Well it seems to me that the Real Estate business is changing. Some would say for the better and some would say worse. We are now entering a normal market here in the Bay Area and nobody knows just what to do about it. What I mean by a normal market is properties are staying on the market longer and Realtors don’t just have to put a property on the MLS and answer the phone or take bids.
The weird thing about this market is that it seems certain Real Estate offices all over the bay are trying to turn themselves into a “one stop shop”. They would love for you “the client” to come in and see them about all your real estate needs, including your mortgage needs.
I call that weird because it was only a couple of years ago when Realtors were up in arms about legislation that was going to allow banks to get into the real estate business and boy did that stir controversy. Realtors did everything but march to the steps of our California Capitol and scream at Arnold about it. (they did) When all was said and done the banks were kept out of the real estate business but not without a pretty big fight.
Now Realtors and real estate offices want to get into banking. Diane at Radical Title Talk discusses why Realtors want to merge businesses to offer affiliated services through “affiliated business arrangements”.
Hmmmm, now you understand why I think it’s weird. Those people who were worried about keeping a job, if you want to call it that, are now interested in making more money by keeping you “the client” in house with a lender, a title insurance company and all the rest of the vendors that they provide.
The problem is working with a “team” that prizes their members more than they prize you. The Silicon Valley Blogger writes an article today entitled My Foolish Money Mistakes: Moves That Cost Me More Than $1000 Each. She says:
[...] some outfits do exist that claim that altogether, their one stop shop provides cheaper service than if you hired different service providers that are more specialized: such as a chimney sweep, a contractor, an inspector, etc. If you aren’t handy (and we definitely aren’t!), then this may sound attractive to you. By being overly conscientious, I went for the service and ended up being overcharged for the jobs that were performed [...]
This is not only unfair to mortgage brokers that support Realtors in the Bay Area but it is hardly in the best interest of a client when you take away competition. Competition is what make us all stay on top of our game and do our best to serve a client by searching high and low for the best interest rate and the best loan product for the client. When you are shoe-horned into using an in house lender you will not have all of the options available to you with one person that you would have with a mortgage broker that has two or three hundred lenders competing for your loan. Hence the phrase from lending tree “when banks compete you win”. Ask yourself what would motivate any Realtor to drag you into a lender in his office???? Oh, it’s only money.
