House Has "Spectacular Room to Grow Marijuana"

February 10, 2010 By 5 Comments

4 Bdrm 4 bath 4,400 sq./ft. hillside home on 4 plus acres, 7 min. from Middleton. Master suite with whirlpool and deck. Fieldstone fireplace, wraparound porch, storm/wine cellar, spectacular room to grow marijuana, open floor plan, elevator and handicap accessible with in-law suite. 2 1/2 car garage with lower level shop. Separate 40′ x 60′ commercial grade shop with loft, office and 3/4 bath. Perfect for toys or animals. Middleton-Cross Plains schools. $675,000

So say the MLS remarks of this listing.  Don’t believe me?  Here it is on the MLS itself, along with the contact info for the listing agent and the seller, who appears to be representing himself.

How on earth is this possible?  Well, based on what I can see, this broker seems to allow sellers to enter their own listings into the MLS, a horrifying thought.  The other option is that this was input by the listing agent… which seems more horrifying than the seller doing it.  In case the property details have been changed by the time you read this, here is a PDF of the marijuana house (2).

I occasionally see comments from the public saying things like: REALTORS are worthless, the MLS is a monopoly that needs to be forced to allow anyone to publish to it, MLS data should be public, and that Google/Trulia/Zillow/Craigslist make the MLS a thing of the past.  My counter to those comments is now clearer than ever: just look at this listing.

However this listing was posted to the MLS, the content of it is not permitted.  Because the MLS is controlled by a professional organization (the REALTORS), there will most certainly be a correction made and it is highly likely (hopefully) that some kind of penalty will be issued to the agent.  When it comes to accurate information about homes for sale or those that have sold, the MLS is in a field of its own.  While there are problems that do arise occasionally (this is an extreme example) this data is far more consistent and accurate than public options because it is a controlled system.

REALTORS are no longer the gatekeepers to the listings of homes for sale, but when it comes to ensuring the data is reliable, we still play the key role.  Most of the sites consumers use online to find homes for sale use data that originally came from the REALTOR and/or MLS.  I spend a lot of time helping buyers find the right house and helping sellers find a buyer, but I’d spend a whole lot more time if I didn’t have a reliable resource to use.

Because I have reliable information, even though finding the right house may take a lot of time, it is by far the easiest part of my job – its everything that happens after the right house is found that takes all of my skill, experience and knowledge.  Every day this job takes more to do right, something that runs counter to what you’d expect in an industry in the midst of a technology shift.  The problem is that no matter what new gadgets, software and web sites may be made, real estate is very complex and variable.  Though there are certainly both good and bad agents, this job would be practically impossible without the systems we REALTORS have in place.

Filed Under: Info for Buyers, Info for Sellers, MLS Compliment & Criticism, Opinion

Think REALTORS Are Rich?

January 13, 2010 By 1 Comment

The 3 local REALTOR associations released 2009 housing statistics and I started going through them and my eyes were drawn to the number of closed sales in 2009 -  45,200.

Since most sales have a Buyer’s Agent and a Seller’s Agent, we’re looking at a total of approximately 90,000 trasaction “sides.”

The Twin Cities associations have approximately 15,000 members between them.  When you divide 90,000 transaction sides by 15,000 agents you end up with an average 6 transaction sides per agent.  Taking into account commissions and average sales price, the “average” REALTOR in the Twin Cities makes somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per year in gross commissions.

From the $30,000 – $40,000 per year in gross commissions, they have to pay:

  • Commission splits with their broker (often 10% – 50%)
  • Gas & car maintenance (IRS says it is $.55 per mile – 5,000 to 15,000 miles/yr is easy to do)
  • Technology (cell phones, computers, printers, etc – can easily be $500 – $1000 year)
  • MLS & lock box fees (approx $540/yr)
  • REALTOR membership fees ($350/yr)
  • FICA taxes (15%, twice that of W2 employees)
  • Healthcare costs (brokers don’t buy their agents health insurance)
  • Marketing costs (typically 5% – 10% of income)

The ”average” REALTOR isn’t making much money at all!

If you get into it though, you’ll see a large number of REALTORS do not sell anything in a year – they hold onto their license for myriad reasons but don’t actively sell.  We also have many agents that are part-timers or semi-retired and only do a few sales a year, so these can also drag down the numbers substantially.

There are also agents that are making decent income and do this as their full-time job - in 2009 they had to sell more houses to make the same money but they are still earning a fair salary.

The last segment of REALTORS are the stars and superstars – these agents often sell dozens of houses per year or more - some agents are in teams that can sell 100+ per year – and these agents are financially very successful.

Regardless of how much a REALTOR makes, I believe nearly every one of them would say this job is far more difficult and time consuming now than at any time in the last decade.  It seems almost every sale has a speed bump or four and some have gigantic road blocks that take forever to get around or sometimes cannot be avoided.  If anyone questioned whether agents earn their commission, I’d say today that the ones that are working hard and doing right by their clients have earned every penny.

Filed Under: Community Issues, Foreclosures and Short Sales, Market Stats, MLS Compliment & Criticism, Opinion, Personal Experiences Tagged With: ,

Bad MLS Photos

December 3, 2009 By 3 Comments

I wanted to show you just a sampling of the bad photos I see online each day but since they are the property of the agent that took them, I would need to call and ask them for permission.  Could you imagine that call?

Uh hi, my name is Aaron Dickinson and I am blogging about the aweful photos I see on the MLS every day and I’d like to feature one of your photos.  Do you mind?

I’m guessing that I’d be told to go do something to myself and promptly hung up on.

My biggest pet peeve is when there are no interior photos or the photos are so blurry that you cannot make out much.  This is especially annoying on high-end homes that are really set apart by their details and not simply: “here is a bedroom.”

I wonder how many sellers of these listings know how bad their house is being advertised…

If you want some examples, other agents have created blogs about this topic and included photos… to their potential peril someday in the future.

Filed Under: Foreclosures and Short Sales, MLS Compliment & Criticism, Personal Experiences, Useless Ramblings Tagged With:

1000's of Pending Home Sales may be Missing from MLS Reporting

October 6, 2009 By 3 Comments

The Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors has a fantastic assortment of stats that are published on weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly cycles.  These reports are based off the listing data provided by our local MLS, the Regional MLS of Minnesota.

As anyone who works with data knows, the statistics you create are only as good as the data underlying it – also known as: “garbage in, garbage out.”

The RMLS has several different statuses for MLS listings like: Active, Pending, and Sold.  As anyone in the housing market today knows, many homes listed as “Active” are really “Pending” because they have an offer accepted subject to inspection or in the case of REO (bank owned) & short sale homes, they often have multiple offers on them already.  Because our MLS does not have a status for “Active with Offer,” Realtors and consumers have a hard time finding out what properties are truly available until the agent sets up a showing – a very frustrating and time consuming process.

Luckily, some Realtors have been adding to their MLS remarks fields information about listings being “sold subject inspection” or “short sale offer accepted- backup offers only.”

MLS Shadow Pendings Example

On Monday  I looked at these remarks fields and searched for terms used to describe accepted offers subject to inspection, multiple offers, and offers subject to bank approval.  What I found was that there are 884 listings that are currently marked Active but look to be “Pending.”  Of these 884 listings, 675 were short sale and an additional 50 were bank owned, making a total of 82% of these shadow pendings “lender mediated.”

In my experience, more listings are never updated with these kind of remarks than are, so it is quite possible that more than 2000 listings that we see as available inventory are really not.

While the data that MAAR is currently publishing is entirely accurate based on the data they are provided, this clearly shows that there’s more activity happening than is currently reported- which to any buyer or agent in the field right now matches perfectly with our experiences.

Filed Under: Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Buyers, Info for Sellers, Market Stats, MLS Compliment & Criticism, Opinion, Personal Experiences Tagged With: , ,
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TwinCitiesRealEstateBlog.com is not a Multiple Listing Service MLS, nor does it offer MLS access.
This website is a service of Aaron Dickinson of Edina Realty, a broker Participant of the Regional Multiple Listing Service of Minnesota, Inc.