For What It's Worth January 7, 2005
Don’t Hang Up
I recently received a call from a potential buyer inquiring about some new construction she’d seen advertised. I knew the house well and we made an appointment to view it. Although (I thought) I made clear that it wasn’t this firm’s listing, the buyer later called back in a bit of a snit to cancel our appointment. She had “discovered” she said, that another firm held the listing and she would be seeing the property with that firm. I gave up arguing for a living some time ago but I still think this woman made a mistake, and here’s why: a listing agent owes a fiduciary duty to her seller, not the buyer, and cannot tell the buyer that there’s a better house just around the corner or anything negative about the house at all. A buyer’s agent can. I happened to think that the particular house the caller was interested in was over-priced and had made arrangements to show her five additional houses, three of which were not yet on the market. Had she liked any of them she could have saved herself around a half million dollars. Or not, but at least she’d have seen a wide range of new houses instead of just one.
Which is not to say that you should never view a house with its listing broker. If you want to see one specific house the listing broker may be the best person to show it. Often, the listing agent knows more about the house than anyone else (but not always. When I called to check the progress on one bit of new construction I was told that the “sides” were going up within a week. Some of us refer to that part of the structure as walls.). And of course, we all love to sell our own listings because we get to keep the entire commission instead of splitting it with another agent. But most people want to see several houses before buying so that they can compare them. A buyer’s agent can do that and give some guidance by, for instance, suggesting that one house is over-priced, or that the street it is on isn’t as quiet as a street around the corner or that a nicer house is about to come up for sale. The seller’s agent can’t do that. So if you’re looking to buy a house, my advice is to find an agent who knows the market—all of the market—and don’t limit the advice you can receive.
Price Record
The beautiful new house at 30 Arch Street (overlooking Binney Park) just sold for $4.125 million. I didn’t see the inside but those agents who did report that it’s fabulous. The same builder sold something similar and right next door for around $3.4 million last year so I can’t say that I’m astonished at this price, but it does put a new perspective on what new houses can sell for, even in Riverside.
Google
Because I’m so special (or because my cousin Henry edits the Science and Circuits sections of the New York Times, take your pick) I’ve had the opportunity to try the beta version of Google’s Gmail the past two months. So far, it’s great. There’s unlimited storage and messages are linked in “conversations” so that you don’t have to prowl all over creation looking for lost correspondence. And it’s free. Look for it, I think, during the coming year.
Here’s an Opportunity
A Ms. Clare Cooper Marcus conducts counseling services for people having difficulties with their homes. This involves role playing sessions between the owner and the house with Ms. Marcus playing the house. “I’ve always been sensitive to the needs of houses,” says she. “Having a home respond usually relieves a client’s anxiety and stress within the first hour.” One hundred dollars an hour plus, presumably, travel time, as the good doctor is based in Berkeley California, where else?
Salesman of the Year
I recently learned that a Realtor in Rye was conducting a house tour when he and his clients discovered the owner conducting a final nap in his arm chair. When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go, I suppose, but I’m terrifically impressed that, once the excitement died down, the agent sold the house to those customers. No word whether the corpse was part of the deal.
And Finally
The last two items may make you want to engage in the latest craze to be imported from our left coast, a feng shui inspection. Just such an inspection was among the contingencies in a house deal this year, the first in town that I am aware of. The house passed but the deal fell through anyway: bad roof.
I recently received a call from a potential buyer inquiring about some new construction she’d seen advertised. I knew the house well and we made an appointment to view it. Although (I thought) I made clear that it wasn’t this firm’s listing, the buyer later called back in a bit of a snit to cancel our appointment. She had “discovered” she said, that another firm held the listing and she would be seeing the property with that firm. I gave up arguing for a living some time ago but I still think this woman made a mistake, and here’s why: a listing agent owes a fiduciary duty to her seller, not the buyer, and cannot tell the buyer that there’s a better house just around the corner or anything negative about the house at all. A buyer’s agent can. I happened to think that the particular house the caller was interested in was over-priced and had made arrangements to show her five additional houses, three of which were not yet on the market. Had she liked any of them she could have saved herself around a half million dollars. Or not, but at least she’d have seen a wide range of new houses instead of just one.
Which is not to say that you should never view a house with its listing broker. If you want to see one specific house the listing broker may be the best person to show it. Often, the listing agent knows more about the house than anyone else (but not always. When I called to check the progress on one bit of new construction I was told that the “sides” were going up within a week. Some of us refer to that part of the structure as walls.). And of course, we all love to sell our own listings because we get to keep the entire commission instead of splitting it with another agent. But most people want to see several houses before buying so that they can compare them. A buyer’s agent can do that and give some guidance by, for instance, suggesting that one house is over-priced, or that the street it is on isn’t as quiet as a street around the corner or that a nicer house is about to come up for sale. The seller’s agent can’t do that. So if you’re looking to buy a house, my advice is to find an agent who knows the market—all of the market—and don’t limit the advice you can receive.
Price Record
The beautiful new house at 30 Arch Street (overlooking Binney Park) just sold for $4.125 million. I didn’t see the inside but those agents who did report that it’s fabulous. The same builder sold something similar and right next door for around $3.4 million last year so I can’t say that I’m astonished at this price, but it does put a new perspective on what new houses can sell for, even in Riverside.
Because I’m so special (or because my cousin Henry edits the Science and Circuits sections of the New York Times, take your pick) I’ve had the opportunity to try the beta version of Google’s Gmail the past two months. So far, it’s great. There’s unlimited storage and messages are linked in “conversations” so that you don’t have to prowl all over creation looking for lost correspondence. And it’s free. Look for it, I think, during the coming year.
Here’s an Opportunity
A Ms. Clare Cooper Marcus conducts counseling services for people having difficulties with their homes. This involves role playing sessions between the owner and the house with Ms. Marcus playing the house. “I’ve always been sensitive to the needs of houses,” says she. “Having a home respond usually relieves a client’s anxiety and stress within the first hour.” One hundred dollars an hour plus, presumably, travel time, as the good doctor is based in Berkeley California, where else?
Salesman of the Year
I recently learned that a Realtor in Rye was conducting a house tour when he and his clients discovered the owner conducting a final nap in his arm chair. When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go, I suppose, but I’m terrifically impressed that, once the excitement died down, the agent sold the house to those customers. No word whether the corpse was part of the deal.
And Finally
The last two items may make you want to engage in the latest craze to be imported from our left coast, a feng shui inspection. Just such an inspection was among the contingencies in a house deal this year, the first in town that I am aware of. The house passed but the deal fell through anyway: bad roof.
posted by Chris Fountain at 6:58 PM
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