1Q2019 / WK 7: Consolidate content from LuxRE analysis in Camb & statewide
2/13/19: See draft
Notes
Content from two links:
Working title(s):
Love & Betrayal in real estate: who wins, who loses when luxury agents are unfaithful?
Love & Betrayal in luxury real estate: who wins, who loses when agents betray high networth clients?
Love & Betrayal in real estate: who wins, who loses when luxury agents have conflicts of interest?
Image:
Is your luxury real estate agent cheating on you? That's a question Real Estate Cafe first asked in 2012 when, near the bottom of the real estate recession, we backed into this hidden problem:
We didn’t set out to expose conflicts of interest in the sales over $1 million, but when we recently prepared a “Listing Agent Report Card” a surprising finding jumped off the page: some of the best known luxury listing agents in Greater Boston routinely operate with a conflict of interest, either through in-house sales or dual agency.
bit.ly/LuxREBetrayal2012
Update:
Around Christmas, we revisited a question we that's at the heart of our mission: Do buyer agents really help consumers save money? We were pleased that our market snapshot revealed some mega-savings opportunities in the luxury price range; more specifically, single-family homes priced above $2.5 million across Massachusetts during the 4Q2018:
When the City of Cambridge proposed a real estate transfer tax on transactions over $2 million, we extended our research to MLS sales dating back to 2005. Again, we also discovered and eye popping phenomena:
who's overpaying for real estate and whether they're using a buyer agent, dual agent or designated dual agents. We call the later Fake buyer agents or FakeFiduciaries.
Intermittently over the past 15 years, we've used Valentine's to release reports on the Sweetest Deals of the previous year:
Link
Why? Without any special marketing effort, high networth buyers have been attracted to our moneysaving business model because they understand the magnitude of hidden fees in real estate, and potential size of rebates.
Hire us to update our annual Sweetest Deals report, or use MLS data to help you time the luxury housing market. Despite Realtor spin published by Boston.com, other sources clearly document the slowdown in the luxury housing market. One of our buyers saved $4 million dollars by waiting patiently for prices to fall, and _______.