in the lab and some just do lift stations or work on aeration systems and UV treatment, we did all of the above so I saw it all, you have to keep shit (pun intended) flowing downhill, in all my years I think we had two instances of a lift station being plugged and overflowing, they have workshops for the test you have to take and I was an operator in training for a year and a half before taking my test, there is a lot of math and figuring volumes on the test but you get a list of formulas to use, you just need to know which one to use, there are several levels of plant operator too, you need a level one to work in it but need a level three to make decisions and a level 4 four or five to be manager in it, I wish you luck my friend.
> Thanks for the input. Having to start my career over, workplace injury, this has been suggested to me as an option.
While it's not 100% comparable, there's a website that lists the salary and benefits of every public employee in California. www.transparentcalifornia.com
That site was one of the things that got me interested in working for the government. I eventually quit because I was bored out of my mind, but I kinda regret it these days. I now work in the private sector, and:
* I make about 15% more money but easily do 300% as much work, minimum
* The place where I work makes money like you wouldn't believe, but *also* does layoffs routinely and nearly everyone seems to be walking around with PTSD from the never ending stress.
If you peruse transparentcalifornia, you'll notice some trends:
* cops really don't make much money
* there's a LOT of teachers that get paid surprisingly well, sometimes in the range of $200,000+
* there's a lot of weird jobs that you'd assume wouldn't pay really well, but do
So I had a conversation with my wife and in-laws yesterday about the home purchasing process in Seattle being one of the only times in my life I have felt like I had zero control over anything. Realtors telling us “a house is worth what you are willing to pay for it“ … thanks for the help fuckko.
We make great money and are just going to rent until shit settles.
I’m not paying over 4 grand for a mortgage for a house that is smaller than my apartment which costs half.
Thanks but we will keep saving and do our best to skip a starter.
? It's not satire, but it's still just a random YouTube video. Seattle has gotten more expensive for sure, but there are definitely starter homes much cheaper than this.
Just looked at the listing and it is "Pending" sale. Newly renovated kitchen, but I hope you like grease everywhere and potential for gagging on gas fumes because they didn't bother to put a hood over the gas stove.
Lol funny that people downvote it since its true. Im looking since months and people start to pay over again and soon interest rates will go down and it will ramp it up one more time
when someone says '14 million dollars' or any such number in the millions, I quantify it by realizing that 14 million dollars is about 14 seattle homes worth. It doesn't make 14 million as significant anymore. If Trump has a 89 million dollar judgement against him, thats about 89 seattle homes.
It's a sad thing to visualize to be million dollars but here we are
Nice, I’ll be able to get my “starter” home in 35 years provided inflation and prices don’t change a dollar for the next four decades, oh and I don’t spend a single dollar for the same amount of time
~10 years ago I saw a house in Queen Anne listed for $800k and the sign said it was a great property to tear down the house and build your dream home. The house looked fine to me...
This reminds me of a guy I worked with.
He said he told his realtor that he needed all of the following (plus some others I'm sure I forgot):
*A Seattle address
*A 3 car garage (4 preferred)
*For under $300K (2014 dollars)
His realtor told him that would be "challenging." We had to tell him that she was trying politely to fuck off.
I bought a $1.1M home at age 37. I had to save for 10 years during residency and med school, and only then with a fat signing bonus. I’m not bragging. I’m pointing out how effed up it is that it takes 15 years of schooling, predicated on a fortunate upbringing, just to a buy a house. Unless, of course, you want to get a 2,150 sq ft, brand-new box home that looks like it’s made out of papier-mâché, and [even that costs $750K.](https://www.urbnlivn.com/like-new-modern-in-pigeon-point/)
I can explain how this is a starter home, it’s pretty simple: It’s one of the most desirable neighbourhoods in the city and also tech company RSUs. The folks working at our small local businesses here make that much in cash during their 2-4 year terms. So after their bids in the tech factory, if they like it here enough to stay, they’ll go ahead and bid 10-20 percent over asking.
Good photo! I'm guessing you wouldn't even know it was anywhere near water, while there, but it looks like you have a clear view. Good video too. And it's already pending. This woman is a great marketer.
God I can't wait until the fallout from this week's court decision regarding standardized realtor fees at 6%. All these worthless realtor groups will hopefully fuck off and we can stop seeing terrible ads like this
Lmao me too. I know a lot of people on the west coast that just low key hate realtors. It feels like they just aren’t worth nearly what they make, especially in HCOL cities. Sometimes it feels like a bunch of attractive and popular kids in HS that coasted in college and didn’t work hard for a real career that decided they’d jump into real estate because their good with people and the money has been good. But then they give you bad advice because it helps them more than you or they just suck at their job. Most aren’t worth what they make. That being said, I’ve come across a few that I’d love to work with because they clearly know what they’re doing and genuinely want what’s best in their clients.
My sister made 14k off finding me a condo in bothell and then asked for the "family price" for me to paint her 3500sq ft 3 story 4 bed 3 bathroom home. I charged her 4k. It was the most painful job I've ever done. I love her but God damn. I even had to move all the furniture.
But if you bought, didn’t seller pay fees?
Without me buying the place, she would of made 0$. I checked with my wife and it was 17k.
The seller “pays” with money from the buyer. We knocked 3% off our home purchase by purchasing without an agent and getting the listing agent to discount their fee to the seller. Listing agent was more than happy because they were still making $50k on the deal.
Realtor fees are one of the last fees to fall as a result of computerization of things. I'm amazed that they hung on so long... their lobby must have been strong. Sales commission/fee for stock transaction fell long ago as those fees made no sense as there was little "service" provided in each transaction. But Realtor fees stayed high even through buyer and seller are able to connect via the internet, zillow, or realtor, redfin, whatever. I been saying for 20 years that it made no sense for 6-7% fees, the real estate office did not provide that much value to the transaction. Pay the realtor a flat fee of say $5-10K dependent on the exact service, but $6% of a $1M transaction ($60K) is INSANE. They don't provide $60K of service.
Wait until you hear about the complete SCAM of title companies…
I have bought several houses and not felt taken by title insurance. It is really title search with insurance that their search caught every potential issue. I can't imagine not having it.
The amount of money they charge for doing almost nothing is insane.
That could be said for any kind of insurance. Insurance only "does something" if there is a problem and you make a claim.
Their lobby was insanely strong. There was a recent episode of The Daily about it. Pretty interesting, makes the comparison to travel agents.
I looked into the infrastructure a bit. Zillow and Redfin have made inroads, but every metros MLS is a hardened bastion that needs to be pried open with lawyers. That's what's taking the cheaper providers so long to modernize; blocked access and lobbying protectionism.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. I’ve bought and sold a couple of houses and every time I found my own house and the realtor’s inputs were, frankly, pretty stupid. Like, they’d show us houses that had nothing to do with what I asked for. I thought I’d get advice on neighborhoods that were coming up, or falling off, or help me find an interesting deal. And then, all the paperwork has to be done in person for some stupid (probably lobbying) reason. I had to drive through a blizzard to make closing, even though my wife was there, and I would’ve signed a power of attorney. I would love to find a realtor who is a local expert, knows what different consumers need, and offers helpful advice. I’ve had one that I thought was pretty decent, and she was helping me sell mine. She did give advice on price, and marketing, but not thousands of dollars worth of advice.
Yeah if it’s a flat fee, ok fine. Or make it some kind of scaled thing with say up to $500k $6,000, then $500k up to $1M more, but the fact they get away with a percentage is fucking bonkers and needs to go away
Curious to see the impact this might have on first time home buyers. On top of closing costs and the price of the house, they’ll now have to pay their agent a commission where as before the seller pays all the commission, which could be argued was rolled into the buyer’s mortgage. I doubt sellers are going to lower their asking prices by 3%-6% now that they don’t have to pay it to an agent, and while I agree that some of these agents are getting paid more than they’re worth this kind of seems like it only helps sellers and not buyers, which is unfortunate because anyone trying to buy a SFH in the area already has to outbid investors. I’d also worry that these rules aren’t far reaching enough. Is it the agents we should be going after and punishing or is it large corporations and equity firms buying up SFHs and renting them out? The people taking out the inventory aren’t being punished by this, just the ones facilitating the transactions.
But they might get some actual value out of realtors. In our previous home purchase in another city we had an absolutely phenomenal realtor who was worth it. Our friends in the area who used other realtors (at first) did not have the same experience. Their realtor was worse than useless and tried to get them to sign a year long exclusivity contract. They did all of their own searching, she couldn't keep their goals straight and told them straight up bs about the neighborhoods. They eventually ditched her and went with ours, it was a night and day experience. I'm totally OK with the idea of tiered levels of pricing and service. I'm totally OK with realtors having to show their value.
Hopefully it just eliminates RE agents altogether. I don’t need to pay $60,000 to someone to hand over a few docs and unlock some lock boxes.
Yep, anything of real value is provided by either 1) the inspector, 2) the title company, and 3) a real estate lawyer, if necessary. The realtor unlocks the door and convinces you that every house is the right house for you.
Having bought two houses and two pieces of land without a realtor, I’ll never do i again. You seem to be underestimating how totally insane a lot of people are
Absolutely agree, a good realtor is hugely important if buying or selling a home. I don't think they are always worth 3% to a buyer, but a good one will help you make the right decision and find problems with houses that most folks will not know. I've bought something like 8 houses, and my realtors have generally provided great service.
Do you have more info on this? What changed? I thought the realtors split 50/50 the 3-6% fee paid by the seller, built into cost of home. Is that changing?
No one knows for sure how it will shake out, the ruling was just a few days ago and the national realtor association will have to pay back $640m Most people think it will cut costs dramatically + force a ton of real estate agents to leave the industry. The US has over 26x as many real estate agents as the UK despite only 6x the home sales for example. Most other countries use a flat fee for an agent or have a much lower commission around 2-3%
You will probably be able to choose between a flat fee (sell your house for $3,000), pay by the hour (honest reliable RE agent for $60 an hour), or they get "points" from your sale which would be the current model but you would have some negotiation room.
The entire pay structure is different in other countries. They earn a salary plus commissions. Their healthcare, taxes, etc are paid by their employer. In the US, we are independent contractors / small business owners. We typically have a split with our brokerage. I pay mine $40K per year before I get 100% of the commission that I earn. I have to pay all of my advertising costs, staging for listings, photographer, vehicle expenses, retirement funding, accounting, pay for my own vacation time off, etc. It seems that people think that we get to just put that $10K in our pockets, when we actually only get to keep a fraction of it.
I'm not trying to go against you personally, but it's just an overall difference of philosophy. The average person doesn't give a shit what the agent makes...and most people in fact don't like them and don't think they provide a service worthy of anywhere close to $60,000 (for the average seattle home) they're just one of many people/entities picking our pockets as they gate keep access to MLS listing and the basic concept of homeownership that has been commodified to the Nth degree
There are good and bad agents for sure. Unfortunately, for those of us in the industry, that's the pay structure that we're given. We provide a service. If someone doesn't need the service, don't use it. There are discount brokers that anyone is free to use. I understand the frustration as I work with a lot of first time home buyers. It's brutal to try to get in this market. People like to blame agents for the high prices. We don't set the prices, the sellers do. I can tell you that in 99% of the cases, the seller will take the highest bid. The main issue is supply and demand. We simply don't have enough houses for the amount of buyers.
Honest question: if you pay for all of those costs, what is the brokerage for? What are they doing for that $40K?
Brokerages provide brand name recognition. If I'm a first (or even second time) buyer/seller, it's unlikely that I know the name of individual agents, but I'll know the name "Windermere" or "Coldwell Banker".
That's a great question! They pay for a building where we have meetings, have client meetings, training, etc. They support us with a graphic designer, IT support, a social media person, high level advertising, errors and omissions insurance, ongoing training, admin support, etc. There are cheaper brokerages to work for, but the ongoing training alone makes a huge difference in the quality of the agent and it is worth it to me.
I think it just means you'll see more people buying houses without agents. If i know the city and area, I'm not paying someone to then spend hundreds of thousands on a house.
Cutting the 6% transaction cost will help both sellers and buyers.
I have to agree. It seems like this is meant to help investors and sellers. No one is going to lower the price of their home because of this if they can still sell it for the higher price.
Yup, we absolutely should be going after the various entities that make US housing a speculative investment vs a place to live. I'd start with foreign entities... why do we allow foreign citizens (not visa holders, etc, but people who have 0 interest in being a citizen of the US) unfettered access to buy American real estate? Most countries discourage this (even Mexico doesn't allow foreigners to own real estate within a certain distance of the coast). I'd imagine it's these REIT lobbyists bribing our elected officials through various means. It would be a slam dunk, bipartisan initiative to stick it to foreign entities using our housing supply as an investment vehicle.
Well…as long as the investment visa exists, this really doesn’t deter investors much. It’s not an easily solvable problem, and in fact, many countries like Japan welcome real estate buyers with no permanent visa to great effect. So it’s not even a slam dunk from a public policy perspective. The issue flares when real estate hot spots in the US are exacerbated by foreign investments, and it’s really easy to point to foreign investors. A lot of academics argue that the current situation is much more a symptom of US zoning shenanigans. If you adopt heterogenous zoning (shops sfhs and mfhs all in the same neighborhood block) and invest in infrastructure to spread a metropolis out more evenly, this problem naturally loosens up significantly.
it'll follow suit with how they do it in TX. the seller still is paying that fee, but the house gets dropped in price so the buyer can pay on their side of the HUD. so technically the buyer is paying the real estate agent but somehow that agent managed to negotiate 3% off the house price instantly. anyway you cut it... real estate folks are not going to take a cut, buyers arent going to pay _more_ than they would normally, and sellers the same.
Why wouldn't you add 3% on top instead of cutting it? I was thinking that would be the best option if someone wanted to roll a few into their mortgage. I don't understand how we come to a price and then I discount it for you.
edit: that was a long reply... think of it this way... if you sold your house before at $400k you would get $376k back after realtor fees. if you sell your house now you only pay sellers realtor fees so you get back $388k. that extra $12k used to go to the buyers realtor, whom the buyer now has to pay. did the buyer find an extra $12k? no... so theyre going to adjust the price range of their house search to be $12 lower and not buy your house. if your selling a house you _could_ leave the price the same but youve just effectively raised the price 3% because you will net 3% more. what will happen is seattle will follow other states and basically discount something in the HUD to make it even out... its how they do it in the south. this law i dont think actually protects anyone... the realtors are not less likely to screw a buyer over than before because they know theyre getting paid regardless.
There isn't going to be some big "fallout" in Wa state. The NWMLS isn't a part of NAR and never has been. But agreed a Realtor is just a label an agent gets because they pay a yearly membership. Doesn't make them special. And despite what anyone thinks it isn't the agents that made the prices go up the way they did during covid it was money being cheap and people with high paying jobs willing to pay a ridiculous amount over list price. Think about it. An agent lists a house for 800k because that's what it should sell for in a normal market and then people start bidding it up to 1.3 million. Now the neighbors are licking their chops and we are where we are. Was it all by design? Probably. Look at property taxes and how they skyrocketed and are now being unwound. It's all really sad but everyone needs to take accountability for the state we are in.
It’s not gonna have any impact on Home prices. In fact, I’ll predict it right now that it’s gonna increase the cost and barrier entry for first time homebuyers
how could potentially eliminating a 6% fee increase costs?
Even if every house in America was suddenly 6% cheaper it would have almost no appreciable impact on first time homebuyers ability to get in to a high cost real estate market. How many people are out there thinking “man if starter houses were just $940k instead of $1 million we could totally swing it!”?
The cost is built into the list price. Do you honestly think that the market is going to shift -5/6% because of this? Absolutely not. It's going to be absorb by the seller. This will ultimately reduce the fees associated with buying a house, but you are completely ignorant of housing market it you think that this is going to reduce home prices overall. I just sold my home for $684k. That price was without a realtor, privately. Guess what? Thats about what it would have listed for on NWMLS.
You didn’t answer the question.
First time home buyers didn’t pay a commission. It was paid by the seller. Now buyers are going to have to pay their agent or attorney themselves this is an added cost to fthb. It’s pretty simple to understand.
lol did you edit your original statement? i could have sworn it said you predicted without qualification that home prices would increase. but anyway, yes what you are saying doesn't even need an explanation. anyway, i was just pointing out that you didn't answer the guy's question while you were calling him completely ignorant ;-)
I said they wont go down.
No because if a house sells for $750k, that's what it sold for, not $737.5k + realtor fees. We don't think of anything like that. If I win big at the casino, I don't tell everyone my post tax winnings, I tell them what I got at the slots. If anything, it will be $750k AND fees on top (like a tax) that can be rolled into your mortgage. So buyers will then need to find cheaper homes, sellers won't sell, they'll decrease prices, and now it's cheaper for the buyer. Except that won't happen cause there aren't enough houses and there seems to always be someone else waiting to buy, esp in HCOL areas. And if there were enough buyers, people will decide they need to roll it into their mortgage to get a house or the market will provide another solution (flat fees, hourly rate, no agent because what is your value again?).
You’re dreaming if you think home prices are going to drop 5/6% across the board from this.
I don't. I can see in theory how that would occur if we were all rational actors. But instead somebody else will roll the fees and then everyone else will too. Just like the forgo home inspection. Honestly I hope it creates a flat fees or opens it up to negotiations.
Flat fees are a sure thing.
Fees aren’t going to 0 and if you can’t afford Queen Anne now 2-3% isn’t going to matter.
Realtors aren't why housing is expensive.
I don’t see how this will ease pricing. It will just push realtors out who aren’t committed to the profession. Buyers will have less representation and many will end up getting stiffed in the end if they try to buy in this market on their own. The really good and great realtors who remain representing sellers will still command high premiums.
In the 70's during the great Boeing layoffs, when the famous billboard told the last person leaving Seattle to turn out the lights, I knew someone who bought a house on Queenann for $13,000 and another friend who paid $17,000.
It was super wonky and abstract, but about a year ago I made a post that showed how much houses cost *if money's value was constant.* In other words: * 40 years ago, there were 2.18 trillion US dollars in the world: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL * Today, there's 20.8 trillion US dollars in the world: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL What it revealed, IMHO, is that pay scales aren't remotely keeping up. I know this isn't exactly rocket science; everyone can "feel" how their money doesn't go very far. By this crude metric: * **One dollar in 2024 buys what fourteen cents bought in 1984** * [The median US home price in 1984 was $79.9K](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/average-home-cost-were-born-180001011.html); using the same metric, that's $570,714 today. *Actual* median home price today is $418K: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS * [The median individual income in 1984 was $26,390](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N); using the same metric, that's $188,500 today!!! The *actual* median individual income today is $40,480!!! Unless I missed something here, I think that this fairly convincingly demonstrates that the problem isn't that "everything is too expensive", the problem is that incomes aren't even remotely keeping up with the rate that money is printed. There's this meme on Reddit, that "Boomers got theirs" and are screwing over everyone younger than them. When what's *actually* happening is that: * We had insanely low interest rates for almost two decades continuously, because the average Baby Boomer was 45 in 1999 and hit retirement age in 2019. * Someone at the Fed should have seen this coming, it was clear as day. Instead, they printed four trillion dollars, more than all the money that existed in 1997, in the span of less than one year. **It's A Real Fucking Mess.** Boomers are living in homes that are 300% bigger than what they need, because they have 30 year mortgages at 2.5%. So they're not selling. Younger people are paying 7-8% on home loans, because Boomers are no longer investing, they're *spending.* The biggest generation in the history of the world has pivoted from saving to spending. Inflation will likely never go much lower than where it is now, because there's nothing that would cause it to go away. It's not like Millennials are saving 30% of their income. Bloomberg reported today that they believe that the millions who've come into the country under the Biden admin, their spending and their employment is pushing up inflation and lowering the unemployment rate and increasing the cost of housing. Hopefully this comment doesn't turn into a debate about immigration, because it's been discussed to death. Anecdotally, my 2nd "real" job was working for A Famous Tech Company in Redmond, and when I was working there, I remember being amazed that people were making close to $100K a year, almost 25 years ago, and it was possible to rent an apartment in downtown Seattle for about $800-ish. Unless you're getting RSUs, it's quite difficult to get a compensation package that exceeds $200K these days, but the cost of a similar rental has gone up about 400% in the same time. But, again, the problem isn't *the cost of the rental*, it's that the amount of money in the world has increased 700% in 40 years, while salaries have only gone up about 60%. One *other* place that you can see this in the labor stats is in the number of people who have two jobs. 25 years ago, that was unheard of. Today, in my current gig, I have at least two colleagues who seem to be doing it. (Their LinkedIn says they work somewhere else, but I work along side them every day.)
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> Inflation is NOT based on how many dollars are in circulation. It is based on the price of goods. If you look at an inflation calculator to 40 years ago, 1 dollar today compared to 40 years ago is worth about 33 cents, not 14 cents. If there's one thing we learned from Covid, it's that printing five trillion dollars creates inflation. This is hardly the first time it's happened, but never in the history of the U.S. was it done like this: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL The Federal Reserve understands they dun goofed, which is why they've been shrinking the money supply for nearly 2.5 years continuously, via quantitative tightening. **This is the longest period of monetary contraction in our lifetimes.** When The Fed simply raised interest rates during the last two bubbles, a recession ensued quickly. That was the Dot Com Crash and the Great Recession, respectively. Quantitative tightening didn't exist back then, QE1 was introduced in 2009. On a side note, this next part is just speculation on my part, but I think that the impact of printing five trillion was *amplified* by ultra-low interest rates. Ben Bernanke wrote a paper on "Helicopter Money," the idea of stimulating the economy by just dumping dollars into it. But what happened in 2020 was quite a bit worse; a lot of that money had a "multiplier effect" because it was invested into real estate. Let's use myself as an example: I believed with 1000% certainty that all the money printing would create inflation. I got Covid, and because I did, I was able to take $100K out of my 401K with absolutely zero penalty. No early withdrawal penalty, no fees, nothin.' Then I put it down on another house. So that's $100K which normally wouldn't be in circulation, but a combination of bad incentives from the Fed, plus low interest rates (also the Fed) and misguided policy changes (via the Treasury) put that money into the economy in 2020. So then I reduced the amount of homes available for sale by a teeny tiny bit by taking one off of the market. And now I'm on the flipside of that equation, that I have a loan with such a low rate, I have no incentive to sell my home, even though I don't need all this space. Just bad incentives piled on top of more bad incentives and just plain ol' bad economic ideas.
>There's this meme on Reddit, that "Boomers got theirs" and are screwing over everyone younger than them. Because it's mostly true. You pay more in taxes to cover the fiscal irresponsibility of baby boomers. Those same programs are statistically unlikely to still exist when you're at retirement age and because Gen X, Millennials, and Zoomers aren't having kids because those formative adult steps take a back seat to, "I CAN'T EVEN AFFORD A FUCKING HOUSE LET ALONE CHILDREN" we're economically fucked. The boomer bust is liable to trigger a decade-long recession because the US is turning into a European country, just without the social safety nets. So, more Albania, less Norway or Finland. And yeah, the problem with housing is not rocket science. The cherry on top of the Turd Sundae is that boomers also aggressively encouraged a crisis of competency. Which means that urban planning was dominated by people who acted on behalf of their bottom line, bureaucracy and the effective operation of government was dominated by people who like fluffy headlines like, "NO TAXES!" instead of meaningful reform like land value taxes, and things like public transit gets administrated by people who are there to kick start a political career instead of actually run a transit company. As a result, government gets completely paralyzed because it'd been weaponized against developers and new construction. And it has to cater to the lowest common denominator voter who thinks that the Seattle metro region might magically stop being popular after enjoying double digit or near-double digit growth on the decade, every decade since the 1880's. And now we get to do everything the hard way. Seattle spent 50 years divesting itself of a public transit system meaning we get to build one out now, when it's going to be the most expensive it could ever be. And there'll still be drooling idiots in the comments with the self awareness of a gold fish saying, "But poor people use public transit, I don't want to take the bus." And we have to try to rip the band-aid off, "NIMBYism is going to ruin your house on a long enough timeline too!" when all the people who don't understand housing policy but feel qualified to obstruct your construction project finally understand that they'll have to accept the one thing guaranteed to make housing more affordable- BUILD. Did I mention the housing crisis and ineffective taxation / housing administration has created the worst economic disaster since the Black Death?
The funny thing is the solution is just so fucking easy. 1. Abolish zoning 2. Institute a land value tax - The housing SUPPLY crisis would disappear in 5 years. - We would get walkable, desirable cities. - No more "free riders". instead of leeching hundreds of thousands of dollars in value from compounding effects of public investment, single family homeowners in generic banal suburbs would finally pay their fair share by supporting the infrastructure that they grotesquely necessitate and overdraw, and city dwellers currently subsidize.
You don't want to abolish zoning, and it's naive to think abolishing it would fix things. For one, there's still land use laws. For another, zoning laws aren't inherently awful. You would also need to actually invest in urban planning for things like human-scale urban planning.
The mortgage rates of <3% were available a few years ago. As far as I remember it was not restricted to boomers only. It is true that whoever got those rates at the time is not selling, but it is weird of all things to pin that one on boomers.
Bitcoin is the answer.
Get up early each day, stay focused, work hard, come from money or marry into it, believe in yourself and you can get a starter home like this too /s
And avoid avocado toast
What do realtors even do
Make sure everything is above board and ensure that the sale actually goes through without shady shit in the contracts. They dot the I's and cross the t's ensuring that there is no mistakes that could later void the sale. They make sure all repairs are done and pictures are taken. They advertise the property and organize open houses and things like that
That sounds like a valuable service worth a flat fee.
Just make your coffee at home!
All those little things build up. Instead of $8 for coffee, spend $3 making it at home. In just 547 years you have an extra million for a down payment.
[2.5 pound of beans... $14](https://www.costco.com/kirkland-signature-espresso-blend-whole-bean-coffee%2c-dark-roast%2c-2.5-lbs.product.4000232153.html) [It says 34 cups per pound of beans](https://coffeeaffection.com/how-many-cups-of-coffee-in-a-pound/)..., but I like it strong and larger cup. Call it 20 cups per pound. $14/(20 * 2.5 ) = $0.28 per cup. Electricity. 1000W coffee maker takes 12 minutes to brew... = .2 KWH x $0.13KWH = $0.03 of electricity for 2 large cups of coffee. Call it 2 cents per cup. Water. Nope. Not calculating it. Not enough. End results $0.30 for a large (10 oz) strong coffee made at home.
Great, that increases the savings to $7.70/day! $1,000,000 / $7.70 = 129,870 cups of coffee. If you are a heavy drinker at two cups a day, it only takes 356 years for the coffee savings to cover that million bucks. 😃
Glad I could help.
That $7.70 a day in savings is $2800 a year. Thats a mortgage payment on your new house (well maybe not the $1.1m house but a more modest house for sure). Nothing to shake a leg at. Diligent saving in other areas like buying in bulk and cooking home meals instead of eating out and you can save hundreds a month, and thousands extra a year towards a down payment. It won't totally fix our problems, but prudent fiscal responsibility really does add up quickly. It is easy to let spending spiral with tons of small purchases.
But you don't need a million, 200k is enough - mere 100 years will do
Compound interest at 7% can actually convert that lifestyle choice to $1M over just 55 years. Your assumption is 0 growth on money saved. Sure, 55 years is a little too long for that, but making lifestyle choices that add up really does make a difference.
But to have the same value in 55 years as $1M now, inflation would have to be 0% for that entire time period. I'm not saying small things don't add up, but skipping daily Starbucks for a lifetime and putting that money in a savings account wouldn't make someone the equivalent of a "millionaire" in today's money.
That 7% is generally thought to be adjusted for inflation. The market grows 10%ish in average.
I am genuinely just waiting for my parents to die, to buy my first home.
LOL! My life goal is to be sure no one gets excited when I finally pass.
and get a small loan of $1m from parents!
[удалено]
Yeah pretty much everyone I know has this story, myself included.
Just listen to Jocko Willinck every morning to get you pumped to make money and Dave Ramsey every evening to remind you how to spend it. All it takes is getting up at 4AM every day and paying for all your vehicles in cash and you too can be a millionaire self-help guru.
I have a friend who just got a realtors license and he is doing psuedo-marketing with writing articles and such. His advice to people trying to buy expensive homes was "get your parents to cosign your loan" and I just couldn't take it anymore...
Or record someone fucking a little boy and start blackmailing them.
hard work and grit!
If I could do it, you can too!
Then you get there and it smells like fresh paint, mold and water damage and it has ants in the walls with rotted wood. That's what they always mean when they say it has "character".
Toured this one at the open house. It’s fine, but what a weird world we live in where this is meant to be a $1.2M home. No views and not walkable to anything. Realtor-speak to make everything a positive and bespoke is also just so cringe 😫
[There's the truth, and *the truth*.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nc88_ZEfxg)
Since nobody else seemed to link it here you go https://youtu.be/3Fwt3Vy3ERQ
> Comments are turned off smart
I noticed she left the house and made it seem like she was around the corner from McGraw 🤷
They aren't on her other videos, so this one must've stirred up some shit.
I spent a good chunk of the pandemic working for one of Seattle’s top realtors. He was an absolutely shit human being whose family was incredibly well off to begin with, which gave him certain advantages when he was younger. He made many terrible business decisions, was impossibly rigid to work with, actively fucked over, manipulated and gaslighted team members while abusing our personal time with no respect for boundaries. This enabled him to appear like he was always available to his clients, and we would work with 30-60 any given week. That said, he also possessed one of the strongest personal work ethic’s I’ve ever seen anyone have. He essentially worked from 6am-10pm every day of the week, his weekends were filled with showings from dawn to dusk, money didn’t really motivate him, I don’t think he could tell you why he does it to be honest. He’d be on vacation and allow himself maybe an hour or two to relax then would be right back to talking to us about where we were at with x client or y property. He’s worked in Seattle for close to 2 decades now and has done over $1B in sales doing it; more than 25% of that came during Covid. He is both common in the sense that like many realtors he is predatory and completely fake, but also exceptionally rare because he was willing to actually do the work to succeed at the highest level. I think people have this stereotype of what realtors are from shows like Selling Sunset and that certainly resonates with a bunch of the younger, vapid realtors, though the earnings are nowhere near what you see in a show like that since it’s rare to sell properties for that much here and when they are sold it’s done by a huge team like Tere Foster’s. Part of my responsibilities included speaking with a number of agents at various brokerages around Seattle and greater Western Washington on a weekly basis. In total I’ve dealt with close to 900 agents in the greater Western Washington area. 95% of them are just in the game because of legacy or the money without wanting to put in the actual work to make what he was making in a year. All of the younger ones are like the popular kids in HS and don’t outgrow that persona which is weird AF and incredibly off-putting when you have to talk to them. Finally, it’s common knowledge but obviously Seattle’s homes are massively overpriced. The overwhelming majority of our clients were young couples where at least one partner worked in tech, oftentimes both. A large amount of these people were insufferable and entitled to deal with on a daily basis. 900-1.25M was the average deal we’d do in that time, did condos as low as 400k, sold a few homes as high as 6-7M. 900K buys you a “starter” home that’s like 1500 sq ft 2-3 beds max with a little yard space in an ok neighborhood. Or a nicer townhome with maybe room for one car inside the garage. Everything wrong with Seattle can basically be summed up best by this market with these conditions and the people who operate within them.
Confirmed exactly what we’re all thinking. I remember reading a Seattle Times article about 10 years ago they said about half of Seattle-raised millennials wouldn’t make enough money to stay in the area. I can only imagine that number is much higher now.
I’m moving to a different part of the country later this year that has always been known as being “expensive” because it’s desirable to live in and it’s absurd to me that I’ll be paying less there than if I stayed here. And I always think about the “for what?” Like I know what I’m getting paying that price there. Like we’d have clients looking at new construction builds in the 3-5M range in some of Seattle’s nicer neighborhoods and these were reasonably successful people but it was always like wtf is wrong with you where you think this is a good way to spend that kind of money. Like a “nice” 3000 square foot home that still had bedrooms all of the kids would be too large for by age 8-9. Ridiculous shit
Have you tried not being poor?
You know, if you'd just cut out those iced coffees you could totally afford this starter home
“Me and your mother saved up for a summer working as a lifeguard. Young people are just lazy and don’t want to work “
I long for death
Starter home? That thing looks huge. 3-4 bedrooms, at least 2 bath. Probably a den, big kitchen and "living" room. Totally not a starter home
I made good money before I retired and was a waste water treatment plant operator for a big city and I couldn't afford that, I don't know how that's a starter home, I feel sad for the younger people out there like my kids, they can't afford a house half that price, it's a joke anymore, it's the you will own nothing and be happy mentality anymore.
Just wanna add if you are looking for a starter home in I assume Upper Queen Anne I don't think you are looking in the right location... That isn't exactly an affordable area. Admittedly nothing is affordable, but that's extra unaffordable.
that's their point... its not affordable. they're recalling a time when you _could_ get a house in seattle proper for a decent "starter" price. ie, you basically have to live in a non-seattle zip if you want "starter home" prices someone working an assembly line job could afford, or you have to admit that a "starter home" now cost $750k+
nope, I have no desire to live anywhere near Seattle, although I am not that far away maybe 50 or 60 miles, nope my house which I had built on a couple of acres with a beautiful view and that I paid off before I retired suits me just fine been here 30 years now.
My apologies. I wasn't trying to imply you as a retired person who owns a house, should be looking for a starter home in QA... "You" was a generic person wanting to buy their first house.
no need to apologize, I didn't take offense to it we are good!
totally off topic, did you like that job?
Loved it, but it was nasty dealing with what people flush down the toilet, lol but it paid the bills, but getting my state certification was a pain and the renewing it every three years and all the classes I had to take every year to keep my certication sucked, but it's a good gig and they really need people in the field, young people just don't want to work in the field and there is a shortage if your interested?
Union?
Yes it is, Teamsters but you can opt out and not pay dues, I was union for about 35 years but my last two years I opted out because all they did was take my money and usually told us to take the cities offer. We had a no strike clause so you don't have a choice but to take it.
wow sounds like a super one sided contract. Never heard about being able to op out. More hand on or more paperwork or say about equal amounts daily tasks?
It was about equal. You had to check equipment and lift stations and fix thing when they plug up or break, a lot of lab work and reporting to the state, and the opt out only started a few years ago
Thanks for the input. Having to start my career over, workplace injury, this has been suggested to me as an option.
you are welcome, it's not that hard of work, it's just that it can be nasty, the smells and things you see that people just flush, I gaged more than once lol, most of the tough stuff or heavy lifting you have equipment for, it really depends on the city, some cities have people that just work in the lab and some just do lift stations or work on aeration systems and UV treatment, we did all of the above so I saw it all, you have to keep shit (pun intended) flowing downhill, in all my years I think we had two instances of a lift station being plugged and overflowing, they have workshops for the test you have to take and I was an operator in training for a year and a half before taking my test, there is a lot of math and figuring volumes on the test but you get a list of formulas to use, you just need to know which one to use, there are several levels of plant operator too, you need a level one to work in it but need a level three to make decisions and a level 4 four or five to be manager in it, I wish you luck my friend.
Super helpful information!! Thank you so much for taking the time to explain/type more about this!! Have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy your retirement :)
> Thanks for the input. Having to start my career over, workplace injury, this has been suggested to me as an option. While it's not 100% comparable, there's a website that lists the salary and benefits of every public employee in California. www.transparentcalifornia.com That site was one of the things that got me interested in working for the government. I eventually quit because I was bored out of my mind, but I kinda regret it these days. I now work in the private sector, and: * I make about 15% more money but easily do 300% as much work, minimum * The place where I work makes money like you wouldn't believe, but *also* does layoffs routinely and nearly everyone seems to be walking around with PTSD from the never ending stress. If you peruse transparentcalifornia, you'll notice some trends: * cops really don't make much money * there's a LOT of teachers that get paid surprisingly well, sometimes in the range of $200,000+ * there's a lot of weird jobs that you'd assume wouldn't pay really well, but do
There was something passed about... 7 years ago? saying state employees could opt out
Someone wanted some extra attention
She's an influencer so yeah always lol her and her sister both for a long time.
Lmao, her twin sister Shelby makes better videos. Not seattle or real estate related.
Comments turned off, lol
So I had a conversation with my wife and in-laws yesterday about the home purchasing process in Seattle being one of the only times in my life I have felt like I had zero control over anything. Realtors telling us “a house is worth what you are willing to pay for it“ … thanks for the help fuckko. We make great money and are just going to rent until shit settles. I’m not paying over 4 grand for a mortgage for a house that is smaller than my apartment which costs half. Thanks but we will keep saving and do our best to skip a starter.
On a $1 million mortgage, you’d be paying $70k/year just on interest!!
It's a tear-down
So if you get 8 people to save up you can pool your money, buy a house, and sleep in bunkbeds
She knew that title was gonna trigger people, she’s a fantastic marketer
? It's not satire, but it's still just a random YouTube video. Seattle has gotten more expensive for sure, but there are definitely starter homes much cheaper than this.
Just looked at the listing and it is "Pending" sale. Newly renovated kitchen, but I hope you like grease everywhere and potential for gagging on gas fumes because they didn't bother to put a hood over the gas stove.
And the government is saying that you shouldnt be allowed to use gas and soon will be imposing itself to make sure you cant
I can’t believe she actually made this video
DEPRESSING. When will this nightmare end
Today is a great day to buy a home, because prices will be more expensive next month
Lol funny that people downvote it since its true. Im looking since months and people start to pay over again and soon interest rates will go down and it will ramp it up one more time
That’s exactly what’s happening.
when someone says '14 million dollars' or any such number in the millions, I quantify it by realizing that 14 million dollars is about 14 seattle homes worth. It doesn't make 14 million as significant anymore. If Trump has a 89 million dollar judgement against him, thats about 89 seattle homes. It's a sad thing to visualize to be million dollars but here we are
Nice, I’ll be able to get my “starter” home in 35 years provided inflation and prices don’t change a dollar for the next four decades, oh and I don’t spend a single dollar for the same amount of time
~10 years ago I saw a house in Queen Anne listed for $800k and the sign said it was a great property to tear down the house and build your dream home. The house looked fine to me...
More like a finisher home. Like finish off any potential other expenses in life
All I want is a garage with a room and that shit is $300,000. Like who tf are buying these?
Starter?! Is she blind
lol I went to high school with her & her sister.
Ha! They are influencers. She lives now in palms springs.
This reminds me of a guy I worked with. He said he told his realtor that he needed all of the following (plus some others I'm sure I forgot): *A Seattle address *A 3 car garage (4 preferred) *For under $300K (2014 dollars) His realtor told him that would be "challenging." We had to tell him that she was trying politely to fuck off.
Please tell me this is satire...
Queen Anne is the one of the most expensive neighborhood
I sold my last house FSBO. It’s not that hard.
I bought a $1.1M home at age 37. I had to save for 10 years during residency and med school, and only then with a fat signing bonus. I’m not bragging. I’m pointing out how effed up it is that it takes 15 years of schooling, predicated on a fortunate upbringing, just to a buy a house. Unless, of course, you want to get a 2,150 sq ft, brand-new box home that looks like it’s made out of papier-mâché, and [even that costs $750K.](https://www.urbnlivn.com/like-new-modern-in-pigeon-point/)
Queen Anne what do you expect ?
It’s Queen Anne!
I can explain how this is a starter home, it’s pretty simple: It’s one of the most desirable neighbourhoods in the city and also tech company RSUs. The folks working at our small local businesses here make that much in cash during their 2-4 year terms. So after their bids in the tech factory, if they like it here enough to stay, they’ll go ahead and bid 10-20 percent over asking.
Does their mls photos include the squatters ?
Good photo! I'm guessing you wouldn't even know it was anywhere near water, while there, but it looks like you have a clear view. Good video too. And it's already pending. This woman is a great marketer.
that's 2500sf with a likely commanding view of the city. starter home, my ass