You can’t say I didn’t warn you. Okay maybe I didn’t, but I should have.
Now that Spring Break is over, the market has picked back up. While we expected most of January and all of February to be busier than it ended up being, Dallas will have a busy spring and early summer. As I’ve said before, if you’re looking to sell you want to get started now. As we approach the late summer and fall, election hysteria will sink in and slow things considerably. That said, look for interest rates to inexplicably drop in the 60-90 days before the election. Anyone who thinks the Federal Reserve is non-political should reconsider, and it favors whoever is in office at the time.
The big buzz around is the proposed settlement involving the National Association of Realtors. The media has gone all-out on hyperbole, and those I know who hate Realtors are suggesting for the 300th time I get a new job. Not to disappoint them, but in the short term the only change we’re expected to see in Texas is the commission offered to a buyers agent will no longer appear on MLS.
“But John, you confident yet introspective purveyor of fine properties,” I hear you ask, “CNN said this was, ‘the end of 6% commission’!” Well, dear reader, 6% was never written in stone. In fact, it is illegal for agents to say anything commission-related is standard. In addition, agents who conspire to maintain commission rates may be guilty of anti-trust violations.
Ultimately, Wall Street and big money are behind this assault on NAR (of which I am a member but not an ardent one), their goal being able to co-opt real estate and take control of a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s not enough for them to own all the homes in America, they want to control transactions as well.
The bottom line is if a buyer or seller sees value in an agent the advice they provide, they will be willing to pay for it. I would never try to wedge my services between a willing buyer and willing seller, but there is a reason real estate agents exist and we do a lot more than stick signs in yards and collect paychecks. Okay, maybe we did in 2021 and 2022, but certainly not now.
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