The Linda Stein murder case got me thinking about all the Realtors out there and how many of them are in a huge mess financially. With the housing market crunch and the mortgage loan crisis, people are less likely to buy a home and are staying put.
Realtors and their assistants have overhead that has to be paid out monthly, whether or not a home sells.
The phones ring off the hook for you to sell a homeowners over valued home, which in a normal market would be wonderful.
In today's depressed market, it is a nightmare.
The reasons being:
Most homeowners believe their home to be worth much more than the market says it is worth. They place value on every improvement they have made, such as water heaters, plumbing repairs, basement repairs, electrical repairs, roof and so on.

These are actually the natural upkeep of a home and you cannot add value because you took care of your home. It may show better and have a better chance of selling, but the value is not there. Try telling this to a desperate homeowner.

A sign goes in the yard, flyer's are printed, Internet and print adds are placed, week after week after week. Phone calls, showings, gas and mileage on the car, phone bills, and the list goes on. 6 months down the road, no sale and during this period, they are fielding very unhappy calls from the homeowner wanting to know what they are doing wrong and "Why can't you get my house sold?" They then decide to re-list with another agent and slander the prior agent all over town.

How much money do think the Realtor has put out of their own pocket trying to get this home sold. Believe me, it is not in the Realtor's best interest not to try their hardest for a sale.

The problems comes when homeowners don't truly understand what is involved and when their Realtor isn't honest with them up front. They need the facts no matter how bleek they are.

Agents turn down listings all the time. They cannot afford to take on homes, they know won't sell. They either say they are to busy or just don't answer the call.

This is forcing homeowners to sell by owner or to use the discount companies, which are basically for sale by owner anyway.
What people don't realize is that a large number of agents shy away from showing the homes listed this way because of liability issues which I won't go into here.

The homeowner is caught in a battle of trying to get his home sold and hopefully he is not in a foreclosure situation or adjustable rate mortgage situation that will adjust and through him into a financial mess.

The point of this article was to set the record straight with regards to Realtor's. They get a really bad rap and there are those that deserve it but there are those that are very dedicated to what they do and work very hard, with no respect. They do earn their money. Yes some more than other's. I don't know how many people would be willing to repeatedly put out thousands of dollars in advertising with absolutely no return. This is happening on a regular basis in today's market. This is why so many agents are going under and winding up just as much a victim of the mortgage crisis as the victims of predatory loans. They are losing their homes as well as their jobs. Many cannot afford to continue putting out money with no return.

The only good I see coming out of all this mess is that buyer's will eventually learn to be much more careful about the loans they actually sign and will actually qualify for those loans.

There are always two sides to every story. This one just doesn't get told much.