Why aren’t estate agents being made accountable for the state of the housing market?
November 23rd, 2009 by admin
I think the greed of estate agents, pushing up the prices with inflated valuations (usually on a whim) to increase their commission, is what created the current mess.
Why did/do they have free license to manipulate the market so much?
Although, I guess there’s an element of back-firing as the market has slowed down so much lately. Their commissions will be slumping.
Awww…what a shame!
First time buyers have a real job to find decent affordable housing that hasn’t been snapped up by developers.
I don’t blame the developers either.
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It isn’t the agents that are pushing up prices of homes it is supply and demand. People buy more homes when interest rates are low. The people who own the homes to be sold know that they can get more for their homes and try to ge the max. Agents get a commission and granted the commission is higher if the price is higher but the agents do not determine the price of homes. Basically if you want to call it gouging, it is the regular citizen who is gouging his fellow citizen.
Real estate agents don’t buy houses, consumers do. They are the ones who determine how much a house will sell for.
And RE agents don’t set the asking price. The owner does, after getting an appraisal from a licensed appraiser, not an agent.
If you can’t afford to live there, move. Land is $3000 an acre and houses sell for $85/ sq ft where I live.
You need to bone up on the laws of supply and demand.
That’ s like saying that’s Newspapers are responsible for the events they report.like it or not the housing market is just that,a market who’s prices are dictated by supply and demand.
I do know what you mean. The ‘value’ of a house can vary by around £50,000 where I live and it all depends on who’s looking at it – and yes, sometimes based on a whim or their mood at the time. I recently had a remortgage done in order to pay off debts and because some jumped-up little prick hadn’t got out of bed on the right side of the bed valued the house down about £30,000 less than the estimated market value meaning my family can’t pay off everything or afford our much-dreamed of holiday (we’ve never been on holiday) or do many of the things we had planned on doing.
It’s wrong that house prices can just be dictated in this way with no regulation. When an estate agent values a house they value at the MAXIMUM they think someone would pay. And it’s because us idiots are paying it that house prices are doing what they’re doing. And also because financiers are making it easier for us to get mortgages.
People are being way too greedy. I don’t know if its the agents or the sellers.
In Cardiff, first time buyers are leaving in their droves and buying up in the valleys, because simple little 3-bed terraces in the student quarter of Cardiff (ie not the best areas) are demanding stupid prices of £150,000-£200,000 and they are not worth it, plus few first time buyers can raise or afford the repayments on that size of mortgage. Go up into the valleys and you can find identical houses for £75,000 or so.
Of course this pushes the prices up in the valleys.
I only hope that at some point the greedy sellers will realise that noone is going to pay £175,000 for their crappy little terrace and face up to the fact that they have to drop the price. 7 or 8 years ago the same houses were going for £60,000!! Its just greed.