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Worst of 2007

Page history last edited by RealEstateCafe 15 years, 3 months ago

Add your thoughts, in concise bullet points, about the "Worst of 2007" from a real estate consumer's perspective.  Use this Retrospective from 2002 to measure how much progress has been made in the past five years.  You can also help coauthor the "Best of 2007".

 

Consumers win some, lose some

Guest perspective:  (Bill Wendel, Real Estate Cafe, see mini-bio below)

Home buyer advocate gives industry middling score for 2002

 

(Similar version originally published in Banker & Tradesman, slightly edited version republished by Inman News and is shown below.)

 

Trends and events in real estate last year were a mixed success for home buyers and sellers, according to an informal group of real estate rebels who champion a consumer-centered view of the industry.

 

This group, of which I am a member, includes buyer-only agents, fee-for-service consultants, discount listing services, for-sale-by-owner publishers and a few anonymous e-commerce types. We've been written off by some as being no more than misdirected self-proclaimed consumer advocates whose views are upside down and backwards. But we view our own perspective as a competitive advantage.

 

We've put together what one industry leader called an "appropriately provocative" list of the most and least favorable developments in 2002 for real estate consumers.

 

The least favorable trends and developments were:

 

1. Worst of 2002:  The nation's record foreclosure rate is a loser for consumers, despite innovative workout solutions now widely used by Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and private lenders. Even if Congress and President Bush acted immediately to extend unemployment insurance for 750,000 households, the foreclosure rate most likely would continue to rise.

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

2. Worst of 2002:  Record low interest rates combined with billions of dollars flowing out of the stock market into real estate created an artificial spike in housing prices.

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

3. Worst of 2002:  NAR's VOW policy attempted to restrict consumers' access to listing information, causing ZDNet to write a story, "Realtors to Internet: Drop dead."

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

4. Worst of 2002:  After NAR took its battle against the banks into Congress, the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury decided to delay for one year before deciding whether banks can offer residential brokerage services.

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

5. Worst of 2002:  NAR alleged that the FSBO rate is declining, despite the fact that ISoldMyHouse.com, a single FSBO Web site in Massachusetts, claimed in radio advertisements to have 10,000 for-sale homes. Some of the data appear to be stale, but the total still is more properties than the number found in the Boston Globe's online real estate section.

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

6. Worst of 2002:  More promising real estate dot-coms failed or ran out of cash.

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

7. Worst of 2002:  Industry consolidation has reduced consumer choice so much that three Coldwell Banker offices in Concord, Mass., are now located within 200 yards of one another on Main Street. Is that what NAR meant when it called its banks-out-of-brokerage bill the "Community Choice in Real Estate Act"?

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

8. Worst of 2002:  The success of the agency lawsuit in Alaska has caused Realtor-dominated agency study committees to redraft agency and disclosure regulations in a number of states rather than redoubling their efforts to have members comply with the law.

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

9. Worst of 2002:  The National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents and its state-level counterparts missed an opportunity to champion consumers' rights in the VOW debate.

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

10. Worst of 2002:  Post-9/11 anxieties, stock market losses, mold claims costs and other factors have created a crisis in homeowner's insurance that has delayed home sale closings in a number of states. Consumer advocates have formed a group to fight back and have captured media attention with stories of price gouging and blacklists of supposedly "uninsurable" homeowners.

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

11. Worst of 2002:  Regulators in California are cracking down on FSBO Web sites.

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

12. Worst of 2002:  Regulators in Texas tried to impose minimum service standards on listing-only brokerage services providers in that state.

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

13. Worst of 2002:  Homes.com unsuccessfully attempted to cut off service to San Diego, Calif.-based discount brokerage HouseRebate.com because of pressure from full-fee listing Homes.com customers.

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

14. Worst of 2002:  Consumer Union's call for an investigation of the real estate industry and creation of a real estate consumer bill of rights, both issued in May 2001 during the nonprofit group's Congressional testimony about banks as brokers, went unheeded (but is still echoing in some important places).

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

15. Worst of 2002:  Many low-to-moderate-income first-time buyers who bought homes in 2002 with little or no money down will be the first to slide into negative equity if prices fall in their market. MIT economist William Wheaton predicted housing prices could fall 10 percent in Greater Boston during the next two years. 

 

2007 Update:  (Email to contribute to wiki)

 

 

 


 

Bill Wendel is a pioneer of fee-for-service real estate brokerage and founder of The Real Estate Cafe. April 2003 will mark the 10th anniversary of "Consumer Revolution in Real Estate," a two-day national conference Wendel produced and hosted at the World Trade Center in Boston. The conference featured keynote speeches by Ralph Nader and Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America. Wendel's RealEstateCafe Web site is under reconstruction.

 

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