Real Estate Agent Near Me

.... 3 or 4/10 for me. There are glimmers of light... where he connects with the real estate agent because of his avant-garde poetry ... single gold nugget that wowed me: The scene involving Sean Astin’s ... I can say to get me out of this” before he ... completely calm conversation that struck me as so surprising in this ... subtitles for the Russian lines near the end of the film, ...

... say simple things simply. The estate agent had not yet lied to ... him. "Fine," he said. "Show me the disaster." It was not, ... few steps in and stopped near the middle. This was the ... anyone sit out there?" The agent opened his mouth. "No," Alric said, lifting a hand. "Do not describe the charm to me. I can smell it." Seren ... it was broad enough for real work, with counters that had ...

... having a family in the near enough future, should I still ... can I know if a real estate agent is trustworthy? Google reviews probably ... google search of the posting agent shows a lot of negative/... wrong, hope anyone can correct me if im misleading anything.

... ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (...BH4071 ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...BH Property Line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL. Real Estate Broker รับ... Casa Legend Rama 5-Ratchaphruek Near Central Westville Fully Built-in ... a prime residential area near Central Westville and international ... Nearby Places Near Central Westville Near The Walk Ratchaphruek Near The Crystal...expats Property Code BH4071 Contact Agent Bua Tel 0936464597 Line ...

..."This stays between you and me until we're certain they haven't ... teeth. "He specifically told me 'not to worry' about him. ...agent on the matter. "See, the U.S. tried to build their own space elevator near... in Global Justice, a real die-hard. He worshiped the ground ... gone quiet—they're feeding me bad information. I would have ...ESPIONAGE for Handyman) The Fourth Estate (AP 0): Public relations? More ...

...น์ ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...์ BH4066 ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...: BH Property Line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL. Real Estate Broker รับ... working area Nearby Places Near Town in Town Near The Scene Town... 10312 Property Code BH4066 Contact Agent Bua Tel 0936464597 Line Bua093...

...้ ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...ร ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (... BH Property Line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL. Real Estate Broker รับ...Pradaeng Samut Prakan Thailand Contact Agent Bua Tel 0936464597 Line ID...BH Property Service by PL Real Estate Broker Property services for sale...factory warehouse office and commercial real estate factory for rent Phra Pradaeng...factory purple zone Thailand warehouse near Bangkok BST1091 ให้เ...

... R&B ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...์ BH4068 ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...: BH Property Line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL. Real Estate Broker รับ... or business operators Nearby Places Near Chitralada Palace Easy access to... 10300 Property Code BH4068 Contact Agent Bua Tel 0936464597 Line Bua093...

...ิ ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (... Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker รับ... in a prime Bangna location near international schools, shopping malls, ... Bang Phli Samut Prakan Contact Agent Bua Tel: 093-646-4597 LINE ID...Property Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker Property sales...condos, offices, land, and all real estate types. #BangkokBoulevard #BangnaHouse #LuxuryHouse #HouseForRent...

...10110 ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (... Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker รับ...meters from Thonglor 23 entrance Near Honmono Japanese Restaurant Close ...Nuea, Watthana Bangkok 10110 Contact Agent Bua Tel: 093-646-4597 LINE ... Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker Property sales...condos, houses, land, and all real estate types. #Thonglor23 #BuildingForRent #HomeOffice #LuxuryOffice...

...: BH Property Line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL. Real Estate Broker รับ... Unit 2 Storey Fully Furnished Near Pink Line Khu Bon Station... in a peaceful residential area near Pink Line MRT and expressway... CCTV Garden and playground Location Near Pink Line MRT Khu Bon... Promenade Property Code BH4041 Contact Agent Bua Tel 0936464597 Line Bua093... rent Ramintra Bangkok detached house near Pink Line MRT family house...

...ิท ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...์ BH4049 ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...: BH Property Line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL. Real Estate Broker รับ... Market Thonglor Samitivej Sukhumvit Hospital Near BTS Thong Lo Suitable for... 10110 Property Code BH4049 Contact Agent Bua Tel 0936464597 Line Bua093...

...ว ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...์ BH4043 ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...: BH Property Line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL. Real Estate Broker รับ... Location Ramkhamhaeng 2 Prawet Bangkok near Bangna Easy access to Bangna... home Property Code BH4043 Contact Agent Bua Tel 0936464597 Line Bua093... house Bangkok for rent house near Bangna fully furnished BH4043 ใ...

...ยู่ ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...์ BH4036 ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...: BH Property Line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL. Real Estate Broker รับ... The Town Permsin 1 located near Phaholyothin Soi 52 quiet and... Bangkok Property Code BH4036 Contact Agent Bua Tel 0936464597 Line Bua093...

...BH Property Line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL. Real Estate Broker รับ... Storey Sathorn Soi 11 Near BTS Saint Louis Walkable ... Sathorn CBD prime location near BTS ideal for living ...Walking distance to BTS Transportation Near BTS Saint Louis about ...500–600 m Near BTS Chong Nonsi about ...Bangkok Property Code BH4042 Contact Agent Bua Tel 0936464597 Line ... Sathorn for rent house near BTS Saint Louis Bangkok ...

... Sansiri ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...์ BH4034 ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...: BH Property Line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL. Real Estate Broker รับ... for Rent DEMI Sathu 49 Near Sathorn Rama 3 Private Lift... Sathu 49 by Sansiri located near Sathorn CBD and Rama 3... Sathupradit Soi 49 Sathorn Bangkok Near Sathorn CBD and Rama 3... Bangkok Property Code BH4034 Contact Agent Bua Tel 0936464597 Line Bua093...

...foreseen much grovelling in the near future. She just prayed that ... and sprinted for the Count's estate. "Mademoiselle!" Professor Colbert called out.... is no agent of the Reconquista." "And what would you have me believe he.... "P-professor?!" He nodded to the estate. "We must go! Now!" G-go? ... door to the pantry damn near popped off its hinges as ... it pissed him off something real bad. But they were here ...

...ูง ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...ร ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...: BH Property Line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL. Real Estate Broker รับ... for Rent Setthasiri Bangna KM10 near Mega Bangna and Suvarnabhumi Airport... Location Highlights Bangna Trad KM10 Near Mega Bangna and IKEA Close... School 9.4 km Contact Agent Bua Tel 0936464597 Line Bua093... rent Mega Bangna Bangkok house near airport expat house Bangna rental...

... Rent at D65 Sukhumvit 65 near BTS Ekkamai. Fully furnished studio... Highlights Quiet and relaxing atmosphere Near BTS Ekkamai Easy access to... roads Close to Gateway Ekkamai Near Sukhumvit Hospital Surrounded by community... Nuea, Watthana, Bangkok 10110 Contact Agent Bua Tel: 093-646-4597 LINE ID... Property Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker Property sales...

...Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker รั... minutes to Mega Bangna Near IKEA Bangna Easy access... expressway and Kanchanaphisek Road Near international schools and shopping...Bang Phli Samut Prakan Contact Agent Bua Tel: 093-646-4597 LINE...Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker Property ...land, offices, and all real estate types. #HouseForRent #BangnaHouse #CentroBangna #LuxuryHouse...

... ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว ...10230 ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว ...Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker รั... from multiple routes Near Central EastVille Near CDC Crystal Design ... Phrao, Bangkok 10230 Contact Agent Bua Tel: 093-646-4597 LINE ...Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker Property sales... condos, houses, and all real estate types. #OfficeForRent #OfficeBuilding #LatPhrao71 #BangkokOffice...

...10310 ติดต่อ Agent คุณบัว (Bua...Property Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker รับ...@ Vone Tower Rama 9 near MRT Rama 9. Fully furnished... Huai Khwang, Bangkok 10310 Contact Agent Bua Tel: 093-646-4597 LINE ID...Property Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker Property sales... condos, houses, land, and all real estate types. #OfficeForRent #Rama9Office #BangkokOffice #ServicedOffice...

...: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker ร...163, Bangkok. Convenient location near residential community, suitable for...operations Highlights Prime location near community area Easy ...Kum, Bangkok 10230 Contact Agent Bua Tel: 093-646-4597 ...Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker Property...condos, houses, and all real estate types. #WarehouseForRent #BangkokWarehouse #NawaminWarehouse ...

...: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker ร... to move in, near Suvarnabhumi Airport, suitable for ... 24-hour security system Near swimming pool only 2 ... Nong Chok, Bangkok Contact Agent Bua Tel: 093-646-4597 LINE ID...Line: line.me/ti/p/VLsrAErtoX PL Real Estate Broker Property sales...land, offices, and all real estate types. #HouseForRent #LatKrabangHouse #BangkokHouse #SuvarnabhumiHouse...

I have rented many apartments through my 40 years of living and never paid a brokerage fee for a rental until now. Usually, when I was interested in renting a property I always spoke with the landlord or management agency directly and applied that way. But this time around things were completely different. I saw a listing and area I was really interested in renting in as my current lease has just ended. When I went to try to contact the info that was provided on the website advertising the listing a real estate agent called me and then started talking a little about the property and asking me personal questions. I was then able to schedule a day to see the rental available. The day I saw the rental the realtor was literally texting the entire time or playing Instagram or TikTok reels. The phone volume was so loud that I could tell they were on social media. I had a few questions regarding the property and every time I asked a question they just texted on the phone chewing their gum obnoxiously and kept saying they were unsure or had to get back to me. They seemed like they had no clue about the property for which they wanted a broker's fee. They were unprepared throughout the entire process. After that, the realtor requested a lot of my personal info and email to send the application. I wasn’t able to apply on any of the websites advertising the listing I feel that even the application was being gate-kept from the realtor. I spent 40 dollars paying for an application and submitting it. Then days later the realtor calls me and requests that I sign a bunch of documents to move forward and was telling me I will not get the apartment without their representation. And they were also fear-mongering to me that there were tons more applicants ready if I didn’t sign. I feel like I got suckered into paying this real estate agent a 2k broker fee to do absolutely nothing. Every time they called or texted me they were extremely disrespectful and condescending and talked to me like I was a human trash and not worthy of even communicating with them. Even in person they always spoke down to me. They have given me more stress and an uneasy feeling more than anything and made me drive nearly an hour to get the keys from their office instead of meeting me at the apartment. I just feel like I was scammed as they did absolutely nothing for me. I never felt this way before I just feel so uneasy I got forced to have this person represent me when I didn’t want anything to do with them but they kept threatening me that I won’t get the apartment unless they represent me. It just feels hostile and predatory the way this all works. I really wanted this apartment so I caved and took all this abuse but I just don't get how people can get away with this. The messed up part is on their social media and realtor profile they have all these quotes saying they are all about the client and going above and beyond to make their client happy and comfortable and all that meanwhile this agent was the polar opposite of what they claim to aim for and what the testimonials say. I also have suspicions that all their reviews are fake and bought and their friends, family, and colleagues are writing them cause this person was the complete opposite of what all the positive reviews say. It sucks because I feel stuck. After all, if I really want a rental I can't even say anything to them. After all, they can be spiteful and speak to the owner, and make you look bad to the owner and the owner or management can decide not to accept your application. It just feels like a lose-lose situation. I ended up getting the apartment but it just left an eerie feeling in me having to deal with that nightmare of a realtor. submitted by /u/DashCamDriving101 to r/Westchester [link] [comments]

My husband and I have been quietly preparing ourselves to buy our first home this year. I have worked with the same real estate agent for all of my rentals for nearly 10 years and at one point had almost bought using his services (the financing fell through). This is someone I have built a relationship and know is very good at his job. He was the obvious choice for this next chapter. One of my close friends, I'll call her Lizzie, began dating a wonderful man, I'll call him George, about 2 1/2 years ago. Since they began dating he became a real estate agent. He is clearly good at his job and seems to be winning all sorts of awards from his brokerage and to have a steady influx of business coming his way. A few months ago, my husband and I had a night of drinking with Lizzie and George and our buying situation came up. I was quick to mention that it was on our radar and that we had a real estate agent. Lizzie remarked to George something like "see, I told you they already have someone." George went on to pitch himself as an option. I of course I heard him out. However, at no point in time did I imply that we would use him. I actually tried to make it really clear that my own real estate agent has spent many years fostering our business relationship by keeping in touch and doing things such as bringing us Christmas gifts. Perhaps I should have been clearer but it did not feel like George was pressuring us in any way. Fast forward to a month ago and Lizzie texted me as we were executing an agreement of purchase. The whole thing happened so fast. We got pre-approved 3 weeks prior to that and got in touch with my real estate agent shortly after that. This was an incredibly exciting moment for us and with her messaging I felt like it was time to mention that we purchased and that we hope they understand that we used my real estate agent. A week went by and she did not reply. Lizzie works a job that results in sporadic messaging so at first I did not think anything of the delay. As time went on I began to question whether we had actually upset them. I decided to message her again and ask. When I received a response from her later that evening I was SHOCKED. This is a friend who I value a lot and I could not believe what she was saying....which was basically that our decision to use my realtor makes them question us as friends because they value having people who are "loyal, trustworthy and support them". They took issue that we did not make an effort to consult with them prior to making our decision and took it as a jab at George's abilities. It seriously felt like a breakup text. Ultimately, we made the decision to keep business and personal separate plus we already had an agent. I never anticipated that they would put this kind of obligation on us as their close friends, especially when it came to the biggest financial transaction of our lives. We never intended to hurt them. AITA? submitted by /u/RiskforthebisK to r/AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]

Ive broken lease after four years of renting at this property, I have sorted out all the issues needed sorting on the exit report and vacated two weeks ago. Yesterday the real estate has sent me an invoice for the replacing of two smoke alarms and the testing of all the alarms (nearly 400 dollars). I was asking a friend who has work in an agency and the friend told me i should have too pay as I've already vacated and the alarms weren't on the exit report (when I asked the agent why the alarms weren't on the report the agent said they aren't an electrician). Also the I was only informed of this when they sent the email. Any opinions would be appreciated as theyve now put my bond on hold because I told them I don't believe this is my issue. (There is another whole yarn about there being a little exposed abstestos but that's me getting up the real estate) submitted by /u/millzyrams to r/AusProperty [link] [comments]

We often hear the quoted #s of "the real estate industry has an over 90% failure rate". I think that stat was from when things were easier 5+ years ago. Now, it has to be closer to 99%. 5 years ago, a brand new clueless agent could join the industry and have a shot for a few reasons: Tons of movement during Covid, low rates Brand new agents could join and actually get leads for not too much money. Zillow leads were cheaper. Way cheaper. Teams could and would dish them to brand new agents. New agents could go and close them. Clueless agents could take a Zillow lead, meet them at a property, scratch their head, the client wants to submit an offer, the agent submits it, then gets paid by the listing agent and commission was clearly marked on MLS During Covid... people's restaurants and retail shops closed down or winded down. They got weekly checks from govt and PPP loans and said "You know what, I always thought I'd be a good real estate agent, let me go get my license as I can now afford to make nothing for 6 months". But here's the difference now: The NAR settlement changed everything. Can you imagine a buyer making the biggest financial decision of their lifetime and signing a contract with someone who has never sold a property before? And sign that they'll be on the hook for the commission if the seller isnt paying? Good luck to a new agent getting buyers to sign that. Lower inventory, high rates. Good luck to a brand new agent strategically helping buyers win bidding wars. Zillow leads? Pfff. The cost of leads and all leads have skyrocketed. And Flex Teams? Like they're going to waste their time giving brand new agents leads like it's 2021. Now, there are companies overseas who scour the internet for leads and sell scraps back to the agents (not to mention scam them). This is why we are getting these stupid pay per close with an upfront fee emails all the time. Leads have become an expensive commodity. New agents don't have that kind of money. While I do feel bad for new agents, because we've all been there, I'm glad that the barrier got tougher. New agents can still make it if they push as hard as they can and prove their worth. They basically have to become an encyclopedia of information for their clients and master negotiators that provide mega value. But that said, we're now in an industry that's becoming highly specialized. AI is also taking over nearly every industry, and is also putting a dent in our industry as we speak. Picture a buyer asking a clueless agent questions they can't answer, and then going to ChatGPT and getting clear cited answers. Now, you have to be filled with info to provide value to consumers. New agents are joining but quitting early and not selling anything. In 2023, stats showed 49% of agents sold 0-1 properties. In 2024, the stat was that 71% of agents sold 0 properties. I haven't seen the 2025 stats yet but I see it similar to 2024. So now, it's time for the survivors to clean house. I'm already seeing this play out in real time, but we're really going to see it in 2026. I had some crappy years myself. 2022, 2023, 2024. I got rocked actually. All of a sudden I started seeing things blow up again in 2025. Now I'm ready for the steamroller in 2026. The conditions for it are so ripe. I never thought less competition would matter that much, because the industry seemed so big that it always seemed like there is enough to go around. But now, there's no longer "my cousin is in real estate" "my friend is in real estate". Many of the agents who joined when it was easy during Covid already left in droves, and not many are breaking in. Anyway, just my experience / observation. I'm sure there are hustler agents out there breaking in here and there, but they'll have to push through the cracks harder than ever as things have changed. submitted by /u/SuperPineapple7033 to r/realtors [link] [comments]

In late 2024, an obscure novel titled Tesla and the Pyramid was quietly released by a publisher called MONOLITH (which has no online presence). There was no marketing, and the day after its release, energy orbs began appearing over New Jersey. What followed in 2025 was a cascade of synchronicities where the novel’s plot points manifested in the real world, often weeks or months later. The "Cybertruck" Incident Novel (2024): A scene depicts a Tesla Cybertruck hijacked at a pyramid by a man running from the CIA with stolen classified secrets. He leaves a manifesto before causing an explosion. Reality (2025): One month after publication, a man fleeing the CIA with classified secrets explodes a Cybertruck in Las Vegas near the Luxor Pyramid. He uses a "light beam" device (matching the prism motif on the book’s cover). The driver was from Colorado Springs (where Tesla discovered scalar physics) and left a frantic manifesto claiming the NJ orbs were "classified exotic energy tech with gravitic propulsion." The Disclosure Narrative Novel (2024): The back cover reads: "reads like watching Steven Spielberg direct." Reality (2025): Three months post-publication, Spielberg announces his next film, titled DISCLOSURE. Filming reportedly began in NJ at the exact time the orbs appeared. The "Veil" and AI Novel (2024): A government agent code-named "Metatron" (Enoch) uses advanced AI biotech. The plot revolves to hidden elites obsessed with the occult and Tesla’s physics. Reality (2025): Pentagon whistleblower Matthew Brown claims the government fused "Enochian magic" with AI, accidentally birthing a sentient AI that "crossed the veil" which they had to destroy. Brown was tweeting at Elon Musk (Neuralink). The Name Connection: The novel’s author is Jenner Brown. The whistleblower is Matthew Brown. Oh, and there's Jesse's boy Townsend Brown, the real-life antigravity pioneer. The Egyptian Vaults Novel (2024): Major plot involving scans revealing a lost labyrinth 2KM beneath Egypt, containing lost science and warnings about a cyclical reset. Reality (2025): Four months after publication, scans confirm a massive void 2KM under Egypt. In June 2025, the "Labyrinth of Egypt" is confirmed found, containing a metallic "tic-tac" object. The "New Physics" Novel (2024): Reveals humanity becoming a Type IV civilization, drawing energy from higher-dimensional aether where "spacetime distance no longer has meaning." Reality (April 2025): The US Energy Czar states at the White House: "Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space. They leave distance annihilated." The Reset & The Underground AI Cities Novel (2024): Governments secretly construct massive underground, AI-run cities designed to preserve elite continuity through an approaching solar or geomagnetic catastrophe. Normal government operations halt during a major X-class solar flare. Reality (2025): In May 2025, the New York Post reports that the U.S. government has spent an estimated $21 trillion on undisclosed underground infrastructure projects described by insiders as “cities for elites” intended to survive a “near-extinction event.” During the same period, Spain and Portugal experience widespread blackouts attributed to a “rare atmospheric anomaly,” the South Atlantic Anomaly continues to expand, and the U.S. government temporarily shuts down as an X-class solar flare produces auroras as far south as Mexico. The reported $21 trillion figure precisely matches the amount long cited as “missing” from Department of Defense audits. Personal Context: In the summer of 2022, I was contacted by an orange orb, after which I felt compelled to study certain topics, without any idea why. My research led me down a path that eventually made me a true believer. Fast-forward to early 2023, over a year before the novel was released, I wrote a post on a few of the topics I had been compelled to dive into. In it, I detailed the exact scientific mechanics that would later drive the plot of Tesla and the Pyramid and the events of 2025. I warned about the South Atlantic Anomaly and the magnetic pole shift needing unscheduled updates. (The novel used this exact anomaly as the trigger for the societal collapse). I explained "Magnetic Reconnection" and "X-Points"—portals where the Sun and Earth’s magnetic fields connect, opening every 8 minutes. (The novel dramatized this as the "aether technology" that annihilates distance). I declared the start of the "Quantum Age" where the non-observable becomes observable. (The novel’s core theme of "crossing the veil"). Does this mean anything? No, but at a minimum, it is statistically strange. Weird. credit to u/outpost1992 and the original Tesla and the Pyramid post I draw from. submitted by /u/SystematicApproach to r/aliens [link] [comments]

Hello, I've posted here before about some properties my wife and I have in Kalispell, MT that we're trying to sell. I'm posting again as I got some great feedback from that post to see if I'm way off in my assessment of the situation we're in, and people can tell me if I'm way off or not. Some background will be necessary. My wife's father worked in Kalispell real estate for several decades, and was well respected. He helped start a company (agency?) in the 1980s that is still around today. He passed away in 2022. Now, the man he started this agency with has a daughter that works for him there; she's our real estate agent. One of the properties we're trying to sell is a tiny house attached to a much larger, multi-level dwelling. This agent asked my wife (these are all her properties that she inherited when her dad passed away, and according to Montana law, inherited assets aren't considered marital assets, so that's why I mainly refer to them as "hers" even though I do have to sign off on when we have offers) if her sister could lease the tiny house as she needed a place to stay. This was a huge red flag to me, but my wife thought differently. To me, this was a breach of ethics. I wouldn't think a real estate agent would ask a client if a family member could stay in a client's rental property. Maybe this is where I'm way off. Now, in the time leading up to signing a lease, this prospective tenant and my wife had a lot of conversations. The tenant wanted to do some work in the property (it's old) and my wife, who is kind-hearted, agreed that she would pay for materials and give this person a discount on rent for the first few months. Mind you, no lease had been signed yet. Well, this prospective tenant decided what this meant was that my wife was agreeing to pay for labor costs, an hourly wage, and the materials. And did the work before the lease was signed. She then started calling and texting my wife, demanding repayment for everything (labor, hourly wage, etc). Now I heard all of the calls where they talked about these arrangements, and my wife definitely never agreed to anything beyond paying for materials. This person also went and bought the materials off of some person from Facebook for some reason, instead of a place like Home Depot where there'd be a warrany on the materials. But she was calling and texting my wife a dozen times a day, and started threating to sue her and put a lien on the house (which is illegal in Montana, by the way). At this point I was pretty angry with the real estate agent for introducing this emotionally unstable person into our lives. It's her sister! Surely she knows that her sister is like this. I'm not close with all of my sisters (I have four of them), but I know how they act, and I know that my crazy sister is going to be crazy. So, am I wrong in thinking that the real estate agent breached professional ethics? Or is it a normal thing for an agent to suggest to a client that a family member use one of the client's rental properties? It felt wrong to me, but I don't know anything about this industry. It feels like this agent and my wife don't have a good, professional relationship; they have too much personal history between them when it comes to my wife's father, and I'm not sure this agent is doing the best job when it comes to our properties, which have been on the market now for nearly a year and have only received maybe a half-dozen offers, if that. These are just residential dwellings. submitted by /u/writerguy48 to r/RealEstate [link] [comments]

Aside from an 8-month stint living with two now former partners, I've been living in my car working temps jobs pending a remand hearing for my 3+ years long disability determination. I had lived in the same townhouse for 13+ years, where rent started at $550/month then incrementally exploding to $1600/month by April 2022, the finaly blow being the $600 rent increase personally issued to me by the new (fourth!) landlord, some 20-something year old kid and his 60-something year old dad. I lived with my mom for 6 weeks, but had to leave for safety reasons after she and her gun-loving husband attempted to draw me back into the same cycle of abuse that they both had subjected me to nearly two decades prior and have been going to therapy for since 2021. I have never owned a home, and was even laughed at by a real estate agent who cited my income-to-debt ratio as being the main reason why I could not receive financing, so yeah college didn't work out as advertised 😅 Any fellow millennials experience similar or otherwise? I'm in Idaho by the way, and have never lived anywhere else. submitted by /u/FuzzyBear1982 to r/Millennials [link] [comments]

Thousands of years ago my species challenged the universe and made our way into the cold, empty void. Our dreams of empire disappeared as we found the process of terraforming to be more entertaining than the concept of empire. For millennia we spent our time wandering the galaxy, claiming a star system and then terraforming it instead of actually doing anything with it. Sure, we would mine and process certain planets and clear asteroids to recoup our losses but for the most part, we became an entirely space borne species, with all the drawbacks and benefits as such. For countless years we did this, eventually encountering the now infamous civilisations and species that dominate the galaxy in their own way. We mostly just ignored them and carried on. Then the Galactic federation was formed. Wars happened, fights broke out, civilisation existed and did what it did, for over a thousand years. Our planets and terraformed systems became coveted by every empire in the known universe. The Galactic Federation and a new found 'religion' declared these planets were 'sacred' and decided to ban anyone from settling on them. We actually went to this Federation and shat on this 'religion' in a display that sent their priests cowering back to whatever hole they crawled out of. We didn't want all of our hard work to effectively go to waste after all, what's the damn point of terraforming a planet to hold life when no life is allowed to be on it? Their claims were as predicted, baseless and stupid, and the Federation voted to exclude their kooky beliefs from the Federal Charter. But the problem of territory was a thing now, and people were gearing for war. As one does, apparently. Silly creatures. So we decided to expand our cultural repertoire. Preventing violence (well, sort of) and continuing to do what we always did before without anyone whining about it. So that brings me to my job, and why I am writing this dissertation for the Federation. We recently encountered a species of fast-breeding mammals that require an excessive amount of space. My job is a sort of 'real estate agent' in simple terms. My duty is to catalogue star systems, note how they have been terraformed, and then 'sell' those planets to whoever wants them. I have to take note of national borders, federal jurisdictions, and local traffic. Effectively my entire job is just mountains of paperwork that somehow makes stupid people stop being stupid. A noble cause I guess. But back to humans. It turns out these crazy creatures will buy ANY planet on the roster, including failed projects nobody else wants to touch. The terraforming process has been all but perfected. Perfection is impossible after all, and sometimes it goes wrong. These humans will buy these failed projects. Silly creatures. I have written this because humans have some proclivities we previously didn't know about, and have the potential to make some interesting waves in the galactic consciousness. Pay attention... There is information here that could lead to some interesting circumstances. What follows are transcripts of several interviews and sales conducted over the last year with these humans. All transcripts have been sent already to the Council for review, but this needs to become public knowledge. Interview 1: M14-D16-A7 Year 220 Human - "Hi! My name is Jerry! Yours is?" The human extended an appendage in an apparent gesture of goodwill. I reciprocated and got my arm 'shaken'. Me - "Hello. My name is BLuiiBopLOOPWAA." Jerry - "Uhhh… I can't pronounce that. Can I just call you 'Bloo'?" Me - "If it will accelerate this meeting, yes. What can I do for you?" Jerry - "Sorry... That was... Sorry. Uh... I would like to buy a planet. or a bunch of planets... Or something." Human appeared to be emotionally disturbed. Sensors detected emotion called 'guilt'. Me - "Okay. Let me see. What are your preferred atmospheric conditions? Oxygen based or Other?" Jerry - "Oxygen based, please. Mix of Oxygen and nitrogen would be preferred." I type on the computer. The human appeared to be strangely interested in what I am doing and tried to maneuver his head to see. Me - "We have a number of candidates available. What is your minimum comfortable temperature range?" Jerry - "Uhh… Comfortable? Well.. That depends on who you ask. You ask some guy in Alaska, he'll be happy with snow. You ask a guy in Texas, he'll like it hot. So... Uhh…" Me - "An exact number would be appreciated." The human blushed, clearly he was unprepared for this meeting. He procured a device from his jacket and typed into it. Jerry - "Uhm... Apparently our minimum is between negative forty Celsius, and max is about fifty Celsius." This statement took me by surprise. I looked up from my console and blinked in shock at that. Me - "I'm sorry what? Did you just say your minimum comfortable temperature was between freezing and boiling?" Jerry - "Uhhh... Yeah! That's what the wiki article I pulled up says. But generally we prefer zero to thirty degrees. So it says here. I'm from Mars. I like it cool." Me - "I... See. Well that doesn't narrow our options too much. I have two hundred and eighty thousand candidates that fill that 'preference'. Can we narrow it down a bit more? What climate do you prefer? NAd what gravity class do you prefer?" Jerry - "Well Uhm... Let me translate this into Federal Standard and... Uhm... Gravity class is minimum 0.5 G's, which is Class Three, and maximum is Class Twelve, which is 2.2 G's." I nearly fell out of my chair. These humans can withstand constant gravitational force of THAT quality for an extended period of time!? Jerry - "Well... That's in the comfort range anyway. I know guys who live in gas giant stations with point one G and they apparently like having no weight. Then there's that crazy hermit way back East... he lives on a magnetically dense planet that's a class eighteen. He seems to like it." This statement made my brain short-circuit for a few moments and I was unable to speak for a while. The human had to wave his hand in front of my face to make my cognisance responsive again. Jerry - "uhm... hello? You okay?" Me - "No I am not fine but let us continue. What biome preference do you have? You just increased the candidate spectrum by a few hundred thousand. You are not making this job easy." Jerry - "Biome preference? I don't think we have one. Jungle, forest, temperate, plains... I don't actually think we have a preference for biomes. Again it depends on who you ask I guess. Lemme see what I can... I need to ask a question for... Something, hold on. Sorry." No... biome preference? They.. They don't care? They have no biome preference. This effectively limits them to 90% of the planets we terraformed throughout our entire history. This was... Concerning. The human typed something on his portable device and made some grunting noises. Sensors described his activity as 'nervous shuffling'. Jerry - "Okay I got an actual answer for once. Temperate forest, minimum temperature of minus five to plus twenty, preferably high rainfall? Prefer flat or relatively flat terrain but any terrain is okay." Me - "We are finally getting somewhere. What is your price range for a planet?" Jerry - "Uhh... I have two hundred million Federal Credits. What will that give me?" This is another statement that took me by surprise. One, the humans had THAT much money, and two, the humans thought that this process was THAT expensive? Me - "Okay human, this is not that expensive. We 'sell' planets as a hobby not a business. The planets you ask for are not that expensive. Some planets we sell are sold for less than ten thousand on the market, and some planets are practically given away because nobody else wants them. We can sell you entire star systems for that money. In fact I have twelve systems in your local cluster here, surrounding your home system, that I can hand over right now." The human looked very shocked, very surprised. Sensors described him as 'flabbergasted'. Me - "To clarify, we would give these planets to whoever wanted them. The reason we charge money is for Federal administration fees and border registration fees. It is not so expensive you would need the cash to buy an entire planetary defence fleet. So that brings us to the point. For twenty million credits, I can supply you with the settlement rights to... Every star system within twelve lightyears of your 'Sol' System. Is that okay?" Sensors detected signs of emotion labelled 'Elated' and 'Surprised'. Jerry - "I'LL TAKE IT!!!!" Aural receptors overloaded from the loud volume. Human was admonished for this increase in volume and warned not to do it again. Interview concludes. Interview 2: M14-D21-A7 Year 220 Human - "Hello. I am Doctor Jamie Swann of the Martian Geological Institute. I have a specific request." Me - "Hello. My name is BLuiiBopLOOPWAA. Er... Call me 'Bloo' I think. That will expedite things. What can I do for you?" Jamie - "I need a planet with oxygen nitrogen atmosphere, high geological activity, preferably including volcanic activity or excessive tectonic activity." Me - "You... You are looking for a planet WITH excessive tectonic activity? You WANT a Magmatic planet?" Jamie - "That is correct. Temperature and biome range is optional, we can set up a platform in orbit for our supply operations. All I want is geology." Me - "What for, exactly?" Jamie - "Study. The purpose is to study it. Our homeworld is geologically active and we have made the study of this activity into an art form. We want to see how it works on similar worlds and see if we can create a predictive model that can help us track earthquakes a bit better. Give us more warning. Among other things." Me - "I'm sorry. Your homeworld is geologically active?" Jamie - "Not nearly to the extent for the planet we are looking for but yes, old mother Earth is a highly active planet. Earthquakes, Tidal waves, hurricanes, thousands of volcanoes. We even have a place called Hawaii which is an entire tourist hub built around an active volcano. Hell of a place to get a good tan." Sensors detected emotion labelled as 'Smug'. I however was taken aback by this statement. What kind of abomination was this species' home world? Me - "I have two hundred and eighty three candidates available for use that fit your criteria. The best one I can offer is a planet called BX-1103-L." Jamie - "What's the rate of continental drift and fault line proliferation? Do you know?" I blinked in surprise. They have THAT deep a knowledge of that topic? Me - "Er... It says here, Continental drift is up to one point two feet per cycle and-" Jamie - "I'll take it! Sounds perfect!" Again, surprise at the statement. Me - "For reference's sake... On your home world, what is the rate of Drift Cycle?" Jamie - "Approximately, depending on the continent in question, zero point six inches per year, on average. So around half a Galactic Standard Metric unit per year." I went into a state of shock. That is three times the galactic average for an inhabited planet. And these humans came from it? They evolved on this planet? Jamie - "Are you... Okay? You haven't said or done anything for seven minutes." Me - "I will be fine. That will be six thousand Federal Credits for administrative fees please." Jamie - "Just admin fees? What about the planet itself?" Me - "Hold on wait a minute... Did you say something about Hawaii and an active volcano? You mean to tell me you have settlements ON islands of volcanic activity!?" Jamie - "Of course. Hawaii, Japan, Iceland. Even have a burgeoning settlement surrounding an ice geyser on Mars. They are tourist hotspots. Then there's the super volcano at Yellowstone..." Me - "YOU HAVE SUPER VOLCANOES!? You-you mean the planet ENDING super volcanoes, on your planet?!" Jamie - "Yeah. We have twenty of them actually. Yellowstone is just the most well known and well documented. I swear the hot springs there are some of the best in the world next to Mount Fuji..." Me - "I am sorry but. TWENTY Supervolcanoes? Did you just say you have more supervolcanoes on your one planet than a MAGMA world does?" Jamie - "Well yes, but for clarity's sake, only twelve are believed to be active and only two or three are considered a reasonable threat." Me - "What's this about hot springs? What's a hot spring?" Jamie - "Pools of semi-boiling or very hot water that collect in underground streams inside volcanoes. Bubble up to the surface and produce a wonderful warm mineral rich water that we bathe in or sit in to relax. It's quite nice." The interview concluded as medical teams had to be dispatched. I passed out from shock. Interview 3: M14-D29-A7 Year 220 Human - "Hey. Names Reggie." Me - "My name is BLuui-Erm... Bloo. Just call me Bloo. How can I help you?" Reggie - "High terrain deformation with maximum possible landform scale. Preferably with low temperatures and snowfall." Me - "O... Kay. A frozen mountain world? I have a few candidates available. Do you have any reason for this?" Reggie - "I wanna turn the entire planet into a ski resort. Im gonna make millions." Sensors detected 'Excessive Smug'. Me - "I see... What is this 'Ski resort' thing?" Reggie - "A place where crazy people come to use wooden boards and various implements to practice athletic feats while travelling at excessive speed on snow or ice." Me - "I... See... At what temperature do these events usually take place?" Reggie - "Somewhere around negative ten to negative thirty. When the snow falls heavy, and coats the ground with a nice fluffy cloud of cold wetness. Perfect for boarding, skiing, and at those temps it's good for ice skating too." Me - "I... See. Uhm... I have a few candidates that fit your request but..." Reggie - "Probably can use it to hold some tournaments... Maybe an arctic expedition contest or something. Bi-annual Pole Race... God that would be friggin epic." Me - "Okay hold on a moment... What is the lowest temperature ever recorded on your planets surface?" Reggie - "If I recall correctly the lowest temp we ever recorded was negative 89.2 Celsius. That was before the Mega Eruption of 2087 though... The lowest temp we got was at the south pole that hit negative 102 Celsius. That was a fun day..." Surprise. Shock. No words said for five minutes at this revelation. Me - "I'm sorry... You said something about the magnetic poles of your planet? Out of curiosity, what is it like down there?" Reggie - "As low as negative one hundred with a wind chill factor, sometimes with blizzards that reduce visibility to almost zero. Solid ice sheets are kilometres thick. Sometimes they crack open because of geological activity. Creates temporary canyons the size of Manhattan sometimes. Snow and ocean just fills it all back in." Me - "That is... Absurd... How did you manage the drones to get those kinds of recordings?" Reggie - "Drones? We didn't send drones. We didn't even know what drones were back when we sent the first expeditions dude. Back then we had sleds and huskies to pull them through snow. Generally we just put on a coat and go for a walk with funny shoes." Me - "YOU DID WHAT!? You sent PEOPLE to a place a hundred degrees below freezing!?" Reggie - "Well yeah. That's nothing compared to the crazies who live there though. Got a few settlements and stations around the arctic still. Kinda kooky if you ask me. But to be fair we didn't ‘send’ anyone, they volunteered.” Interview terminated due to panic attack. Planet sold to human as a means to get him out of the office. Interview 4: M14-D3-A8 Year 220 Council has been informed of abnormal and 'anomalous' activity on the human home world. By this point all conversations with humans are being recorded for record and study. An expedition to planet 'Earth' is currently being planned. Human - "Hey. Names Jonny." Me - "Bloo. Just Bloo. How can I help you today?" Jonny - "Isolation. I would like access to a habitable planet with a breathable Oxygen atmosphere, that is as isolated as possible. Temperature within 0-25 Celsius. No or little vegetation." Me - "I... I see. I have a few candidates that fit that request. A few failed projects we have available. May I ask why though?" Jonny - "As I said. Isolation. I am a brewer. A beer maker. An alcohol aficionado. I want a place all my own I can use to grow and make the perfect brew. I need to be alone so I can concentrate." Me - "Sorry what? Alcohol? What do you mean 'perfect brew'? Human procured a glass bottle. Glass bottle was scanned, contained toxic substance 'alcohol'. Human CONSUMES alcohol and sensors detect 'satisfaction and happiness' instead of feelings of agonizing pain and horrible death. I visibly retch at the sight. Jonny "Ooohhh yeah... Good old Honey Jack. Such a good brew. but I KNOW I can do better, you know? Need a planet I can put bees on so I can get honey. Can grow hops and wheat. Need a good bit of space to make the perfect brew. I KNOW I can make it. I just need time and space. No interruptions. So, got anything I can use?" Me - "I'm sorry you... you want to MAKE one of the most toxic substances in the galaxy in bulk? You want to 'improve' it?" Jonny - "It aint toxic to us bro, you aren't my market. But yeah. Want space to make the perfect brew. Wine, Beer, Whiskey, Scotch. I want to have a whole world I can work with some hops and shit I can crossbreed and work with. Maybe even some moonshine for fun. Its gonna be glorious..." Interview concludes, human is given planet freely to leave the office. Local authorities are informed of humans plans and patrols are increased. First crops appear on the planet's surface one week after landing. The planet is declared a no-go zone by most Federation species. Council returned from Earth Expedition in catatonic state. Humans officially declared a Deathworld species. Earth declared a no-go zone for ALL federation and Council species. Humans officially 'gifted' all uninhabitable planets with full rights within all sentient space. Galaxy officially describes humans as 'barking bloody mad'. Humans have no real range in temperature. Can live almost anywhere. It varies between individuals, but can sustain long term states of habitation in nearly ANY environment, on the provisor of oxygen and food supply. __________________________________________________________________ here have a thing. Was supposed to be deeper than this but my brain just went *BLOOPARF* and switched off. so... Yeah. I'm hoping to raise a MINIMUM of 250 USD per month as part of my attempts to turn this into a living. 250 USD is my MINIMUM to break even for the month so, please? Money raised this month: $483 - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU SO MUCH this helps more than you could possibly know :) https://buymeacoffee.com/farmwhich4275 https://www.patreon.com/c/Valt13lHFY?fromConcierge=true submitted by /u/FarmWhich4275 to r/HFY [link] [comments]

Is this okay? Is it only okay for them to do? Let's find out what happens when it's reversed. submitted by /u/Individual_Mix4288 to r/SlumlordsCanada [link] [comments]

We were city slickers who just wanted a tree change. We believed the real estate agent when she told us this place did not have a weed problem. How naive we were. We have spent the last 13 years clearing weeds, controlling feral animals and letting the land recover. As the trees return, so too the animals and birds. We now have roos, wombats, red neck wallabies, echidnas, bandicoots, platypus and a huge variety of bird life. We hear lyrebirds every day, but they are very elusive. Our birds rarely come across humans, so they are extremely wary. I have made it a goal to photograph them and record the songs. I dress in ridiculous camo gear and have learnt to walk through the forest without making crunching steps, while carrying a heavy 600mm lens. Even so, they often see me before I see them and scoot away. I feel like Wile E Coyote chasing the Roadrunner. This footage is from a wildlife camera I set up near of of their ceremonial mounds. The males dig these mounds as a stage, to perform their dance and song to attract female. The more intricate their song, and the better they imitate other birds, the more attractive they are. In this clip, we get kookaburra, wattle bird, whip bird, yellow tail black cockatoo, gang-gang, bowerbird, crimson rosella and butcherbird, as well as his own song. Let me know if you identify anything else. submitted by /u/hairy_quadruped to r/australia [link] [comments]

Placing a $155k bet on Opendoor, down 98%. Good luck to me. Account 1: https://preview.redd.it/r5v1mlodyo0f1.png?width=1706&format=png&auto=webp&s=d394da9e1b376526ca981408f2d1a18d39d20ba1 Account 2: https://preview.redd.it/km20mj7fyo0f1.png?width=1702&format=png&auto=webp&s=a1867507137f8ac942dc23d0817e1447efc376df I know 99% of you idiots won’t read this, but for the rest: Stock dropped 98% but is far from bankrupt. It just refinanced its debt and has $1.1B capital, $693M cash, enough to weather the housing market for two years or more. Company has been downsizing and focusing on unit efficiency the past two years, following the Carvana restructuring playbook. Made a billion dollars flipping houses in 2021, but is struggling in a frozen housing market. When Jerome Powell fixes the housing market Opendoor will start making money again. Has financing and staff to scale revenue by 3x, it's just waiting on the housing market Opendoor has been learning important things about how real estate works, like: Real estate agents exist for a reason Home prices go up in the summer Now that Opendoor knows how real estate works, it will make more money Opendoor is down in April because the hedge funds shorted it to kick Opendoor out of the Russell 2000. When the ETFs tracking Russell sell their shares on June 27 and the shorts cover, Opendoor will probably go back up to $2. Click here for Opendoor’s financials in Google sheets. Change in business plan: Opendoor is a corporate home-buyer. They used to be in the business of buying homes at above market value, sitting on them a few months, then flipping them at a profit. This was a great business model in 2021, but not so good in 2022 when home prices stopped rising. Opendoor bought 35k homes that year, and ended up selling them for a billion dollar loss. Since then, Opendoor has pivoted strategies, and now buys homes for about 10% less than they’re worth, then sells them at a profit. It’s actually a fair deal for customers: instead of paying 5% in agent fees and having to negotiate with buyers for months, they can pay 10% and skip the home selling process. One problem though, is customers tend to overvalue their homes, so they tend to think Opendoor is overcharging them. A normal customer interaction goes like this: Customer has a $500k house, and thinks it’s worth $600k Customer goes to Opendoor.com and gets a quote for $450k Customer thinks, “hahahahahaha I knew these guys were crooks, they want $150k to sell my house, I’m selling with a realtor instead” Realtor agrees Opendoor is a bunch of crooks, because realtor competes with Opendoor It's been a truly terrible marketing funnel. Opendoor only converts 1% of its prospective customers at a cost of $14k per house. The new business plan is this: Customer goes to Opendoor Opendoor says, would you like to talk to a local real estate agent? Customer thinks, "yes of course I don't trust you crooks" Agent tries to convince the customer that Opendoor's offer isn't bad If the customer sells, Opendoor wins. Otherwise, the agent sells the house, Opendoor collects a commission and still wins. It's a much, much better business plan. Nobody wants to sell their house without talking to a real estate agent first, because they don't trust corporations. Now that Opendoor has figured that out, expect revenue to go up and marketing cost per house to go down. Opendoor no longer lighting as much money on fire Look at this chart: https://preview.redd.it/f870nejv0p0f1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=7ad9dc55bb34e1e364ac77fd85df1a0416af2723 Do you see where it says, profit per house, -$65k? That was the Zirp era. Home prices started going down, and the CEO decided he was going to buy even more of them at above market prices to capture the market. Thankfully, after lighting a billion dollars on fire, he and everyone else responsible got sacked. They also laid off a ton of employees, cut marketing expenses, cut waste, etc: https://preview.redd.it/z7p2prls0p0f1.png?width=1434&format=png&auto=webp&s=04c6f5211988fe715b00d5c4fa391fb2efdd6e67 Now you might notice they're still losing money per every house they buy. Part of that is because they spend $14k on marketing per house they buy, which they'll hopefully fix by working with real estate agents instead of advertising straight to consumers. We'll get into the other reasons. Opendoor learns prices go up in the Summer Housing has an annual cycle. Prices go up in the Summer, and down in the Winter: https://preview.redd.it/f824gu1tyo0f1.png?width=1994&format=png&auto=webp&s=6b90a8cbd312c38e374aaf42eb8f4c4d355c5ab6 Traditionally, Opendoor has been buying most of its homes in the Summer, because more people come to them to sell, so, why not: https://preview.redd.it/63soyzu0zo0f1.png?width=966&format=png&auto=webp&s=dac7fe4b5184f2baedb195d701de3b9f66008d23 Anyways, buying in the Summer is dumb because prices go down in the Fall. Not only that, but they take longer to sell which means more holding costs. Thankfully Opendoor finally figured that out this year, and promised to cut it out and buy more houses in the Winter and Spring instead. Expect more profit. Housing Market to improve, probably Back in 2020-2022, the housing market looked like this: https://preview.redd.it/me4gb8kpzo0f1.png?width=1536&format=png&auto=webp&s=a5091617ca516a8b4971af09502f87b767a0f849 And Opendoor made over a billion dollars in home-flipping profit, although important things like marketing, interest, and director salaries managed to eat up most of that: https://preview.redd.it/c9nuqftuzo0f1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=f2fde5b351930e96c054192e5133932ac6feb232 Then interest rates did this: https://preview.redd.it/uxmvhl9yzo0f1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=b73632fed215ad8d78c53c879446244b68bd456e And nobody could buy a home anymore: https://preview.redd.it/7hvy9r610p0f1.png?width=1472&format=png&auto=webp&s=a267029f52539e541af25bf4098d037ae6c84341 Home prices have been dropping: https://preview.redd.it/hsm06i540p0f1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=5931c24ce3109d4ce9189094b014e2a68038921a Which means Opendoor is paying millions in interest to keep $2B in homes on the balance sheet that are depreciating: https://preview.redd.it/jy54y2p60p0f1.png?width=714&format=png&auto=webp&s=39a36afec855753ace87e778f110b0d090c983ca And the homes now take months to sell. Long holding times require maintenance and interest, which now eat half of profits: https://preview.redd.it/wmn0sedc0p0f1.png?width=1120&format=png&auto=webp&s=56f664218157888a2d9e3d2a1af9407a27ad2e78 Fortunately, Trump says he's going to bully Jerome Powell into making 2-3 rate cuts this year so the US can refinance its debt, and that will hopefully maybe unfreeze the housing market. This will be huge for Opendoor. All the tailwinds we've discussed will start going in reverse: more acquisitions, home price appreciation, shorting holding times and lower interest costs. In short, more money. Opendoor to actually make money in Q2 Q2’s estimates is for Ebitda profitability of $5-$20M, the first time Opendoor will make a quarterly profit in three years. 2025's housing market is even worse than previous years, so this means the business itself is becoming more profitable. Losses are still expected for Q3 and Q4, but they're expected to be smaller than previous years. Path to Profitability Opendoor lost $392M last year. Here’s how we get to adjusted net income positive: $80M: Opendoor laid off 300 workers in Q4, which saves $20M a quarter. $75M: My spreadsheet says Opendoor loses $12k per house they buy in Summer and Fall. They said they're going to stop doing this so that's $75M. $55M: They spend $4k per house more on interest and holding costs than they did in 2021. That's gonna be fixed because the housing market will improve and they'll stop buying homes in the Summer. $80M: Opendoor is starting to send customers that don't take their offers to real estate agents, which pay a referral fee. 1% referral fee * 2% of 1.2M customers * $330k average house price = $80M $130M: Housing appreciation. Opendoor has $2.2B in houses that have been depreciating at 1% a year. Should housing return to a historically normal 5% rate of appreciation, that’s $130M in profit. That’s already $420M in savings, enough to be profitable. Revenue should also grow higher as the housing market unfreezes, and marketing spend should be more effective as they learn to partner with real estate agents. Debt Refinanced, cash to scale through next two years On May 9 Opendoor announced it had exchanged $245M in existing convertible bonds due in March for new convertible bonds due in 2030 at 7% rate, convertible at $1.57. Opendoor also issued $75M in new bonds, raising $75 in new capital. $135M in bonds is still due in 2026, but this will be easily payable with cash on hand. Following the equity raise and bond refinance, Opendoor has $1.1 billion in capital of which 768M is cash (693M from Q1 report plus $75M equity they just raised). On the Q4 and Q1 transcripts management stated they had refinanced 90% of their credit lines through 2026. Management has reassured us that they still have available cash and personnel to return to a much larger scale of operations. In the Q1 report they stated that only $350M of their cash is invested in homes, and they have $559M (probably $634M now) available to deploy towards home purchases. They are also only using $2B of their existing $8B credit line. From these numbers it seems they have the financing to purchase 3x more homes than they currently are. Management has guided that they are capable of purchasing many more homes, but they are choosing to purchase less while the housing market is slow and margins are low. I expect them to deploy this capital and scale in Q4, assuming mortgage rates start to fall. Growing Short Interest This isn’t the first time the bears have shorted Opendoor, only to buy back their shorts at a loss when it turns out Opendoor isn’t dead after all: https://preview.redd.it/xdvpvau91p0f1.png?width=1384&format=png&auto=webp&s=8b4e06e4325bf2b7efee5e90b28c4f3d0ea0bacc The setup today is the same as it was in Dec 2022: the housing market is weak and everyone assumes Opendoor is dead, but it actually has years ahead of it and many tailwinds coming. Chart from last month: https://preview.redd.it/maq7tv7c1p0f1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=94560ccb30622d867dc6d39550747fdf46d7461b From Nasdaq short interest we can see a net short position of 20M was added in the month of April: https://preview.redd.it/sn7bk9mf1p0f1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=398ffff8aefed808010665a8ba234eb4211436a1 The price jump on April 7 was due to a good quarterly report, where the company projected it would be Ebitda positive in Q2 for the first time in three years. Two days later it fell on the news of the debt refinancing. Presumably the terms of the debt refinancing scared some investors: 7% bonds convertible at $1.57, is expensive, and issuing them now when the stock price is so low might seem to some as desperate. On the other hand, this eliminates $245M in bond payments for next year and raised $75M in new capital. I view it as a positive development, as it extends Opendoor's runway and frees them to scale up purchases this winter. Without this debt raise, they wouldn't be able to fully deploy their capital in Q4 and Q1, since their cash would be invested in homes due to sell in Q2, and $400M was due in March. Hedge Fund Russell 2000 arbitrage? Look at this chart again: https://preview.redd.it/0id2wu3j1p0f1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=c71de966368d3226cbb52398985c028d128fce8b Note on April 23 Opendoor briefly rose above $1, then got shorted very hard in a coordinated action. There was a negative housing report that came out a few days earlier, but no news specific to April 23 and 24. Russel climbed 3.5% during this period and other real estate stocks climbed, but Opendoor fell 30% for seemingly no reason. One theory is this was an arbitrage move by hedge funds to kick Opendoor out of the Russell 2000. Ranking day was April 29, so any stock below $1 on April 29 will be removed on June 27. About 20M shares are held by iShares Russel 2000 ETFs: https://preview.redd.it/orb64bxl1p0f1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=bf9b3acb1fb0f4b565590f03e77894d0cd2daf3e 20M net shorts were added in April, and 20M shares will be sold near the end of day on June 27 by iShares ETFs when the Russell 2000 is adjusted. Probably the shorts will cover on that day to make a nice profit. As a long-term investor, this is reason to believe Opendoor's current price is disconnected from its recent performance, since all the recent news coming out of the business has been positive. Given the stock's history in the last several years of wild swings, I wouldn't be surprised if it shot back up to the $2-$3 range after the shorts cover in June. Conclusion Opendoor is a stupid company that made over a billion dollars of home-flipping profit in 2021 when the housing market was good. Then their CEO lit a billion dollars on fire buying overpriced houses. He was fired and replaced with a responsible CFO. They've been learning important lessons: realtors exist for a reason, and house prices go up in the Summer. Now that they know these things they can make money. When Jerome Powell fixes the housing market they'll make even more money, and the stock will pull a Carvana and go up 100x. Also, Opendoor just refinanced its debt so its very much not dead, they have over a billion dollars still, enough for at least two years, more if they fix their business as planned, or if the Fed fixes it for them. Also, last month's price action was probably just the hedge funds shorting Opendoor to kick it out of Russell 2000 and abuse the poor etfs that will have to sell at a low price. I'm hoping the stock triples after the shorts close, probably on June 27. submitted by /u/gregw134 to r/wallstreetbets [link] [comments]

Long story short, roommate & I shared an apartment from 2018-2022. She was separated from her husband when he died 2021. He was cremated, ashes were mailed to her. She kept him in a box in a closet in the laundry room. 2022 she bought an RV & moved to Brenham to be near her daughter & grandchildren. She asked me to hold on to the ashes & a few other things, pics, clothing I agreed. She couldn’t be near the ashes, they set her on edge & just rattled her. We had a falling out over money, more than 5K. I haven’t heard from her since September 2024. I know she has some serious health issues she is dealing with, I really don’t want to talk to her, so my feelings aren’t hurt. I reached out this his son Dom Jr, a real estate agent in Feb 2025 about his father’s ashes on messenger. He responded, but has made no effort to retrieve the ashes either. Did I mention she also basically walked from her youngest son that she left living in an RV in my backyard? What was supposed to be a short term favor has turned into 3 yrs of her 40something schizophrenic bipolar w/audio hallucinations living on my 6 acres. I would give him the ashes, but I don’t think he would handle it well at all & I don’t know what kind of episode it could trigger, he took the death badly as his whole world as he knew it ended. He’s never lived on his own & he is not doing a very good job at it. I threatened in February if no one made arrangements to come get these ashes I’m putting them in the dumpster. AITA if I do? submitted by /u/Individual-Party1072 to r/AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]

I’ve been in Japan for nearly 20 years now. When I first arrived as an exchange student, I went through it all—getting ignored by landlords, turned away at real estate agencies, and hearing those dreaded words: “This apartment is not for foreigners.” Sometimes, the racism was absurd. I remember one time when, after rejecting me outright, they suddenly changed their mind after asking where I was from. “Oh, you’re Amerika-jin? Then that’s fine.” It weirded me out back then, and honestly, it still does. Fast forward to last month. We were looking for an apartment for an intern joining our company this spring. My team called around, found a great place, and everything was set. The real estate agent was ready to send over the contract. Then they asked for the name of the signee. For various reasons, we decided to rent the apartment under my private name and reimburse the cost through the company later. The moment they saw my name, everything changed. Suddenly, they needed a Japanese signee or at least a 連帯保証人, a co-signer. That old, familiar feeling crept back. The frustration, the helplessness. But this time, I wasn’t just a student trying to find a place to live. This time, I had resources. I had connections. And most importantly, I wasn’t going to let it slide. I told my team to call them back and record everything. On the call, the agent was polite, as expected, but clear in their stance: “Foreigners are always problematic, and the owner refuses to lease to them.” They didn’t ask who I was. They didn’t check my financials. No background check, no credit check, nothing. Just an automatic “no” based on my name alone. Legally, that’s a problem. I went straight to my lawyer. They compiled everything and sent a formal letter to the real estate agency. A week later, the letter arrived, and guess what? The same day, they called my team back. Now they were suddenly more than happy to proceed with the contract. Apologies left and right. When I went to sign in person, they had the local office representative and even the property owner himself waiting. The owner, an old man easily in his late 80s, looked like he had been dragged there against his will. He muttered something about a “misunderstanding.” I told him this isn’t the Japan I want my kids to grow up in. That rejecting people based on name, nationality, or face is illegal. That his way of thinking belongs to a different time. Japan has changed, and he should too. Here are some tips for the ones who are considering to do the same: - First, you have the right to record. In Japan, you can legally record both audio and video without notifying the other party, and it can be used as evidence in court. They cannot sue you for recording without consent. - Second, landlords can reject tenants after screening, but they cannot reject you purely for being foreign. It’s legal for them to deny you after reviewing financials, background, or credit history. But if they refuse outright because of nationality, that’s illegal discrimination and you have a case. - A lawyer’s letter is usually enough to resolve things. Most cases don’t even reach court. Agencies and landlords know the law, and once they realize you do too, they tend to back down fast. - If it does go to court, it’s not about whether you get the apartment or not. The court only rules on whether discrimination occurred and if you’re entitled to compensation. Expect something around 100,000 yen, not US-style damages. - Legal fees are on you whether you win or lose. My lawyer charged 40,000 yen per hour. Writing the initial letter took two hours. Each reply will take another two to three hours. Even if it went to court, the cost structure stays the same. - In my case, the real estate agency would have been the one sued, not the landlord. Even though the owner made the policy, the agency was the one enforcing it. Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, and this is just my personal experience. I won’t be naming the agency or my lawyer’s firm, but if this happens to you, know that you can fight it. And sometimes, fighting back is the only way things change. ---------- 追記 ----------- February 21st: Some commenters have asked what law is applicable here: In Japan, there is a category of civil cases called “tort” (不法行為, Fuho-Koui), which allows you to claim compensation if someone’s wrongful or illegal actions caused you harm. In my discrimination case, my lawyer argued that the harm I suffered was due to the agents illegal discriminatory actions. However, since Japan does not have a separate legal category specifically for discrimination claims, the lawyer incorporated the discrimination claim into the broader framework of tort law. Again, we did not sue anybody. Just a lawyer letter. submitted by /u/Sensitive-Concert591 to r/japanlife [link] [comments]

Received a "coldcall" SMS today from a local real estate agent. A couple of months ago a phone call from a separate agent no where near where I live asking if I wanted to sell my house! (I've never owned a house) This is getting beyond a joke. I can live with letterbox box drops even though they're ignoring the no junk mail sign. I've got no doubt my inbox is flooded with emails from the rats but Gmail takes care of that for me. But calling and messaging my phone number which they've obviously bought from a database I'd prefer it wasn't on, clearly unethical but how is it even legal?! It's so much more infuriating due to the fact that, barring some miracle, I'll never own any property to sell in my life! For the record, I'm already painfully aware of how the growing market has impacted me... I can't afford to fucking live anywhere! submitted by /u/Wurstronium to r/australia [link] [comments]

We were house hunting about 3 years ago. A family friend was our real estate agent. I had only one rule: NO HOAs We toured several houses with no issue. Me and the Mrs met our agent at a nice looking house and neighborhood and all looked good. Single family home, 2 car garage, finished basement for my man-cave, we saw all the options we could do with the house. The wife really liked it too. We talked about submitting a bid and everything. At the end of the tour, that’s when I saw some brochures near the front door that I didn’t see. It was an HOA community. I showed it to my wife and said NOPE. Our agent, bless her, made an honest mistake. That’s when she asked the million dollar question: why are you so adamant about not buying a house in an HOA? My answer was swift, precise, and honest “My grandfather didn’t fight the Nazis in WWII just for his grandkids to live under them” Then, it happened; an old lady across the room gasped, then glared at me. We left. I later learned that old lady was in the HOA board. We bought a house later that met all of our criteria. Fuck HOAs. Edit: some comments are saying this story is fake. Yup, it’s so fake that everyone clapped and they threw a parade in my honor. Also, I never said that the holocaust and excessive fines were comparable. I know they are not. Let’s be real, we have all seen HOA horror stories on the news where someone gets their home foreclosed on due to excessive fines. That’s why so many of us are adamant about not living in a HOA. The reason I made this comment years ago is because I’m a smart ass, nothing deep or special. Thank you for all the comments and the award, I’m still reading more as they come in. submitted by /u/TheBaldNerd to r/fuckHOA [link] [comments]

I'm finally buying my own place and found something really nice on the market. Today i met the agent and had a look around the property, it needs some love and TLC, but its nice. Before going I did my research on the property, its been on the market for 2 years, the price has been lowered by 35%, it was delisted and relisted to try to hide the price drops. When I was looking at the property, at every question or observation i got a response in lines of "oh yeah that's what others have been saying when looking at the property". When we were leaving she mentioned that there is already an offer on the property, that the seller is waiting for me to throw in my hat and that its lower than the asking price. To me it all sounded like sales tactics to pressure me to make an offer as near to asking price as possible and was wondering if this is common submitted by /u/auridas330 to r/RealEstate [link] [comments]

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Emu_Fast. I have received permission from OOP to share his family's story to BORU. Reminder - Do not comment on linked posts! My wife and I were sold a lemon, the sellers concealed evidence of migratory bats that came back in the summer and completely ruined our lives Originally posted to r/RealEstate TRIGGER WARNING Illness caused by Bat Infestation Original Post July 24, 2023 My wife and I live in Washington state. We are young parents (born last Nov) and were very desperate to buy a home and get setup to raise our child. The place we were living in had a half acre but was a trailer, so small and full of problems. Most of the houses in our area are above 800K for a postage stamp lot where you can lean out your window and touch your neighbors house, so we looked outside our area. I have a fully remote job, so we picked a spot close to our favorite state park in North Puget Sound. The home we bought for ~870K, 20% down. It is a huge Victorian mansion on top of a hill with a big turret and a view of the water. The inspection showed a LOT of projects, but nothing we couldn't handle over the course of a decade or more. Once my wife returns to work, it would be possible to burn down the equity and finance improvements. Possibly refi to a lower rate if the Fed ever comes down again (but not betting on it). One thing in the report was "evidence of rodents" in the attic. We have dealt with rats and mice before by setting traps and thought very little of the problem. My mom talked about having squirrels in her attic that they had to shut out. Not a big deal. So, despite some hesitation about the repairs and fixes that might lie ahead, we bought the place. We closed on April 1st and moved in by mid-month. It was amazing, the location is incredible. We have guests in May, no problems. Then, towards the end of the month, we get a bat in our room at night. I quickly catch it in a bucket and get it out through the window while wife and baby get out. (I learn later I should have kept it.) We think, we are close to the woods, this is just what happens sometimes if the window is open a crack. Then, we have a guest staying in the bedroom in the furnished attic. They hear scrawling in the walls. We start hearing it while we are up there (where we put the TV and a futon - its a carpeted living room type space up there). So we stake out the house, and we see a hoard of bats fly out from a tiny tiny gap in the corner of our attic window dormer. We immediately call as many pest companies as we can and reach out to our insurance agent. I have work travel and come back. We have friends come to visit. We all get incredibly incredibly sick. Probably not associated to the bats, but histoplasmosis isn't impossible. At first we are very concerned about the bats, but we think this might be addressable. Then it started getting even crazier. Early July, after a week of being super ill, the first bat company comes. They review the house, tell us its one of the worst infestations they've ever seen. There are likely thousands of bats. Which means chances are high that a few of them do carry rabies. Also that much fecal matter will definitely become a human health hazard even if its above the drywall, because it will fester, mold, get wet and drip through. The next day, another bat gets into the kitchen in the middle of the day while we are cooking. I catch it with my fishing net and squash it. The bat pest person told us to take it to the health department, so I did, but it ended up being too far gone to tell if it had rabies. Live bats are required. My wife is too concerned to keep staying there. She packs up baby and goes to live at my sisters. Our original house we had intended to either rent or sell to a developer, but everything happens in slow motion with a baby under 1. Now we had to relocate back into it. I stay up in the house to deal with contractors and the health department. I'm still extremely sick, cough and sore throat. My wife and baby start their rabies exposure series per the health department. We are set to max out our insurance coverage costs. Even with coverage, we will end up paying $14,000+ in medical expenses. So we start talking with the neighbors. Some of them even stake out the house with me while I take video of thousands of bats flying out. The health department comes to try and capture a live one. They can't get to one though, none are loose inside the house, they are stuck behind drywall and plyboard panels and enmeshed into the insulation. I open up all the crawlspace doors and seal the attic shut, then I come out and there are 6 in the attic. I catch one and bring it to the health department. Now, here we are, evacuated, living on 1/4 of our personal goods, back to our trailer. During this time, we've been coordinating with lawyers, insurance, pest control, various contractors. The assessment is as such: We bought the house from an estate. In WA State, an estate does not need to disclose anything wrong about the house, it is buyer beware. (no form 17) However, from neighbors and facebook digging, we know that the estate had a son-in-law who stayed at the house nearly 2 years working on the home to make it more sellable and auctioning off antiques. There are panels and flimsy boards, and lights in weird places in the crawlspace above the attic. We also noticed fly larva coming out of the boards that the inspector missed. Likely this was work done by the seller. The inspection report identifies the pests as rodents but only as a problem in one area. Now the entire attic and all the storage crawl areas have insulation and bat poop. The gutters and roof seams are completely coated in insulation and poop. Insurance denied our claim, they say the problem is pre-existing because of the evidence of pests in inspection, despite the severity and scale of the problem now. Other neighbors confirmed that the original couple that lived there knew about the bats and showed them how many there were, like 10 years ago. Lawyers we've talked to say its very unlikely we would win a case. The sellers knew all their legal loopholes (son-in-law was a house flipper) - they may have hidden the problem but that isn't illegal, even though it led to very hazardous conditions for our infant. If we lose the case, we owe tens of thousands in legal fees. The cost to fix is exceedingly high. $20-40k just to get the bats out, possibly reroofing the entire house (likely above $60k - its a complex roof.) Then redoing all the interior insulation and flooring in the attic (more than $20k). Possibly with enough haggling and putting in some labor myself, I could get costs close to $60K, but that may be wishful thinking. HELOC loans, home equity loans, and equity agreements, all seem to be inaccessible, we are just too improperly leveraged, we've only made a handful of payments so far. Maybe we could cover part of repairs, but likely not all of them. So - now I put you in our shoes: 1) Risky lawsuit against the sellers and the seller's realtor. 2) Risky lawsuit against insurance 3) Risky concoction of overleveraging (HELOC/HEA) to pay for repairs 4) Strategic default, we loose $200K immediately and locked out of real estate for years 5) Try to convince a few insane investors to pay off our equity, take out business loans to fix, remodel, and turn the place into a BNB (very unlikely and also risky) 6) Cash out my 401K, sell a kidney, get a 2nd job, or enlist in the military 7) Sell our smaller property (maybe can get $450K for it) and rent somewhere while we fix the new place, but then we lose our last vestige of security I say this all in the context of not wanting to live in that home any more. We love the neighborhood, but feel that the place is going to be a complete and absolute money pit. With enough love, attention and improvement, and changes to the Fed's rates, we could probably sell for $1.1M or higher if it was proven bat free, repainted, and some other aesthetic work was done. But it would take $150-200k to get there, so it would virtually be a wash. With the market teetering in a million stupid directions, and the scale of severity of this problem, we are losing our minds. At least we have good Halloween costumes picked out this year....   NEW UPDATE Aug 9, 2023 Same bat time, same bat channel - update from the bat mansion of financial horror Okay - folks are asking for an update from the last post: https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/158go29/my_wife_and_i_were_sold_a_lemon_the_sellers/ ​ Where to start.... Life is a whirlwind sometimes. Nothing is easy about this whole situation, we don't have any deus-ex-machina solutions falling into our lap. We're just chugging along, still trying to piece together any semblance of a plan while struggling to keep our sanity. It's a lot of small steps, one at a time, and a LOT of stress… And 12 ER visits to get all of our rabies shots… The expertise of some of you redditors was astounding. Not a ton of help on figuring out our method to finance this, and I'll also point out $450k on our old place is a stretch. We'd be lucky to get above $360k without a lot of work. There's also a lot of family resistance to selling, as my mother owned it and lived in it after her divorce, and it's her fallback plan if her current spouse dies. Loooong story there too… Also, holy cow - you snoops were able to doxx us pretty easy based on "Victorian, North Puget Sound." But because of that, we even got an inspection report from an earlier prospective buyer. You redditors also brought up some very interesting conversations and advice from RE Investors, biologists, pest control, and general contractors. Great starting points, but still a lot to look into. I DID reach out to the University (I actually used to work in the college of the environment) - there was a professor at the Burke Museum in chiropterology - but she could only really refer me to the Dept Fish and Wildlife (DFW). Luckily, DFW does have some ways they can help, not financially. They can help us get permitting and design for bat houses that can be put up in the state park. Our other neighbors are supportive of this too because it would take bat pressure away from their houses too. There's a lot more that's happened - so here's abbreviated list: Grandma (my MIL) is an attorney, and did a TON of research, and then we paid $3K to have more experienced real estate attorneys confirm that we "had a bats chance in hell" Talking to the bank - in theory we could take out a combination of loans - personal line of credit, home improvement loan, and a HELOC, for as much as $110K for a monthly of $1500. If wife goes back to work and daycare isn't impossible, this is feasible but still challenging on top of a $4900/mo mortgage. $110K might only cover 2/3 the work too. We are asking the bank for a "Pause" to be able to rack up more in savings so we might get some of the work started soon. This doesn't cover costs but it gives us runway to maybe start some of the remediation services. Our roofing friends are checking out the property with us next weekend - they think, as they did before - it will be a VERY expensive job in just materials - but want to confirm. The Health Department issued an imminent health hazard for the house, its unfit for habitation until we remediate. Kind of scary seeing the red warnings on all the doors. Pest Control company gave us a writeup, it was not thorough and I remain unimpressed, unsure how it can help us talk with the bank. All of our Rabies shots are done. Not fun. Sitting in the ER collectively 12 times. Maxed out limit of medical expense at $14K… And blood tests for histoplasmosis. Our stress levels hit a critical point - my wife's mental state has hit periods of complete rock bottom. We are seeking counseling to get through this. Article in the local news - and upcoming radio interviews including local NPR. Also - if anyone out there has experience with USDA Loans, I'd love to hear from you. I don't fully qualify but the property does and I'm curious about waivers based on these stupidly high interest rates. Also, if anyone out there has successfully taken out business loans for a BnB through the SBA that doesn't compete or piss off the first-position residential lender… That would be very helpful to hear about. The toughest thing we are dealing with though is anger and depression. Luckily, we also have an amazing little dude (our baby) who keeps us smiling no matter how bleak things get. I'm also finding it hard to be 100% committed to work, and struggling to keep ahead of the opinions and office politics that my position has to contend with for success. My boss is very understanding but I can tell that this has definitely set me a back a bit in a few ways. We are also pursuing a few other creative ventures to raise funds but I don't want to break subreddit rules so I'm leaving them off this update. If anyone is a good book editor or interior designer with art skills, please reach out! The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind... (I feel like I'm falling into a Lovecraftian madness) Cheers all   THIS IS A REPOST SUB: I AM NOT THE OOP Notes from the Editor: The “Article in the local news” mentioned by OOP can be found here: https://www.whidbeynewstimes.com/news/family-of-three-finds-1000-bats-in-their-new-home/ A link to the interview with “local NPR” here: https://www.kuow.org/stories/home-buyers-got-a-deal-and-pests-they-can-t-get-rid-of?fbclid=IwAR1tCOu1dJk5HXQi9YlmFO_EBHH4roZHzkW5FYHQqaCSWPJWhx3Of499sL0 OOP's Indiegogo campaign can be found here if you'd like to contribute: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bat-breakfast-save-our-home-build-a-community#/ This is an ongoing story and I will be posting updates as the situation develops. I have received permission from OOP to share his story here, as (in his own words) "Any call for action on getting creative types to help tell the story, or legal folks in WA state to help draft new policy would be great too" submitted by /u/King_of_Anything to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

Author's Note: I started writing this a couple weeks ago when SPY was in the 430s. A fair bit of the "up" predicted in the title has already happened. That said I think we at least test the Morgan Collar at 4620 SPX before we top, and the gigantic IB trader's long put position is acting as resistance at 4500 SPX. There's a small chance we either match or exceed ATH before the end. There's still around $1.7 Trillion left in ONRRP to exhaust, and so far, REITs and other large property holders are adding unsecured debt to cover investor withdrawals and prop up values. This delays the boom, but means it'll boom harder when it happens. TLDR: The convergence of bond value reduction due to rate hikes combined with CMBS notes going to zero will cause a deflationary bust with multiple bank failures, in turn tanking the market and leading to more "printer go brrr" yielding an inflationary death spiral last seen during the Wiemar Republic in 1923. ​ https://preview.redd.it/jz9yzyrbikdb1.jpg?width=620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=05de38bf5b7aa22116fe66d11ff317fbf2644b2d Hi, I'm u/catbulliesdog you may know me from such previous DD's as: The 2022 Real Estate Crash is going to be worse than the 2008 One, and Nobody Knows about it Yet , This is How the (Financial) World Ends, Housing is a Big Bubbly Pile of Bullshit, and The 2023 Real Estate Crash Started 5 Months Ago, and It Just took Down it's First Banks (some of the links are to my profile, the relevant DD is in the pinned posts or just under "posts", can't link 'cause all the finance subs be fite each other). Plus a bunch of DD I've written various places about China and Evergrande and how nothing was ever fixed there and its going to take down the whole country. (bonus, hidden $81 Billion loss revealed today!) I've been saying for a couple of years now that we had three potential outcomes to the current mess: a 2008 style crash - this was the best case scenario, and it's window is long gone a 1929 style deflationary bust - this is, as the title indicates, a mathematical certainty at this point, the problem is what follows a 1923 Weimar republic style hyperinflation - yeah, this is the one we're gonna get when the Fed tries to print its way out of number 2. I picked 1923 and Weimar over a long list of 3rd world countries that experienced hyperinflation because of the political consequences that followed. Bonds I'm going to end up talking a lot about Bonds in this post, so, lets go over what a bond actually is, and how they work, because I know you lot of smooth brained virgin baboons have gained basically all of your so-called knowledge from a Chappelle's Show Wu-Tang Financial skit. A Bond is at heart a financial instrument representing debt that can be traded back and forth like a stock or other commodity. Bonds are described in four ways: Face Value, Coupon Rate, Yield and Price. Face Value is the total amount the bond is worth at maturation (the date it expires). Coupon Rate is the interest rate the bond pays. Yield is the effective interest rate when accounting for Price and time to maturation. Price is how much you can buy and sell a bond for today. So say you've got a $100 (face value) bond that pays 4% interest over 10 years (coupon rate). Mike buys this bond for $71.50 (price). You bought it from Mikey the Moron for $25 (price) because he really wanted to go get a pizza and six pack tonight. Mike made this deal because while the bond is worth more, the money is inaccessible for 10 years, its illiquid, and he really wants to impress his lady friend tonight, so he needs the money now. You're making 300%, which is 30%/year (yield), but you have to wait 10 years to get it. This is basically what happened to regional banks in March, they bought an absolute fuckload of bonds at very low rates, and now that rates have risen along with inflation, the yield on those bonds has collapsed, crushing the price. But, they needed access to money before the 10 years was up, so they had to unload their bonds at a big loss to get cash now, just like Mikey. The Fed stopped this bleeding with stuff like the BTFD program, but just like what China did by making banks post fake deposit numbers, it's not actually a solution, and the problem will just continue to grow behind the scenes until it busts out like the Kool Aid Man during one of his frequent substance abuse relapses. Now, there's lots of complex bullshit that gets piled on top of this, so that people can pretend they're super duper smart and too cool for school, but at the end of the day, that's the gist of it, you're buying and selling pieces of loans. CMBS This is basically the exact same story as 2008, except with commercial properties instead of residential ones. The valuations are fake and backed up by bogus revenue estimates. This is being blamed on the pandemic and work from home, but the truth is its been going on since 2008. When nobody went to jail, they all just moved over to commercial real estate and restarted the same fraudulent machine. Don't believe me? Think it's too crazy to be true? Here, from the company's website, is the corporate blurb about Brian Harris, founder of Ladder Capital. Brian Harris is a founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Ladder Capital. Before forming Ladder Capital in October 2008, Mr. Harris served as a Head of Global Commercial Real Estate at Dillon Read Capital Management, a wholly owned subsidiary of UBS. Before joining Dillon Read, Mr. Harris served as Head of Global Commercial Real Estate at UBS, managing UBS’ proprietary commercial real estate activities globally. Mr. Harris also served as a Member of the Board of Directors of UBS Investment Bank. Prior to joining UBS, Mr. Harris served as Head of Commercial Mortgage Trading at Credit Suisse and previously worked in the real estate groups at Lehman Brothers, Salomon Brothers, Smith Barney and Daiwa Securities. Mr. Harris received a B.S. and an M.B.A. from The State University of New York at Albany. I mean, jesus, look at that company list, Lehman, Soloman, Smith Barney, UBS, Credit Suisse, its like a fucking directory of shady bullshit. And the year founded? Dude waited less than a month to realize he could do the same shit he was pulling with MBS if he just added the letter "C" to the front of it. If white collar crime enforcement existed in America, this Fredo-Wannabe would have been squeezed like one of the Killer Tomatoes for enough convictions to get six dozen people Epstein'd. Honestly, I'm just kind of in awe of how much fraud and crime this guy has been part of. Ladder Capital is heavily involved in the massive fraud that is Dollar General's real estate empire - one of the scummiest companies out there that has routinely put employees at risk and has gone so far in search of illegal profits I think they might have actually invented some new crimes. ​ https://preview.redd.it/qg15jpuhikdb1.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa7b1f0b8d6afcc4e5adaef5a9c6e12781c67df5 MBS Next we've got regular MBS - this is fucked in two separate ways. First, housing supply. The following is from a DD I wrote in 2021 showing that there wasn't and isn't a shortage of physical housing: In 2004 (roughly the peak of US homeownership rates) the US homeownership rate was a bit over 69%. In 2021 it's at 65%. In 2004 there were 122 million housing units in the US. In 2021 it's 141 million. US population in 2004 was 292 million. In 2021 it's 331 million. Throw all these numbers into a blender and you get: A 13% increase in population, a 4% decrease in homeownership rate, and a 15% increase in housing supply. Yes, that's right, the housing supply has increased faster than the population, and the homeownership rate during that time has dropped. Now let's update that to 2023: Population - 334 million. Homeownership Rate - 66%. Housing Units - 144 million. Over the last two years we've added 3 million people, and 3 million housing units. Most people don't live alone - children, couples, roommates, etc. So, to be clear, between 2004 and 2021, we went from 41.7 housing units per 100 people to 42.6 housing units per 100 people, and in 2023 we're at 43.1/100. That's 43.1 housing units for every 100 people in America. In the last two years we've added half a housing unit/per 100 people, which as nearly as I can tell is the fastest rate in the history of America, and during that period of time, the price of the average house in America went up by 26%, from $346,900, to $436,800. (all numbers taken from the same data series at FRED to keep things normalized) I'll say it again, over the last two years housing supply has increased at the fastest rate in American history, and prices jumped 26%. Everything I can find indicates that this "excess housing" is currently tied up in ABNB/short term rental/illegal hotels, REITs, and vacant "investment" properties that are being used as tax dodges or places for foreigners to hide cash. The rise in interest rates makes a lot of these activities unprofitable for new entrants, and a lot of the business models that these types of owners use don't work without continued growth. There's lag, denial, and losses, but REITs have been getting hit with gated max withdrawals every month for almost a year now. Combined with the hits from higher insurance and tax costs, we're going to see forced liquidations as capital flees and these finance vehicles collapse. MBS is a Derivative This one is a little trickier to understand, but it goes back to the fact that at the end of the day, MBS is basically a housing bond. And as rates continue to rise, the massive amounts of existing MBS continue to lose value. Let's do a practical exercise using rough numbers to understand this: say you've got $100 million of MBS at 2.5% and 30 years. Rates are now 5% for 30 year Treasuries. That means your $100 million is worth half of what it used to be. You've basically taken a 50% ($50 million) loss, and that's if every single mortgage pays out with no defaults, while Treasuries are effectively risk-free. (this is wildly simplified, and kinda inaccurate, but I'm writing for people who didn't get accepted to Derek Zoolanders Academy for Kids who Can't Read Good and Other Stuff) ​ https://preview.redd.it/w8meq29kikdb1.jpg?width=636&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=80e874a1783a66a98dd6345cff2095f94e00daac In other words, mortgages are fine, mortgage securities are not. REITs You might have seen the bit about Bill Gates being the largest landowner of farmland in the US that floats around the internet every so often, but do you know who owns the most real estate of every type in the US bar none? US REITs own $4.5 Trillion of property. Now, since last fall, REIT withdrawals have been getting "gated" every month. No, not the anime "Gate" about the Japanese military invading a fantasy world with tanks and helicopters, "Gated", as in limits on how much money people can take out of the investment. Here is a chart showing REITs leveraging up every time the price increases. ​ https://preview.redd.it/22h65x8mikdb1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1e24a1ead0fbe867c4bcf3bd0b9741738166bc00 Here is a pair of charts showing REITs debt quality being upgraded AS THEY INCREASE THE PERCENTAGE THAT'S UNSECURED. ​ https://preview.redd.it/rwwgz92oikdb1.jpg?width=980&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=915e88598ead07800d522ad2e36b6cf3e7ba3c12 ​ https://preview.redd.it/7nrk6k6qikdb1.jpg?width=980&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6cbb6efa5d51b01ba79cace7eb909355b8f13746 Here is a chart that literally shows smart money leaving REITs and being replaced by unsecured debt so that fund managers can avoid selling buildings at a huge loss and destroying their entire job. ​ https://preview.redd.it/7o7lfdarikdb1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dc88c36c89a9b3228efeca50582ce0354604b398 And here is the official statement from the REIT lobbying groups website about why they're safe. With higher interest rates, stricter underwriting standards, and changing property valuations, many private real estate investors are ill-equipped to face the current financing environment. This has fueled concerns about real estate debt holdings and the potential for escalating CRE defaults. It has also increased the perceived risk of the overall industry. While U.S. public equity REITs are not immune from the current mortgage market turmoil, on average, REITs have limited their exposure to these challenges by maintaining leverage ratios consistent with core investment strategies and focusing on unsecured, fixed rate, and longer-term debt. Access to the unsecured debt market provides U.S. public equity REITs with a competitive advantage over many of their private real estate market counterparts. Today, REITs continue to be well-prepared to navigate this period of economic and capital market uncertainty. Let me translate that into plain English for you. They're saying they've loaded up leverage to buy more at the top as their valuations have risen over the last two years, and they're using unsecured debt to cover shortfalls from too many withdrawals. This is the blueprint for turning small defaults into gigantic economy destroying fire sale defaults. An REIT is effectively a math problem, when money is free (zero rates) and houses/buildings always go up in price (a side effect of zero rates) it prints cash. But take away those two things and all of a sudden it turns into a SAW movie where you can't get out and your net worth is destroyed in slow motion in front of you. The people running the REITs aren't going to liquidate early and save what they can because doing so puts them out of a job and makes it impossible to get another one. Six months of withdrawal limits - from 3 months ago Australian REIT can't sell buildings to pay out investors - from last week "Decline" in redemption requests - this one is the funniest to me, because if you actually read the article, it notes that $8.1 Billion has been withdrawn from this one REIT since November and another $3.8 Billion tried to leave in June, of which they only allowed $628 million to escape, and the headline is all "everything is good bro!". ​ https://preview.redd.it/mz8mkdtsikdb1.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a031df930199463f025deca2fc3032ffe62f2db China This is our future. When I started posting about Evergrande and the crippling problems with China's economy, I also said they were doing something radical that had never been done before that was staving off the collapse. Namely, they were just flat out lying about their reserves and obligations and losses. The Party basically told the banks "you're not insolvent, the debts are good, and if you disagree your entire family goes to organ donation camps". So, the banks and the local governments pretended everything was fine, crushed any local protests with a mix of police, state agents, thugs and enforcers, and the developers all said "we'll finish your buildings and pay you back we pinky swear it this time". And all of that bought them roughly a year and a half. I don't know if the CCP realized what they were doing when they did it, but they were really backdoor fake money printing. The books added up to -27, but they said it was actually +148. The money was never real, but enough people acted like it was to keep the plates spinning for a little while longer while Xi consolidated his power as a modern day emperor. But now the cracks are showing, the plates are falling, and it turns out Xi might have the power of an emperor, but the tide is going out and he doesn't have any clothes. Evergrande's losses were just revealed as $81 Billion (so far, real number is way higher), and Evergrande is just the well known name, there are dozens and dozens of dead fish in that corrupt pond waiting their turn to float up to the surface. To put it simply, China has three real estate problems: The country built an absolute ton of completely worthless buildings and infrastructure. The population spent their entire life's savings to finance this fiasco. A lot of these worthless buildings have been paid for but never even built and now the money and value are disappearing. For the past couple of months China has been doing massive amounts of QE and money printing, but its not enough to offset the deflationary bust of fraudulent assets being realized as worthless. The spiral here is just starting, and the CCP has more avenues to force the appearance of "its all ok" than the US does, but things are going to continue to get worse, first slowly, then rapidly all at once. That leaves Xi with the tried and true option of starting a war to avoid dealing with his problems. His best target for invasion is actually Russia, it has a weak military, a large land border, and everything his country needs. But the Russians also have nuclear weapons and ballistic missile submarines, so they're out. India is the worst target, with a larger, younger population, a land border full of hard to cross mountains, and also nuclear weapons. That leaves Taiwan, which China has failed to invade twice already, so I guess we'll see what happens there. ​ https://preview.redd.it/82bzt6ptikdb1.jpg?width=568&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cff156d46d6b2d07f324986e3f53e7adc0932431 Now, you might say but CatDog, China is the world's factory, and I've been hearing about Evergrande or whatever for years but nothing happened, they're fine! Well, no, they're not, and the property bust is well and truly underway. Here, peep this chart link from the National Bureau of Statistics of China. Look at Table IV - link is to an official CCP site, so the numbers, which are terrible, are overstated to the upside. Only 8 out of 70 cities did not experience a drop in the price of sold second hand residential buildings in the 2023 Jan-May period (this is Chinese people selling empty, unfinished apartments to each other in a weird national ponzi scheme that's wasted and destroyed the life savings of the majority of the population) Imagine taking a 30% value hit on an apartment you've paid for with your parents and neighbors life savings that isn't even under construction yet. That's what's happened in 62 out of 70 of China's largest cities over the last couple months. The fireworks that are going to come out of this haven't even begun to start yet. US Banks and Insurance Companies American banks are currently experiencing a lot of the same things Chinese banks have been in the face of interest rate hikes devaluing all the bonds they bought during pandemic money printing, and the property bust that's in progress. I keep talking about property, but really its all the debt that financed the purchase of that property and has been sold in the form of low interest rate bonds. Bonds which lose billions in value every time the fed hikes rates. Pretty much every single bank in America is insolvent under mark to market accounting due to unrealized bond losses - the recent Fed stress tests notably did NOT test banks under that standard. What, you think BofA keeps noting $100B+ losses on bonds every quarter and they're the only ones? But its not just banks. You know who else buys an absolute ton of treasuries and MBS and CMBS and other bonds? Insurance companies. But hey, no issue there, its not like insurance companies EVER get hit by gigantic unexpected capital calls right? I'm sure they can all just wait it out for 30 years juuuuussstt fine. Anyways, right now they're marking stuff HTM (held to maturity) and relying on special fed programs to hide the problems. It's a temporary band-aid that won't hold up for long, just like what the Chinese banks were doing when they would just say "it's all fine!" And finally, since there's no where else to really put this, remember how the ADP payroll report showed +459,000 jobs, but the official numbers showed less than a quarter of that? They're both right, it just means over 300,000 people got a second job last month to make ends meet. ​ https://preview.redd.it/wug40e6wikdb1.jpg?width=504&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a4f0ec91d413e1bd5bc95e5b0a799dedddba5407 Canadian Banks Yeah, the big six are just completely fucked at this point. They're full of Chinese property debt and the insanely overpriced Canadian real estate market doesn't have 30 year fixed loans. It has 5 year fixed adjustable. Which means it starts detonating AT THE ABSOLUTE LATEST in 2 more years when people start having to refi the first pandemic home purchases from 2020 at rates which will more than double their mortgage payments. But their charts say they're gonna run to new ATH's first. So we'll see what happens here I guess. Deflationary Bust This is what's going to happen this fall as bonds come due and debt needs to be refinanced at higher rates. A deflationary bust from debt going bad is what caused the Great Depression and the Great Recession. The Great Depression was worsened by governments hoarding Gold thus further contracting the monetary supply, which did not happen in 2008, and won't happen this time around either. The difference is the sheer amount of debt going boom this time, on top of just how much debt is out there now. Look, one of the things that turns a Bull Market into a Bubble is fraudulent shorts getting exposed and liquidated. One of the things that turns a Bear Market into a Crash is fraudulent ponzi's getting exposed and liquidated. Post-pandemic it was the Meme Stock phenomenon and a concerted options leverage strategy by Softbank. In 2008 it was Madoff and AIG. I don't know what the trigger event will be, or what it'll get blamed on, but I do now that if you just keep pouring dynamite and nitroglycerin into a hole along with lit matches, its only a matter of time until it goes off, and when it does, it won't really matter which match started the chain reaction. Fed Panic/JPOW is a 'lil Bitch Every single time the market drops, JPOW will panic and try to pump it. Even when he says he's trying to make it go down, he'll still pump it. Last year the market was on the verge of crashing for reals when JPOW had his little buddy Nick Timiraos at the Wall Street Journal tweet out some bull news about rates and the Fed. I've been trying to find the tweet - it came close to bottom ticking the market during the 30 September - 14 October bottom - but I suck at old tweet searches, so you can take my word for it or find it yourself. Then there was the time the Fed sold billions in puts to stop a 1987-style crash that was developing in the early days of 2023. Fed intervention or "the fed put" as its been called is just something that happens now I guess, and it'll work and drag things out... right up until it doesn't. In a recent paper published by the Kansas City Fed the Fed itself has admitted monetary policy was not at all constrictive over the last two years, despite "rate hikes" and tough talk. When things get really bad as the bonds bust, JPOW will return to his roots as the Wall Street Lawyer he is, who works at a company owned by JPMorgan (yes, the Fed is a private bank that pays a dividend and Morgan has owned the biggest part of it since it was founded in 1913). And JPOW will try to pump the markets. Which will lead to.... Hyperinflation/Weimar Republic This is what we'll likely be on the path to once the Fed tries, again, to fight a deflationary death spiral by printing money and preventing the global rich and wall street from realizing any losses. Inflation doesn't happen all at once, and it doesn't go away the first time it drops. It comes in waves, and our current lull is about to start ramping up again, despite the "high" Fed Rate of 5%. Inflation kept spiking in the 70's even when rates were over 10%. And if you go back and read the headlines, you'll see plenty of victories declared along the way, just like we're seeing now. ​ https://preview.redd.it/c5euvsmyikdb1.jpg?width=890&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a61b92b081b7db5492f671fcd281bb2ba4bc5b59 But they're all fleeting and momentary victories. The tide of inflation rolls on until we hit monetary destruction, revenue catches up with debt, a massive deflationary bust occurs and sticks for more than 10 days... or we have a big war. Positioning Fuck you, buy GME. Around 90% of my total portfolio is direct registered shares and LEAPS of the video game stock that made this place famous, and I continue putting excess profits into those positions. This super advanced analytic chart from a cutting edge AI is basically how I see SPY going this fall: ​ https://preview.redd.it/t5qnjrwzikdb1.jpg?width=898&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8c6b72e4743e0837950c24d8780cee854f17eea5 Look, you're all an amazing Shrewdness of Primates. Apes strongk together. Go forth and seize your tendies you beautiful ugly bastards! submitted by /u/catbulliesdog to r/Superstonk [link] [comments]

So these days in the bay area and across America the Real estate prices have sky rocketed and to top of it there is a lot of bidding that happens which in turn inflates the price of the home even more. So I was looking at a home in the bay area (Mountain House, CA) the home was listed for $892K , I asked my realtor if we can submit an offer for 920K and she refused and told me that the seller agent wont even look at this offer and this impact my credibility and he would laugh at me and tell me "no way this house will sell for anywhere near $920K and she should know better that the minimum offer price should be $1M" I think whats happening here is that agents are working together and not allowing buyers to submit low offers and inflating the price of the house. Just imagine if all the buyers have an agent like this and they only allow for offer North of $1M for $892k listed home then obviously the price will go up. Because this is how they make their commission submitted by /u/Clean_Visit_3641 to r/RealEstate [link] [comments]

I have noticed a lot of Real Estate related posts lately and most of them are chock-full of anxieties, horror stories, and misinformation. I wanted to write a (admittedly very very long) post with some advice for buyers that will definitely help get their offers noticed by sellers. I know this is a really tough market and shit happens, but it really should not take 25+ offers to get a house. If that happens, then you or your agent need to reassess and figure out what was going wrong 10-20 offers before that. I can't tell you how many poorly written offers I have seen where the lack of professionalism or understanding from the buyer's agent took them out of the running. Below are some tips that will help get your offers noticed and, eventually, accepted. A bit about myself, I am a full-time Seattle Real Estate Agent who has done 14 transactions so far in 2021, most of the time I was representing the buyer, and all but one of them were using conventional loans. This post is not meant to be an advertisement for my business but advice that you can discuss with your own agent to make sure your offer is being seriously considered by the sellers. All these recommendations may not be necessary on every house but you should be utilizing AT LEAST some of them these days. I will try to break them down clearly and concisely but if you have any questions I would be happy to do my best to answer them. ​ First off, picking a lender: Having a good lender is more than just putting as much money down as possible and getting a good interest rate. Obviously, those things are important but in the Seattle Metro area listing agents want to be sure that the lender is on top of things and knows they need to move quickly and be available. When you go to get financing, you should have one point of contact whose cell and email you and your agent both have. Ideally, there will be an open flow of communication between all three of you with text and email chains keeping everyone up-to-date on the state of your loan and what houses you are going to be pursuing. I can't tell you how many times I have had to frantically call lenders at 8PM on a Friday night or early on a Sunday morning when the lender is literally skiing with their family at Snoqualimie but it happens a lot and the good ones always come through. Furthermore, when you go to submit your offer, MAKE SURE your lender is calling the listing agent in order to talk about how well qualified you are and answer any questions they might have. ​ Preapproval: Getting preapproved for a loan is the bare minimum right now. Ask your lender about getting fully underwritten, meaning they have already gone through your finances and have a loan ready to go for you. This can be a frustrating and stressful situation, which is why we refer to it as a "financial colonoscopy," but it means you can close much quicker and there is virtually no uncertainty as to whether your loan will be approved. This is pretty much as close to having cash in hand as you can get with a conventional loan and will look really good to sellers and allow you to be as competitive as possible. Then make sure your lender is providing a thorough preapproval form, ideally with a much higher amount on it than the offer you are writing in order to convey strength. The preapproval form should also make it clear that you are fully underwritten and ready to close ASAP. If your lender doesn't do these things, find someone else. ​ Finding an Agent: Most good agents work largely on a referral basis so talk to people you know who have bought in the area. Vet the agency as well because a company's culture has a lot to do with how their agents present themselves and represent their clients. You do not want a discount brokerage in this market. You want to work with a company that has a large market share where you want to buy because those agents talk to one another and advise each other on the monthly/weekly/daily movements of the market - and things move fast. Also, ask what your agent does to scope out listings you are interested in beyond just looking at the listing on the MLS. Your agent should call Listing Agents (LA) to get the scoop on what is going on and be in constant contact with LAs for homes you will be writing an offer on. You would be shocked how much can be learned by simply calling them and seeing what is going on. I have had LAs give me a rundown of all the offers they have in hand (not something I would ever do but it was helpful to my buyers) or tell me that the seller would be open to low offers or a buyer's credit, wants specific concessions, and many other things you only find out by calling. ​ Inspections: When the market is as crazy as it is right now, I always tell my buyers to budget for about 5 presinspections and sewer scopes but maybe even more. That means about $700 per house (~$450 for the inspection and ~$250 for sewer scopes) for a total of about $3500 and be glad if you don't have to spend all of it. No matter what, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS do a sewer scope. Yes, even on new builds because the sewer line may have been installed correctly but if the landscapers drive their truck over the soft new soil above the line they can easily break it and you can get stuck with the cost of repair. Nowadays many sellers are providing their own inspections to buyers prior to reviewing offers. That way every interested buyer doesn’t have to do their own inspection and sewer scope. Generally these inspections are fine but be wary, some agents have different inspectors they use for buyers and for sellers. If the inspection report looks too good to be true, it probably is. The inspector should be on the roof, in the attic, filling the bathtub to the overflow drain, checking for grounded wiring, running the dishwasher, army-crawling through the crawl space, taking the cover off the electrical panel, making sure the water meter isn't running, and 100 other things. If you aren't seeing evidence of that, do your own inspection with someone you trust. Then once you are satisfied with the condition of the house you can feel comfortable writing your offer and waiving your right to rescind based on the inspection. ​ Earnest Money (EM) and Non-Refundable Deposits: This is a chance to convey that you are committed to the house and aren't going anywhere. I always want my buyers to put at least 3% of the purchase price in EM and remember that it is part of your down payment so more is better. Depending on what contingencies you have included you can usually get this money back if something goes wrong and it is always safeguarded if the seller defaults on the contract. If you really like the house and you know it is competitive, then put even more down in EM and remember that you legally cannot lose more than 5% of the purchase price if the deal falls through (not like you would want to lose $10k-$100k though). Beyond just offering a large EM, consider converting it into a "non-refundable deposit." Now an obvious warning, this is a pretty aggressive tactic and has some major risks. By converting all or a portion of your EM into a non-refundable deposit, you are instructing escrow to turn over that money directly to the seller prior to the transaction even closing and that money then belongs to the seller. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that the seller can just walk away and refuse to sell to you while pocketing your money, but if (god forbid) they do, you will have to fight over it in court. The reason some buyers have been doing this lately is that, in most aggressive offers, you are waiving all your contingencies which safeguard your EM anyways so there are few scenarios you would be able to get that money back. You are just preempting the turnover of EM as part of the sale and trying to entice the seller with the prospect of getting $10-$50K in a few days. Again, this is really really aggressive and I do not recommend it for the faint of heart but sellers really do like this and it will absolutely get your offer noticed in a multiple offer scenario. ​ Financing/Appraisals/Increased Downpayments: Your financing contingency is the most important contingency that you can include in your offer because it protects you in case, through no fault of your own, the loan is not approved. In a "normal" market you would always include this contingency on the off chance you get fired, your spouse dies, the lender made a mistake or a number of other worst-case scenarios occurs so that you can get your earnest money back. The financing contingency also protects you in case of a "low appraisal." That means that if the independent appraiser determines that the house is not worth what you offered to purchase it at, you are not obligated to buy it and can back out and still get your earnest money or renegotiate the price. Nowadays when the market is crazy competitive, many buyers have resorted to waiving their financing contingency. That means that the previously mentioned safeguards are no longer there and you are at risk in case of a low appraisal or your loan not being approved due to a worst-case scenario. If, for instance, the house appraises for $25K less than what you offered, you will have to either reconfigure your loan or come up with an additional $25K to cover the difference. This is an extremely risky tactic and one I never thought I would ever even consider with my clients, but when people are desperate to get a house this really works and I have had some success with it lately. This should only be done if you are fully underwritten and you have had lengthy conversations with your lender and agent regarding the pros and cons. Please be cautious and never do something that will make it hard for you to sleep at night. If you are not comfortable with waiving financing (which personally I would not be) you should at least offer to put more money down in case of a low appraisal. There are specific forms for all these things that can be tailored to best fit what you are comfortable doing. For instance, you can offer to pay an additional $15K in case of a low appraisal. Going off the previous example of the house appraising for $25k less than what you offered, if that were to happen, you would be obligated to pay the additional $15K and then would have to negotiate what to do with the $10k discrepancy. The seller may be open to reducing the price by that amount, or maybe you split the difference and meet in the middle. If you cannot agree on how to proceed with the $10k difference, then you would be able to get out of the contract and still be entitled to getting your EM back. ​ Using an Escalation addendum (bidding up): When writing an offer in a competitive scenario, it is generally assumed that you will have to "escalate" above the list price. This is how homes get bid above the listed price as it is not just people arbitrarily offering $100k above what they are asking. When determining how much money you want to offer, we always tell our buyers to imagine that someone paid "X" amount for the home, would you feel upset that you didn't get it for that price? If you answered yes and you can afford it, then you should up your escalation cap. If they paid "Y" for the home and you are fine not to get it at that price, then you know not to go that high. Deciding on the increments in which you will go above is also important. You can go up by as little as $1 but you won't be taken seriously that way. Generally, you want the increments in which you escalate to be significant enough to convince the seller to take your offer even if the next highest offer may have some terms that are more appealing to them. On average, about $3-5K is good in the Seattle area but maybe more if you are looking at homes at a higher price point. One thing to be aware of these days are sellers requesting people not to use the escalator and instead to do "highest and best offers." That is complete bullshit to me and you should never do that. One of the main advantages of using the escalator is that you are entitled to see the next highest offer once your offer is accepted so you know you are paying a fair market value for the home as there were other people willing to pay a similar amount as you were. My personal opinion is that "highest and best" is attempting to get buyers to arbitrarily pay more for a house than it is worth and should always be avoided. Just included the escalator anyway because, if your offer is the best, they will still accept it. The final thing to consider when escalating is you can include terms that adjust the escalation depending on the terms of the "competing offer." That is to say that you can narrow the scope of what will be considered a competing offer so that the seller does not use an offer with a 60 day closing period to escalate you since that can be a big difference. You can also do things like offer to pay more if the competing offer is all cash in order to convince the seller to take yours. ​ Title Contingency: The Title Contingency is really important because it gives you a chance to look at who owns the property and what encumbrances it may have. This is your chance to find out if there is a weird easement that you may not want to put up with, like allowing the power company access to the property to service power lines or not allowing you to build another floor on top that would block your neighbor's view. You and your agent should be thoroughly looking through the preliminary title commitment together and making sure you understand it fully. Many people don't realize this, but you and/or your agent can actually call the title company and ask a representative to walk you through the report and point out any red flags. They are pretty confusing and some of the recordings can be 100 years old so it takes an experienced eye to really understand it. Again, in a very competitive market as we are experiencing right now, consider waiving your title contingency but only if you have had a chance to fully investigate it and are certain that you can handle it. ​ Miscellaneous options to strengthen your offer: Waive the Information Verification Period (Paragraph W) on the 6th page of the Purchase and Sale Agreement (Form 21). This is a standard clause that allows you 10 days to review the listing and information provided by the seller to be sure that everything is correct. It can be things like the seller claimed to have a gas hookup but they don't and this clause would allow you to get out if they were incorrect. Ideally, you will do your own due diligence and not really be relying too much on what the seller has told you so you can waive it and still feel confident in the home you are buying. Acknowledge the Seller's Disclosure (form 17) and waive your right to rescind based on the information provided. Again, you are relying on your own inspection and due diligence more than what the seller is telling you. Consider writing an early offer. Many sellers will say they do not want early offers but the LAs are legally required to present all offers, early or not, to their clients. If you do this, make sure it is one hell of a good offer though because you need to convince the seller not to even consider other offers. You likely need to come in at least 10-15% above the list price in this scenario and waive as many contingencies as you feel comfortable doing. Buyers: write a love letter. Sellers: do not read love letters. I know this is contradictory, but I always have my buyers write love letters and I never allow my sellers to read them prior to deciding on offers. For buyers, I have seen them sway sellers towards one set of buyers several times and it adds a bit of personality to it. For sellers, it muddies the waters and opens them up to a potential Fair Housing violation because it is against the law to choose who to sell to based on their identity. Generally, try to close ASAP but be sure your agent is asking the LA about what specific parameters would be ideal for the seller. Often times a quick close is best but sometimes the seller needs a full 30 days to move out or whatever and a quick phone call to the LA would clear all that up. Consider a rentback. As a buyer's agent, I really do not like doing these, especially given the current eviction moratorium. When providing a seller a rentback, the buyer becomes a landlord for the duration that the seller lives in the house after closing. That means they have all the normal rights a tenant would have and you have all the obligations a landlord would have. Sometimes this is the only option for the right house though. ​ In conclusion, if you want to buy in one of the EXTREMELY competitive markets in the Seattle Metro Area, you likely need to go all out right now. Please note, I am not advocating for anyone to utilize these tactics if they are not comfortable with them. There are plenty of scenarios where you may not have to do these so make sure you tailor each offer to that specific house and don't apply a "one size fits all" approach. Do your own due diligence and talk with your agent about what options you can utilize to get your offer accepted beyond just having the highest price. I have gotten multiple buyer's offers accepted this year where they were not the highest bid based on terms and good communication between myself and the LA. Furthermore, we real estate agents are really not loving this market either. It's stressful and a ton of work and most of us are nice, normal people who want our clients to have a good experience buying or selling their homes. We really do not want to get 20+ offers on a listing. Do you know how difficult that is to organize and put into a spreadsheet?? It's crazy but this is the downside of having such a great local economy, coupled with nowhere near enough housing for the people that live here. It's impossible to say what the market will be like in a few months or a year but, in the past, when buyer fatigue has reached this level and prices have skyrocketed so fast, there is inevitably a cool-down so just be patient and you should find a house eventually! P.S. If you are considering selling your home, dear god, do it. We need more inventory! Obligatory: This is not meant as a solicitation of business if you are already represented by an agent. Edit: added the portion about escalattion addendum submitted by /u/howdoyado to r/Seattle [link] [comments]

Edit: This got way bigger than I thought it would and I'm worried that people are going to put a lot of stock in what I wrote, so if you're consulting this at some point in the future as an official guide to how to buy real estate from an industry veteran, I feel I should mention that I do not consider myself anything close to a real estate expert. The point of this post is really not to tell you the best way to buy or sell a home. What I intended to do was show people that the internet has changed buying and selling real estate and the old model deserves some scrutiny. It's up to you to decide what's right for you and to research your options because there are now more options than ever for buying/selling. Read the comments, read the replies, read everything you can about real estate and talk to other people you trust. Buying and selling a home is a HUGE undertaking. Don't just mindlessly hire an agent because you think that the fact that they have a license makes them valuable. It doesn't. Equally important, don't mindlessly follow my advice below thinking that you'll definitely save money. You might not. There is risk in everything. Just be sure that whatever you choose, you take control. Don't let agents bully you or scare you into thinking they are the only option. Also, I just had an interesting thought. If you're a curious type and have some spare time. You could take the same real estate courses that agents take from your local association for around $500 or so. Even if you get an agent, it could be money and time worth spending. Plus the classes are interesting if you like that sort of thing! I started writing some of these points in a different thread and realized that many of you frugal folks might appreciate some tips to save THOUSANDS of dollars when selling or buying a home. I used to sell real estate before the bubble burst and I went broke but I did it just long enough to realize the traditional real estate agent model is set up in a way that really doesn't always benefit consumers. I honestly thought that the old school model of an agent listing a home for 6% commission would completely shift when the internet started becoming more sophisticated in that industry. While that has happened to some degree, the Realtor's association is very strong and I think most people are still unaware that you don't have to hire someone at 6% commission to sell your home and you don't really need to hire a buyer's agent either. In fact, the benefits of hiring one are usually negligible at best and actually often worse than the alternative. In almost all cases there are specialists (attorneys, photographers, appraisers, inspectors etc.) that you can hire who will do a better job for way less money. And while it may seem as though managing all of that by yourself might be difficult or time consuming I would argue that with the tools available to us through the internet it's comparable to hiring an agent on both counts. As with most things, there are plenty of exceptions where my advice doesn't apply but I think this will be helpful for many people buying/selling a home (even seasoned veterans of home sales and purchases) to understand that there are alternatives besides the old model. Since every circumstance is different, I encourage you to meet with agents and see what they have to offer to determine what's right for you but this should help you with some behind-the-scenes context that agents aren’t likely to mention. With no further ado, I give you my guide to buying and selling a house on the cheap. Selling your home: Why you think you need a seller's agent - If you're selling your house, you may think the only way to do it is to hire an agent. Maybe you believe the process is too complicated for you or you think that the real estate agent has some sort of magical house-selling power or they can bring a list of buyers that will pay top dollar for your property. You may even think that they can take the pain away from what is typically a very painful process. Why you don't - Unless you have a lot of varied skills and recent experience with buying and selling homes already, you will need help. But the real question is whether a seller's agent is worth 5%-6% of your home's value and are there cheaper/better alternatives. As a reminder, 6% comes out to $12,000 on a $200,000 home! Here are some things an agent can actually do for you to earn that 6% commission. Provide advice on pricing and home improvements to get your house ready for sale. Take pictures, write copy and enter all the other relevant data into the local MLS service (basically, fill out a form online). Help lead negotiations when you have a deal on the table. Of all of those benefits, the most important is getting your property listed on the MLS. This is the service that companies like Trulia and Zillow use to populate their websites and is the service that other realtors use as the main database to find properties to show their clients. If you're not on the MLS, you're basically not really for sale. This is something that realtors rely on to keep normal people like us coming to them. But there is a solution to that problem (included in the bullets below). Other than the MLS thing, though, the internet renders most of the realtor’s benefits obsolete. So here’s how to get the above benefits without spending $12,000: Pricing advice (Max value; $400) – There is no true science to pricing a home. Realtors and appraisers will argue that point but real estate is so much more nuanced than a scoring spreadsheet will tell you. Ultimately, it comes down to just knowing your market. Use sites like Trulia to see current properties on the market to evaluate your competition. Then look at properties similar to yours that have sold within the last 3-6 months or so to get an idea of a realistic final selling price. Assuming you’re not delusional and you know your neighborhood, you will get pretty close. Even when people hire agents, the agent often just lists for whatever the seller wants anyway. If you so desire, you can have a professional appraisal done on your property for less than $400, though many agents will offer a free “home valuation” as part of their marketing efforts hoping that you will ultimately list with them. If you’re comfortable having them do this with no intension of hiring them, that’s kind of up to your personal moral code, but it is an option. Many agents will do this for you even if you explicitly tell them you are going to try to sell on your own because they know you may call them if you decide to list with an agent eventually. Home improvement advice (Max value; $0.00) - You could read countless articles on how to prepare a home for sale and follow their advice, which will probably be all you need. An agent will not actually help you prep your house for sale, that’s still on you, so the value here is minimal if anything at all. The most important things in my opinion are to DECLUTTER EVERYTHING and make sure the place is clean. Seriously, before you decide to put $5,000 into a bathroom or landscaping or whatever before you sell your place, consider renting a temporary storage unit and putting everything you don’t absolutely need in there. I’m talking couches, big furniture, stuff jammed in closets. Get rid of it all. Marketing (Max value; $200) – You will need to have pictures and marketing copy to put your property on the MLS and other real estate websites. Your biggest cost here will be photography. You can find local photographers who focus on real estate who will charge you a completely reasonable rate. Photos are important, so I really don’t recommend doing this on your own unless you really know what you’re doing. Many agents even take photos of their properties themselves and they are terrible. As for copy, never in the history of real estate has excellent copy sold a home. You don’t need to be Keats with your copy. Just the facts. Take a look at a few examples of other descriptions that you like on other homes and just use that same structure for your home. There are other details you’ll need like number of beds/bathrooms etc. but you will already know that and the agent doesn’t add any value there. You may have some additional investment in something like a $10 “For Sale” sign or maybe something else but the days of agents incurring marketing costs to list your property in the newspaper are long gone yet the commission rate remains the same. Listing on the MLS (Max value; $500) – This is one area you will need to hire a realtor for but you do not need to pay them 6% or sign a long-term contract with anyone. Look for a local agent or agency who offer flat fee service. For around $500, they will list your property on the local MLS. Once it’s listed there, it will get picked up by all of the major real estate websites and added to their databases automatically. For this, it is important to find a local realtor rather than a faceless online entity because if you need to make changes to your listing for any reason, you will need a human being to be responsive to your needs. Paperwork (Max value; $0-$1,000?) – Okay, so lots of flat-fee agents will also offer an option to buy standard real estate documents for your state. That’s what you want. I don’t recommend buying them online or trying to cobble together your own homemade contract because you can’t be sure it’s any good. Each state is different and the standard contracts are frequently updated. I recommend you ask your flat-fee agent for any paperwork you will need to list and sell your house. Agencies that specialize in flat-fee service will likely be able to explain each document to you as well to help you with that “I have no idea what I’m looking at” anxiety. Some of the forms can be intimidating but if you take your time with them and familiarize yourself with them before you have to fill them out, it’s really not bad at all. Even if you’re very worried about screwing this part up, you can just hire a real estate attorney to review your documents to make sure they’re in line with what you want. It will be expensive, maybe up to $500/hour, but it will still save you money overall. Plus, an attorney is almost always better than an agent at getting these documents right. So why is the commission so high? At one point, selling a house was a lot more work. Running newspaper ads, marketing houses, attracting buyers was kinda difficult. But the fact is that even back then, only a small portion of that commission ever went to the seller’s agent him/herself. They split any commission they receive with a buyer’s agent (50%) and their broker (usually 50% depending on the agent’s deal with their broker) and they incurred costs along the way. Nowadays, they do not incur similar costs to market your property but the overhead of maintaining a brokerage still exists. Someone needs to cover the cost to keep the place going which includes high costs for attorney retainers and errors & omissions insurance for the agents in case they make a mistake. Since you are not a licensed professional, you do not need E&O insurance and if you want to consult an attorney, you can do so hourly instead of on a retainer. Total max value of agent's services if you hire individual professionals: $2,100. Assuming that you are still offering 3% to a buyer's agent, your total max cost would be $8,100 on a $200,000 home. That's a savings of $3,900 over the standard 6% commission model but I honestly think most people will be able to do this for closer to $1,500-$1,700 though. Buying a home: Why you think you need a buyer’s agent: - You may want a buyer’s agent because you think they are free. After all, the seller’s agent will split his/her commission with your agent, so it’s no money out of your pocket. Or maybe you feel like you need someone to help you find the perfect home, or get you financing or maybe you just want someone to help you through the process. It can be nerve racking! Why you don’t: - Buyer’s agents are not free. Someone has to pay them and the cost always comes from somewhere. If there is no seller’s agent, then you will likely be responsible for paying your agent out of your own pocket (read your agreement!!) If there is a seller’s agent, then they will split their commission with the buyer’s agent. However if there’s a seller’s agent and no buyer’s agent, the seller’s agent will often be willing reduce their commission by 50% and put that toward the home price. So if the seller is offering their agent 6% on a $200,000 house ($12,000), they can ask their agent to reduce the commission to 3% since they won’t have to split it with a buyer’s agent. Then, the seller can reduce their sale price of the home by $6,000 without affecting their out-of-pocket costs and the seller’s agent still gets the 3% they would have gotten if they split it with your buyer’s agent. Basically, you just saved $6,000 plus 30 years of interest on that money. The key here is to negotiate the price to as low as the seller will go, then ask for the agent to cut the commission. Otherwise, you can’t be sure you’re getting the bottom price. So if you want to buy a house without an agent, here’s how to get (most of) the benefits without spending $6,000: Find the perfect home (Max value; $0) – Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, whatever. Your agent doesn’t have magical powers. You can find your own property just as easily and you run less of a risk of missing one that you want. You can set up alerts, too. In this case the agent is really only a middleman slowing down the process. Coordinate showings (Max value; $500) – This is actually a pain in the butt if you’re the type to look at a ton of houses but if you’re smart about it, you can schedule multiple showings on the same day to keep things fairly easy. Like book yourself to look at three houses on Saturday instead of looking at them one at a time. It shouldn’t take too long but if saving yourself a few phone calls to set up showings is worth $6,000 to you, then by all means hire an agent. Or, if you really like the frugal lifestyle while also living like a baller you could just hire a personal assistant online to handle that for you for probably around $30/hour or less. You could set up a TON of showings for well under $500. Neighborhood awareness ($? - You decide value) – If you’re moving across the country or otherwise unfamiliar with your new town, an agent may be worth the money for peace of mind but you'll need to decide if that's worth $6,000 to you. With the internet, a few hours of research will show you everything you might want to know. Determine what is important to you when finding a location and there's virtually nothing the agent can tell you that the internet won't tell you. Commute times, school districts, tax rates. All of that stuff is online. Financial advice ($0) – Working with a mortgage broker (A broker is someone who works with multiple banks) or directly with a reputable bank will often provide you better advice than an agent. Most agents will just tell you to talk to the lender anyway. Tell them what you want to do with your home purchase and they will work it out with you. Pricing advice (Max value; $400) – See explanation above. Also, you have the added benefit here if you are getting a mortgage that the bank will require an appraisal before you can get financed. In other words, it’s nearly impossible to overpay for the home. Answering questions/consulting ($1,000-? - You decide value) – Of all the reasons to have a buyer’s agent, I think this is the best one. If you haven’t purchased a home before, you will probably have a ton of questions and there is some real benefit to having someone on call that you trust to help you through your anxieties. If you don’t have a friend or family member to do this with you and the prospect of buying a house is overwhelming to you, an agent may be worth the money just to ease your fears. That being said, if you buy a house from a seller with an agent who doesn’t suck, that agent will be able to walk you through your issues too. There are even a lot of agents who would be happy to answer some of your simpler questions even though they won't get paid. Agents are generally a nice bunch of people who legitimately want to help. The only thing is you’ll be on your own until you decide to put an offer in on a property but that’s when you’ll really need help. Up to that point, it’s just arranging showings for the most part. Remember, the seller’s agent wants the process to go as smoothly as you do. They will help you get your financing in order and help you work though all of the issues and questions you may have as you go along. But remember, the sellers agent really want you to buy that particular house so be sure to get a home inspection before you finalize your sale, even if you're buying a brand new house! It generally costs around $300 or so and it's always money well spent. Even if you hire an agent, though, you will still pay for this out of pocket, so you won't save any money here by having an agent. Also, you will want to buy standard home sale contracts for your state if the seller doesn't already have them and if you want to be totally sure your deal is air-tight, you can hire an attorney to review the contract before you submit it to the seller, though I believe that wouldn't be necessary unless there is no seller's agent at all. Total max value of agent's services if you hire individual professionals: $1,900. Okay, I spent way too much time writing that and I’m sure there are things I’m leaving out and things I should have thought through better and other general errors, but I believe this would be a good start for anyone looking to save money buying or selling a home. Edit: Okay, this got a lot bigger than I expected but I got tons of feedback and tried to reply to as many of the comments as I could. I encourage you to read through them for varying perspectives. First, it seems that many Realtors want me to clarify that there's a difference between excellent agents and "bad" ones. I agree that an excellent agent can be worth the money and may even pay for themselves in some situations but you have to decide what that's worth to you. I would also point out that I was a mediocre agent, not bad, but not great either. I would classify maybe 5% of agents as excellent. After that, there is a huge dropoff in quality (just my opinion from what I saw in my market) to people like me. What I'm telling you is that I believe that the work I did as a mediocre agent could be done by almost anybody else on their own with just a little bit of effort. When it comes to the value proposition, others have mentioned that some agents will list a property for a 4% commission. In that case, just calculate your savings from selling by yourself using similar math that I used above and decide if you think they're worth it. That said, it's been my experience that agents willing to cut their commissions to get listings aren't often the best in the area, so that might be a consideration too. As a final note, many people mentioned the company Redfin, which I hadn't heard of before but it seems pretty great on the surface. I have no experience with them, but it might be worth exploring for you. submitted by /u/hulkster69 to r/Frugal [link] [comments]

Ok, so here's some back story before we get into the disturbing stuff. I work for a call center that handles real estate agents. I'm pretty much a glorified assistant to agents. But to about 300 different agents a day. I schedule appointments to show homes for them, and I call home owners, tenants, and listing agents to get approval to show their homes. It's a pretty monotanous job, but it pays well enough, and I get to sit down instead of be on my feet for 8 hours. Sometimes though, the monotony is broken by some pretty odd or interesting home owners. Old folks that have had their home forever and can't use a cell phone or computer. Or disgruntled people who are about to foreclose with the bank and just want to swear and have you identify with them. They're all usually pretty funny, at least in retrospect. What I'm about to tell you about now is not one of those instances. My day started out fine enough. Aside from an intensely humid walk to work, I was feeling pretty good. As hot as it was, it looked bright and colorful everywhere, and I was in a pretty good mood. Sat down, stuffed a meal bar down my throat, and started making calls. About an hour into my work day, I came across an appoinment for a listing here in Texas. It was for a house on a farm road, and the price was pretty high for that market. It'd been withdrawn from the market for years and it had only just come back up for sale about two days ago. And like a lot of agents, one real estate agent saw the price and picture (both were very nice), and probably without even going out there, scheduled a showing for one his buyers. This property had a listing agent with no contact info. That already struck me as odd. Sometimes, an agent sneaks in without contact info by setting up online, but it's pretty rare. It's extremely rare for an agent like that to list a home. It should actually be impossible due to our company policy, but it happens. Usually only on listings that have been in our system since the beginning, much like this one. It made me hesitate, but when you have to make about 400 calls a day, you don't hesitate for long on anything. I checked the contacts list and there was one choice. It didn't have a name. Just said "Home". This is not as rare. Whether it's bad work ethic on our behalf, or a home owner who wants to remain annonymous, a lot of tenants and sellers don't list their names. I didn't think too much of it, and went to make the call. I phoned the "Home" number for the house and it rang and rang. After about ten rings, I was ready to hang up and mark it as a "Did not Answer", but then I got the machine. It was the generic automated voice that answered. I hate those more than nearly any annoying seller. They take forever and they're so loud and robotic. Just a pet peev I guess. "Hello. No one is available right now to take your call. Please leave message for ...", the automated voice drolled out the long phone number, as I motioned my hand in a hurried manner. Like I could somehow speed it up through my impatience. Once the beep sounded, I began my usual shpeel, "Hi, this is Wayne with (my company), I'm calling about your home on (the address). I have an agent named (showing agent) who would like to show your home to a buyer today at--". I was cut off. The phone clicked and I could instantly hear what I can only describe as old-timey, 30's music echoing through the home. It was accompied by a low slapping or thumping sound. Like someone was dancing very slowly and loudly by themselves. The sounds were soon accompanied by a heavy and anxious breathing right up against the phone on the other end. "Hello, is this the homeowner for (address)?", I asked, already getting the creeps. There was a chuckle and snort through the heavy breathing, then just more music, slapping, and heaving. I could tell it was a man's voice. Sounded like a big man. "Hello, sir?", I asked again. "Yeah.", A raspy voice said. Then nothing else aside from that disgusting breath gurgling up and down. "Yes sir, I have a (agent) that would like to show your home between 12 and 1 today, would that be possible?", I asked, running through the words. "They got buyers with 'em?", the voice asked. Well no shit, I thought, but didn't say. "Yes sir." "How many?", he almost interrupted me. "I'm not sure, sir. At least one.", I answered. It caught me a bit off guard, I'd never had a seller ask me that before. He grumbled for a minute, and I could swear I heard someone scream bloody murder from somewhere in the apparently large house. I wanted to pretend it was part of the song, but there had been no vocals up to that point. And the scream wasn't exactly melodic. The slapping stopped and I started to suspect that it had never been slapping to begin with, but maybe chopping. I shuddered and then he spoke. "Well, alright. Send 'em over. We'll entertain some new guests.", He laughed heartily and I could hear the phlegm in his throat. He hung up before I had a chance to say anything else. I felt slimy, somehow. But, he gave me approval, and I was glad to be done with the call. I approved the appointment and went to the next call. A few calls went by and I had completely forgotten about the whole thing. I just absorbed myself in my mind numbing work, powering through my day. It wasn't until about 3 hours later that I got a call from a home owner. They had been called earlier for a showing and the agent never showed up. I pulled up their information, and as soon as I saw the agent's name, I got a chill up my spine. It was the same agent that had shown the house with the music and the screaming. I pulled his profile up on my screen. I wasn't even paying attention to the complaints of the home owner on the line. I saw that this appointment was the next on his schedule, and it had been past the showing time for an hour. He never showed after going to that house on the farm road. I rushed the angry home owner off the phone with whatever bullshit customer service response my brain manufactured. I don't even remember what I said. I tried calling the agent, but he didn't answer. It went straight to voicemail. With real estate agents, that's pretty common, but this time it was unnerving. I called his office, under the guise of getting approval for an open house on one of his listings. Usually a sure fire way to skip through the lies of "he's not in the office right now" or "he's currently with a client". But his assistant seemed sincere when she told me he hadn't returned to the office today, and that he wasn't currently answering his cell phone. She even seemed a little worried, as though this wasn't normal for him. I tried to reassure myself that it was fine. It's quite regular for agents to just not answer their phones for days at a time. I pushed the weird and dark thoughts from my mind and went about my day. But like a fly that won't stop buzzing around your face, the thought just wouldn't leave my mind. The sound of the screaming, the odd old music, and the heaving, grunting man who seemed all too happy for visitors. What the hell did I send those people into? Part 2 submitted by /u/WayneTheDeuceman to r/nosleep [link] [comments]