TouristTrap

Its city law in most places. They are probably required by law to ensure that all vehicles' tags/registrations are up to date. If your tag has expired, the city is allowed to tow it and charge YOU for the towing etc...and if you don't pony up, to sell your vehicle to defray 'expenses'.

dbj1000

Fine. I tax my cars and was aware that it was a city law. But if I did not, it would be my neighbours' business because...?

Whew! Even the thought of other people having to live with an HOA makes my blood boil

fatbrit

Here's a starter one for everybody. Negotiate with your local realtor -- don't think they actually advetise the fact, but if you don't ask you certainly won't get. Show 'em this advert if they tell you realtors don't do that sort of thing.

fatbrit

Here's a Texas one for ya on a random Google: http://www.texasdiscountrealty.com/buyers1.htm

Patrick

If anyone has any questions send me a PM as I am a Realtor. Like everything in a house purchase in the US the commision is negotiable.

Patrick, Realtor, Broker, ABR

John Murray

Thanks Fattbrit!!!!!


Patrick - Our broker gave us a book called "not one dollar more" which I am reading at the moment. Do you have any articles which give advice on how to get the best price?

My broker was advising us to try to remain objective, find at least 3 homes we like and then bid low on all 3?

Our Realtor (who is soon going to get his commission cut by 1% :-)) will be able to get us CMA reports and has showed us his detailed listing info which includes DOM - Days on Market, another little snippet of info which could be a great tool in negotiation.

dunroving

I'd recommend that book to anyone - it really helps when you are making big-ticket purchases, not just a house. I'm not naturally a haggler but by following the advice in this book I've successfully lowered the asking price on my first house, and also when buying a car from a dealer.

superpat

'Cover My Ass' reports???

Cheers,

Pat

Patrick

He has to do a CMA (competative market Analysis) before you put an offer on because if you go too high the house will not appraise, and the house has to appraise. I would expect a bit more advice than, bid low! He should supply you with any relevant information on the property, DOM, Taxes, when and what the house last sold for and anything about the neighbourhood. Unless the market is really hot you have room for negotiation, my advise is

consider everything before you make an offer, do you want any of their appliances (which aren't automatically included).

Make sure everything you want to or want to happen is included in the offer to purchase, don't think because you talked about it it will happen.

Make sure the seller will repair everything that is picked up on the Inspection or that the contract can be renegotiated to take the repairs into consideration.

Make sure you are not in a dual agency situation without designated representation, an Realtor in dual agency cannot give you cma's or tax info (because they cannot give you anything that will hurt the seller or give you anything that will give you the advantage over the seller).

John Murray

I think it's comparative market analysis - or was it CMV, comparative market valuation ??? I don't remember :-?

fatbrit

My theory is that the natural English cynicism deepens in direct relation to the length of time spent in the US.

scrubbedexpat099

CMA's just tell you what similar but not identical houses sold for over recent time.

Now if you looking on a big estate and the market has not moved, then they might have a value, but not a lot.

Like anything a house is worth what someone will pay for it, if the seller is motivated and there are not many buyers then your position is much stronger.

Whenever I saw motivated I mentally replaced it with desperate and priced accordingly, why would you advertise this???. Mind you there was usually something wrong with the property.

For some reason the few houses we saw that we both liked seemed to go under offer within a few days, a good property will sell even in a bad market if the price is right.

I looked at the County tax valuations, available on line here, and compared them to selling prices, not asking prices, something you do have to get through a realtor. That gave me a better base line for a norm and then it is all a case of the actual situation.

NC Penguin

When I was looking at buying a house last year, I used the following site-
http://www.homegain.com/

You have to register to use it but I believe this was the site where I could identify homes in a street, zipcode, city etc. similar to what I was looking for to see the selling prices over a time period (that you can set).

It was helpful when identifying sale prices for similar homes on the street that we viewed houses on.



NC Penguin

Englishmum

Over here in the Tri-State area (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut) the Foxtons realtors (yes the same Foxtons as in the UK) are charging 3% commission on house sales.

http://www.foxtons.com

The weird thing is, in our town most of the 'For Sale' boards on the lawns are almost exclusively those of just two of the realty firms here, despite other companies with offices here eg. Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Prudential, Re-Max etc.

I actually find some of the women who are realtors around here (New York metro area, we're in the NJ suburbs) to be quite scary and intimidating with all their power-suits and we're constantly bombarded with mail from them offering to 'market' our house if we want to sell it - is this typical in the US? I dread the day we have to engage one of them to sell our house LOL! I think it's a pretty cut-throat business with all the realtors here as houses now tend to start at $500k for a bog-standard 1940s 3 bedroomed house in need of modernising (like ours!) up to $5 million....imagine getting 6% commission on those prices!!!!.

psb182

try isoldmyhouse.com......my mate sold his full price and saved $20,000 in commision........isoldmyhouse.com charged him less than $100