The elusive exclusive buyer's agent

Perplexed asked in a previous thread

"Has anyone ever used an exclusive buyer's realtor?

In this day where it's a buyer's market agents who only represent buyers should be in a great position."

And in a follow-up post:

"Here is what I found. I know of no one who has ever dealt with any of them, which is why I asked.

http://www.carlahomes.com/

http://www.dreamstreetre.com/

http://www.worldstar.com/~pdxpro/

Read the document at the lower left on the last link. It is an interesting discussion of what to watch out for."

Here's the document he's referring to, which I think is a good source of info for potential buyers:

I haven't used an exclusive buyer's agent, but I have given the subject of buyer's agents a bit of thought.

One issue I see is that if you've acted as a seller's agent and never sold a house, you don't know all the inside issues that would help with negotiation.

But I think the biggest issue is the basic principal-agent issue and misalignment of interests between the buyer and buyer's agents such as:

1. The buyer stands to benefit from a lower price, while the agent benefits from a higher price due to a greater likelihood of sale and a greater commission.

2. The buyer might be in a position to wait as long as possible for a good deal, but the agent only makes money on a sale, so is inclined to push for a sale.

Those are the two big issues I see, I'm sure there are more. But it seems like #1 could be eliminated with a different payment structure, such as a flat fee plus bonus for discount. Or a retainer plus hourly rate.

I really like the idea of paying a flat payment with a bonus for a discount, based on the amount of discount. Does anybody know of any agents using a payment structure like this? To answer Perplexed's question, has anybody used an exclusive buyer's agent and what were the results?

Sidelined Home Buyers Frozen by Fears

I caught this article today: Sidelined home buyers frozen by fears.

There are a couple great quotes that sum up the current lack of buyers:

"Rochelle Getzler, a housewife in Nassau County, outside New York city, and her husband, Abraham, have been on the fence for nearly a year, waiting for an opportune time to buy.I think it is too risky to buy right now," she said. "Yes, prices have come down, but they have come down from extremely high levels."

""I think home prices are going to continue falling, so I see no compelling reason to buy a home right now when we can hold off and buy at a lower price later this year or early next year," she said.

Economists tend to agree. Housing markets in some parts of the country will suffer drops of more than 30 percent before the housing crisis is over, according to a report in December by Moody's Economy.com."

""The economic fundamentals in housing are weak and I see no sign of a bottom," said Chris Mayer, director of the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at Columbia Business School in New York."

These quotes all pretty much sum up my current position for buyers. I see two strategies to play:

1. Offer X% lower than current asking prices, X being wherever you see the market bottoming out in the next 2-3 years.
2 Wait for signs that prices have stabilized, and might increase again, and start making offers then

Has anybody made any offers recently that were > 20% off asking price, and had them accepted?

Portland Market Melts Down

My first reaction after seeing the January RMLS statistic was something along the lines of “Holy cr@p, the market has imploded!” But after analyzing the data a bit more I realized that the past few Januarys have seen significant jumps month to month. So even though months of inventory jumped another 50% this month, that's not unusual for January. Given the historical trends, I expect the months of inventory will drop in February, so don’t be fooled with the realtors all crow about how months of inventory has peaked and is now dropping.

The trend to keep an eye on is inventory growth. While the total inventory is shocking, the fact that the growth rate has also increased over the past few months shows that the market continues to get worse.

So what’s driving this? If you combine the inventory data with the recent sales data that show average prices increasing while the median price is flat (over on Clint’s blog), I think what we’re seeing is that entry-level buyers, those with less than 20% for a down payment, or those with lower incomes are finding it harder and harder to buy. This will have a ripple effect on seller’s trying to trade up to larger homes.

I’ll post more comments once I’ve analyzed the data a bit more closely.