By Dennis Norman, on February 20th, 2021 One of the many benefits to living in St Louis is it’s a very affordable place to live and much easier to be a homeowner than in most other major metro areas. Having said that, we do have areas, such as Ladue, Huntleigh, and Clayton to name a few where we do see home prices that are out of reach for most of the folks living here. One such example is a magnificent 10,000+ square foot Ladue manse that sold earlier this month. At a final sales price of $6,150,000, it is the highest-priced home sale in the REALTOR® MLS in more than 2 years.
See what $6 million gets you in a St Louis home by clicking here – be sure to click on the video to see the tour of this beautiful home.
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By Dennis Norman, on February 13th, 2021  In December I wrote about multiple class-action lawsuits filed against the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), as well as some of the largest real estate brokerages, like ReMax and Keller Williams as well as a Department of Justice (DOJ) complaint filed again NAR over issues related to the lack of transparency in the home buying process.
The aforementioned complaints claim, among other things, that there has been an effort by the defendants to force buyers to pay an “inflated” price for a home as a result of the buyer not realizing the seller was forced to offer a commission to a buyer’s agent in order to get their listing in the MLS. In addition, they claim that NAR and its members misrepresented to buyers that a buyer’s agent’s representation and services were “free”, when in fact their agent was being paid a commission, which came from the seller and as a result, they claim this expense inflated the cost the buyer was forced to pay for the home.
I’m not here to address the accuracy of the claims made in these complaints nor get into an analysis of the legal merits of the case, but instead just want to address the changes I see that have already taken place or will take place in the home-buying process. NAR has already reached a settlement with the DOJ in which they (NAR) agreed to make several changes, so those are pretty easy to predict and I think I have a reasonable idea of some other changes that will come along in the comings months as well.
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So, what are these changes I see coming to the home-buying process in terms of transparency?
Below are some of the changes I already see or expect to see:
- Buyer’s agents aren’t FREE, nor should they be. NAR has already agreed to prohibit their members from claiming their services are free as they are not. A good buyer’s agent is invaluable to a home buyer and not only will earn the commission they make but in many cases, will “pay for themselves”. What I mean by this is their guidance and advice to their clients, which comes from their knowledge of the market and process, as well as experience, will help their clients avoid pitfalls and to make informed, good decisions.
- Commission transparency. Prior to the lawsuits, many MLS’s around the country, including the one that serves the St Louis area, prohibited the amount of commission being offered to a buyer’s agent by the seller from being shown on broker’s real estate search websites. MARIS, the company that provides the MLS for St Louis area REALTORS® was quick and pro-active in this area and began allowing brokers to display buyer’s agent’s commission on their websites. I’m happy to say that my company, MORE, REALTORS® was, I believe, one of the first brokerages in the area to begin displaying this information. On STLMLS.com consumers can find the amount of commission being offered to buyer’s agents on listings. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention I’m on the board of directors for MARIS and I’m an officer and shareholder of MORE, REALTORS.
- Sellers won’t have to offer to pay a buyer’s agent to get in the MLS. While the first two bullet-points above are things that have happened, now I’m predicting what will happen. I believe that soon, perhaps as soon as “months” or as long as a year or two, the MLS requirement that a seller offers compensation to a buyer’s agent to have their listing be in the MLS will be dropped. This is nothing that should cause panic as buyer’s agents won’t go away nor work for free, it’s just the structure of the transaction will change. The changes made will no doubt provide a much greater level of transparency to the buyer though as I believe they will have a clear picture of the process including how their buyer’s agent is getting paid.
- Agents won’t have to be REALTORS® to be part of the MLS. Even though this is already true in several parts of the country, most MLS’s require that agents be a REALTOR® (so be a member of the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR)) to join the MLS. I believe that all MLS’s in the country will be forced to allow participation by all licensed real estate brokers and agents and not just REALTORS®. I think my prior prediction will come to fruition sooner and this one will follow so it will likely be a couple of years at least before this happens.
The bottom line is some obstacles exist today for the real estate industry as well as there are changes taking place and more coming. While many folks don’t embrace change, call me a Pollyanna, but I think the result will be positive both for the real estate professional as well as the consumer that is buying or selling a home.
I’ll close with a quote on the topic of obstacles that I frequently share on a coaching session I do for our agents that is from Victor Kiam (the Remington razor guy) – “….there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity…”
By Dennis Norman, on December 1st, 2020 The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) has come under attack over the past few months as a defendant in two class-action lawsuits, Christopher Moehrl v The National Association of REALTORS® and Joshua A. Sitzer and Amy Winger v The National Association of REALTORS® filed in March and April of 2019 respectively, and, most recently, a complaint brought by the Department of Justice, United States v National Association of REALTORS® filed this month. The latter came with a pre-arranged proposed settlement with NAR. I should also mention the two class-action lawsuits have as additional defendants Realogy Holdings Corp (the own and operate several franchises, some of the local ones include Coldwell Banker-Gundaker, Better Homes & Gardens, ERA, Sotheby’s, and Century-21), HomeServices of America, Inc. (owner of Berkshire Hathway Home Services), Re/Max and Keller Williams.
While there are additional issues raised in the lawsuits and DOJ complaint, central to them are buyer’s agents’ commissions. Issues raised include:
- From the DOJ complaint:
- Allowing buyer brokers to misrepresent to buyers that a buyer broker’s services are free;
- Enabling buyer brokers to filter MLS listings based on the level of buyer broker commissions offered and to exclude homes with lower commissions from consideration by potential home buyers;
- From the lawsuits:
- Sellers of residential property have been forced to pay inflated costs to sell their homes through forced payments of commissions to buyer brokers;
- Home sellers have been forced to set buyer broker commissions to induce buyer brokers to show the sellers’ homes to prospective buyers;
- Price competition has been restrained among brokers seeking to be retained by home buyers, and by brokers seeking to represent home sellers; and
- Defendant Franchisors and their franchisees have inflated their profits by a significant margin by the increased total commissions and increased buyer broker commissions.
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Continue reading “Coming Soon To A REALTOR® Near You – Commission Transparency“
By Dennis Norman, on April 14th, 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic (coronavirus) began impacting the St Louis area just a little over a month ago and I’ve been tracking the impact on the St Louis real estate market along the way. From the outset, we have seen a decline in the number of new listings, new sales and physical showings of listings, however, overall the decline has remained fairly constant. New sales of listings for the St Louis area has pretty well hovered around a level equal to about tw0-thirds of the activity we saw at the same time last year.
Now that we are about a month into the “COVID-19 effect”, a few weeks into the stay at home orders and a few weeks into real estate agents adjusting to doing business in a different way, I wanted to take an in-depth look to see where we stand now. I’ll warn you in advance, this article is a little long, mainly because of tables and data, but I wanted to include as much data as I could to paint the complete picture of the market.
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Home sales are the best indicator of market confidence….
Continue reading “The COVID-19 Impact On The St Louis Real Estate Market – One Month In“
By Dennis Norman, on April 8th, 2020 Yesterday, I shared data showing that, in spite of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, new sales of residential listings in the 5-county core St Louis market for the most recent 7-day period that complete data is available for, were down 35% from a year ago. I received requests to break the data down further so I did so by county. As the table below shows, for the 7-day period ended April 2nd, new sales of listings in St Charles County were down just 25% from the prior year. The reason the period ends April 2nd is REALTORS® has 3 business days to report new sales to the MLS so that means the deadline for reporting a new sale on April 2nd was last night so this data should be very accurate.
St Louis New Sales Of Residential Listings
3/26/20 – 4/02/20 Vs. One-Year Ago
Data source: Mid-America Regional Information Systems, Inc. – Copyright 2020 -has St Louis Real Estate News
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By Dennis Norman, on April 7th, 2020 As the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic continues to keep many of us confined to our homes unless we need to go out for an essential service which, fortunately, the department of Homeland Security includes real estate in the definition, it is, of course, taking its toll on the St Louis real estate market. As would be expected during a time like this, would-be homebuyers who have had their jobs or businesses impacted as a result of COVID-19 have pulled out of the market for now as have some folks who were considering a move purely for convenience or some other reason they feel will wait.
However, having said that, there still appear to be many serious homebuyers in the current market that want or need, to buy now. This is evidenced by the most recent data I pulled below which shows new contracts on listings for the most recent 7 day period that have had contracts reported to the MLS. So, to be clear, the “sales” I counted are residential listings that actually went under contract during the period,
As the table below shows, there were 994 new contracts on residential listings in the St Louis MSA during the past 7 days, a decline of 32% from the same time period a year ago. There were 715 new contracts on residential listings in the St Louis 5-County Core market during the same period, a decline of 35% from the same period a year ago.
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St Louis New Contracts On Residential Listings For The 7 Day Period of 3/26 – 4/02
COVID-19 has led to different methods of selling homes…
Today, real estate companies, like other businesses are trying to do business virtually and incorporating technology into their business more than ever before. While some were already doing this, at least to some extent, it’s something that is new for many traditional “brick and mortar” type businesses. (WARNING- SHAMELESS PLUG COMING) Doing business virtually isn’t anything new to our firm, MORE, REALTORS, or our agents as we have incorporated this into our business model for well over a decade. It has caused us to switch into high gear to complete enhancements to our DOHR™ (Digital Open House Registration, U.S. Patent Pending) which include a totally virtual open house experience, a virtual showing experience as well as a hosted virtual tour experience. These are all things that will allow us to serve our seller clients by exposing their homes to the market, showing them to potential buyers while also protecting them and their families from exposure to the COVID-19 threat.
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By Dennis Norman, on March 25th, 2020 As all of us continue to deal with a much different lifestyle as a result of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) I am closely monitoring the St Louis real estate market to help get the most accurate information possible to our agents, clients, and consumers to help them make informed decisions about their real estate transactions.
With this in mind, I took a look at new contracts on listings for the past 7 days, so in other words, homes that actually went under contract during the period, but this time, I wanted to drill down deeper than I did a few days ago when I reported new contract activity. This time I looked at just new sales of residential listings (homes, condos, villas, etc) rather than all property types in the MLS as other property types, such as commercial, land, and farms, for example, could be reacting differently.
As the table below shows, there were 1,142 new contracts on residential listings in the St Louis MSA during the past 7 days, a decline of just 14% from the same time period a year ago. There were 836 new contracts on residential listings in the St Louis 5-County Core market during the same period, a decline of only 13% from the same period a year ago.
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St Louis New Contracts On Residential Listings For The Past 7 Days
A slower pace and different methods of selling homes…
As the data shows, COVID-19 is definitely having an effect on the St Louis real estate market in terms of a lower number of sales and, depending on how things go with containing the virus may bring sales down lower, but for now, the sales activity has been only modestly impacted. Granted, with the threat of COVID-19 many changes are being implemented into the process but thus far everyone in the industry is working together well to take the necessary precautions to address the health concerns while still allowing people to conduct business. For example, as much as can be done virtually or electronically is being done.
This is something our firm, MORE, REALTORS, has incorporated into our business model for well over a decade so for us and our agents, its a familiar and comfortable way for us to do business. It has caused us to switch into high gear to complete enhancements to our DOHR™ (Digital Open House Registration, U.S. Patent Pending) which include a totally virtual open house experience, a virtual showing experience as well as a hosted virtual tour experience. These are all things that will allow us to serve our seller clients by exposing their homes to the market, showing them to potential buyers while also protecting them and their families from exposure to the COVID-19 threat.
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By Dennis Norman, on March 21st, 2020 As I mentioned in my article yesterday about the effect of the coronavirus on the St Louis real estate market, for those homebuyers in a position to buy a home, there will be some good opportunities presented. Apparently, there are buyers out there that perhaps feel the same way or, they at least are not uncomfortable with buying now as, in the past 7 days, 1,670 listings in MARIS, the regional MLS that serves the St Louis area as well as some additional areas outside the metro area, went under contract. When pulling data from our database for this, I confirmed that prior to the listing’s status changing to Active Under Contract or Pending (both are statuses indicating they are now under contract) the prior status in the MLS was Active thereby verifying these are “new” sales.
The 1,670 sales in the past 7 days is just sligthly lower than the 1,835 listings that went under contract during the same period a year ago.
Now, if the President or the Governor put us under a “Shelter in Place” order or something similar that effectively shuts down everything, that will pretty well put a bullet in new home sales for a while. Depending on which “latest report” you believe, that either will or won’t happen.
Stay safe and healthy!
By Dennis Norman, on February 21st, 2020 Over the past couple of months, I have written a couple of articles about a new policy approved by the National Association of REALTORS® in November 2019 known as the “Clear Cooperation Policy”. While I’m not sure how closely consumers are watching, or if they even care at all about the policy at this point, REALTORS® have definitely been following the policy and have been pretty vocal about their thoughts on the policy, both for and against.
Before I go on, I should disclose that I currently serve as Chairman of the Board for MARIS (Mid-America Regional Information Systems) which is the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) that serves St Louis area REALTORS® as well as several other markets throughout the state of Missouri. In addition, I’m a broker-owner at MORE, REALTORS®, arguably one of the most technology-forward real estate brokerages and a leaders in the digital marketing world, so I have strong feelings from both sides of the fence, so to speak.
Now, back to the new policy, MLS 8.0 as it is known in the industry. For members of MARIS, which, as I mentioned, includes all REALTORS® throughout the St Louis metro area, the new policy goes into effect on April 28th.
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So what is the new MLS policy and how will it affect consumers?
From a buyers perspective, I think the new rules are a benefit in that there will be more transparency with regard to listings that are on the market, or are listed and will be available soon, to both them as well as their buyer’s agents. The reason for this is, under the new rules, listing agents will be required to put all listings in the MLS within one business day of doing any marketing which would include putting a for sale sign (or coming soon sign) in the yard. While “putting it in the MLS” doesn’t mean they have to make the listing information publicly available (that is an option) but they have to at least enter it as “coming soon” which means that the roughly 14,000 agents that are members of the regional MLS (MARIS) will be aware of the listing and have access to information on it including the listing agent information. In fact, the only way a listing agent will be able to avoid letting other agents know about their listing is by giving it a “withheld” status in the MLS, which means no one outside that agents office, would be aware of the listing and there cannot be any marketing done at all not even a for sale sign in the yard.
From a sellers perspective, I don’t think there are really any “benefits” to sellers from the new rule over where things stand today however, there is only limited negative impact on sellers as a result of the new rules. The reason I say there are no additional benefits to the seller that is because instead of opening up more marketing and promotion opportunities to the seller, or the listing agent it puts more restrictions on what the listing agent can do. The new rules, to some extent you could say, dictate to the listing agent how they will market and promote the listing. One might ask, but wouldn’t the seller want their home in the MLS, isn’t that part of the reason they listed it with a REALTOR®? The short answer is yes, for most sellers, if their listing is not entered into the MLS at some point prior to accepting an offer, they are likely leaving money on the table.
However, having said that, the timing of when to put it in the MLS can be critical and, if a listing agent is forced to put the listing in the MLS too early, or prevented from doing any marketing or promotion of it beforehand, it can also result in the seller leaving money on the table. The reason for this is the new rules limit how long a listing may stay in “coming soon” status to 21 days. While 21 days is long enough in many instances for a seller to prepare their home for the market, often times it is not. In addition, it is common for a listing agent to get a property listed in advance of when, for timing reasons, the seller is really ready to sell. A lot of very good listing agents use this period to market the home and create interest in it in advance of it actually being available for showings and sale. This type of marketing, especially in this low-inventory market, works very well and often results in drawing literally a house full of people to the listing once it is finally on the market and available for showings. It is common for the result to be multiple offers, oftentimes over the asking price, which, while maybe it’s not great for buyers, it’s great for sellers! So, many agents feel (including me) that restricting marketing of a listing in advance of when it is actually available for showings and sale is not in the sellers best interest.
Let not your hearts be troubled though sellers! There are firms out there, such as mine, MORE, REALTORS® that embrace change and see things such as this as yet another opportunity to set ourselves apart from the other real estate companies out there. To do so, we use our unique digital marketing skills, along with our experience in the industry, to maximize the marketing for our sellers to make sure we are doing everything possible to make sure our sellers get the best price and terms for their home while still staying within the rules we have to abide by. (Ok, shameless self-promotion, but hey, I need a little something for all this hard work, right?)
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By Dennis Norman, on January 24th, 2020 I’ll concede the fact that not everyone is as much of a data geek as I am and, in fact, a more accurate statement would probably be that most people are not, including the majority of home buyers and sellers. Sure, home buyers and sellers are interested in home prices and what the potential value of the home is they are looking to buy or sell, but most leave the real data analysis to their agent. After all, part of being a professional real estate agent is knowing the market as well as knowing how to research the market and apply market data to their client’s situation.
However, don’t assume all real estate agents are created equal in this regard and that they all know the market as well as they should or do the research they should. There are many great agents that do these things very well but there are a bunch, probably an equal number, if not more, that don’t. Even the agents that do it well are still limited to the data resources they have available to them.
The MLS is the best source of market data...
Continue reading “Why Accurate Home Price And Sales Data Is Vital To Buyers and Sellers“
By Dennis Norman, on November 22nd, 2019 Annually, the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) does a massive survey of people that purchased and sold a home in the prior year to gather information about them and their transaction. This is done using a 125 question survey that was sent to nearly 160,000 people, in randomly sampled geographic areas, that purchased or sold a home in the prior year. The results are published by NAR in their “Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers“. From this publication, some great information is obtained (in my humble opinion, the best and most accurate information available) about home buyers and sellers as well as the process they went through, the homes they bought or sold as well as about their agent if they used one.
Sellers’ appetite for selling their own homes remains at a near-record low…
As the chart below, which covers the time period from 2001 to 2019, illustrates, the percentage of homes sold using a real estate agent or broker (the blue bars) has increased from 79% in 2001 to 89% in this year’s survey. Meanwhile, the percentage of sellers that sold their own homes “For Sale By Owner” (FSBO) declined from 13% in 2001 to 8% in this year’s survey.
Why the decline in FSBO’s?
Continue reading “Percentage of Homeowners that Sold FSBO In Past Year Near Record Low“
By Dennis Norman, on November 12th, 2019 Yesterday, the board of directors for the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) approved a new policy dubbed the “Clear Cooperation Policy” which goes into effect January 1, 2020, and Multiple Listing Service’s (MLS) have until May 1, 2020, to adopt and implement.
While the vote by the board of directors, 729 in favor of it to 70 opposed, may not reflect it, there is a lot of controversy about this policy among real estate agents and brokers that are members of NAR. The two main changes this new policy bring about are that agents would be mandated to put, for all intents and purposes, 100% of their listings in the MLS system within one business-day of marketing the listing (marketing is defined to include putting a sign in the yard, telling someone about the listing, etc) and “MLS-exempt” listings will no longer be permitted.
Better for the consumer?
Proponents of the new NAR MLS policy say that this will be better for consumers by:
- Making all available listings show in the MLS;
- Giving more exposure to sellers of their listings by not permitting “MLS exempt”, “off-MLS”, “Coming Soon” or other marketing methods that may not include putting the listing in the MLS, or at least not initially;
- Leveling the playing field, making all listings available to all consumers since listings could no longer be marketed through just social media, private networks, etc, but, instead, would be required to be put in the MLS;
- Eliminating practices that may violate Fair Housing Laws by limiting what audience a particular listing is exposed to;
Opponents of the new NAR MLS policy argue that it is not better for consumers because:
- It eliminates the opportunity for an experienced listing agent to determine, in cooperation with their seller client, the best means and methods to market their home to obtain maximum exposure and the highest price;
- Pre-marketing, such as a coming soon promotion on social media before the listing is ready to go in the MLS in an effort to generate buzz and hype over the listing, would be prohibited. This is a method of marketing that, in our current low-inventory market, has been extremely effective in getting maximum exposure, and the highest price, for the seller.
- Agents would not be permitted to quietly “test” the market to see how the listing, and/or it’s price, will be received by the market. This is often done by marketing the home before entry in the MLS to establish the right price. Once in the MLS, the days on market start working against the seller, as do price reductions, so coming into the MLS at the right price is essential for the seller.
- It prevents a seller from using a REALTOR® when they wish to have their property marketed in a private manner and not publicly. This happens often when the seller is a high-profile individual that for security and/or privacy reasons, does not want photos and details about their home (including that they are selling it) publicly known. It can also occur in the case of a divorce, a distressed-type sale, etc;
Time will tell whether this proves to be good, or bad, for the industry and the consumer.
Stay tuned.
By Dennis Norman, on October 3rd, 2019 The MLS Technology and Emerging Issues Advisory Board, of the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), proposed a rule change that is sparking some controversy among its’ members. The proposed “Clear Cooperation Policy” requires that all listings be put in the MLS within 24 hours of “marketing a property to the public“. The policy defines “public marketing” as including, but not limited to, “flyers displayed in windows, yard signs, digital marketing on public-facing websites, brokerage website displays (including IDX and VOW), digital communications marketing (email blasts), multi-brokerage listing sharing networks, and applications available to the general public”.
But, isn’t that how it is now?
Many consumers may having been thinking that this is how it was all along, that new listings were required to go into the MLS but, that is not currently the case. Presently (and going back to the beginning of the MLS here in St Louis, I believe), agents have been able to determine the best marketing methods for their client, as well as allow their client input as to whether they wanted their listing in the MLS immediately, after a period of time or even not at all.
Continue reading “REALTORS® Association Considers New Rule Requiring All Listings Be In MLS“
By Dennis Norman, on September 27th, 2019 The question in my headline is one of those questions that in the real estate community, and with most homeowners, would elicit a response something like “the quality of the school district has a major impact on the housing market, duh!”. While I don’t think anyone would argue that having quality public education available to everyone in all areas is important, I’m just talking data here and looking at it from the real estate perspective. So, with that in mind, I decided to use one of the reports produced by proprietary software created by MORE, REALTORS® and based upon MLS home sales and price data, to compare home prices and sales in two of the best St Louis area public school districts to two of the worst (at least according to many lists of best and worst schools out there) to see how they compare.
For two of the best districts, I chose Clayton and Kirkwood and for two fo the worst, I chose Riverview Gardens and the City of St Louis. The results were interesting and, somewhat surprising perhaps. The reports below have all the data, but here is a summary of the comparison:
- Home sales for the most recent 12-month period vs the prior 12-month period were up slightly (0.20%) in Riverview/St Louis districts and were down 15.66% for Clayton/Kirkwood.
- Home prices for the same period increased by 5.36% in Riverview/St Louis and by 2.41% for Clayton/Kirkwood
- Listing inventory for Riverview/St Louis districts is at 2.31 months and for Clayton/Kirkwood is at 2.49 months.
By the way, if you would like to see reports like this for any St Louis area school district, county, zip or city, contact me and I’ll be happy to send it to you.
Continue reading “What Impact Does The School District Have On Home Prices and Sales?“
By Dennis Norman, on June 26th, 2019 This year is a reassessment year for real property in Missouri, so assessors throughout the state are going to update the property values that tax assessments are based upon. According to state law, the value should reflect the value of the property as of January 1, 2019. Reassessment is done every two years, so the prior reassessment was in 2017. Given that the real estate market has been performing well now for the past several years, and property values are increasing, it’s not surprising that most property owners will see an increase in their assessment from the 2017 value to the 2019 value. However, homeowners in St Louis County have been particularly vocal about their dissatisfaction with the amount of the increase. An article on STL Today earlier this week shared the story of a Kirkwood couple that said: “We feel like we are being ripped off by the county” after the St Louis County assessor increased the value of their home 153% from the prior value two years before. According to the STL Today article, the preliminary figures from Jake Zimmerman, the St Louis County Assessor, show the median increase in assessment was 15% from the last assessment in 2017.
How does the St Louis County Assessors 15% Increase in property values compare with the market data?
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Continue reading “St Louis County Assessor Increased Property Values Four Times More Than Market Data Supports“
By Dennis Norman, on June 11th, 2019 When the time comes for you to sell your home, would you like to sell your home for the highest price? I can’t imagine any homeowner not answering “yes” to that question. So, now that we know what all seller’s want; all we need to do now is determine the best way to go about reaching that goal.
Asking a higher price often doesn’t bring you the highest price..
Simple logic may tell us that, if we want to sell a home for the highest price possible, to make sure we ask a high price for it. However, as the data below will illustrate, this that normally the case. In fact, if a home is listed for a higher price than the optimum listing price it may very well result in it eventually selling for less than it would have if priced at a lower, more accurate, price to being with.
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Asking the “right” price may not work well either if the marketing or timing is wrong either…
Continue reading “How To Get The Highest Price For Your Home“
By Dennis Norman, on March 22nd, 2019 I saw an article recently about the results of a survey done of home sellers that found that nearly half of them didn’t realize they pay the buyers’ agent commission when they sell their home.
Sellers pay the buyers’ agent in almost all home sales in St Louis…
While I don’t know for sure, I would guess that the people surveyed were homeowners that planned to sell their homes, rather than sellers that already had their homes listed for sale. I say this because the standard listing agreement used by St Louis REALTORS® spells out the total commission being charged the seller, as well as the portion of the commission that will be paid to the buyers’ agent which I would think, would cause the seller to realize they are paying commission to the buyers’ agent.
While the seller, when presented with the listing agreement, could opt to not offer to pay commission to the buyer’s agent, the MLS rules require that all listings in the MLS (which is most of the St Louis home sales) include an “offer of compensation” for the buyers’ agent, which will come from the seller. Therefore, the sellers have to either offer to pay the buyer’s agent or forego having their listing in the MLS, hence why sellers pay the buyers agent in nearly all instances. It’s probably worth noting at this juncture that this practice has come under attack in a recent class-action lawsuit filed by Christopher Moehrl against The National Association of REALTORS®, Realogy Holdings Corp, HomeServices of America, Inc, Re/Max Holdings, Inc and Keller Williams Realty, Inc. The suit, which can be accessed using the link below, seeks to ban this type of commission arrangement.
Christopher Moehrl v The National Association of REALTORS®
Continue reading “Who Pays The Buyers Agent?“
By Dennis Norman, on February 23rd, 2019 I promise not to turn this article into one of my boring, lengthy diatribes that only a data nerd could enjoy, however, I do want to discuss something that I think is very important for all home buyers, sellers and investors. Given that today there is a plethora of “data” and “information” available to us thanks, in large part, to the internet, and that home buyer, sellers, and investors (as well as the real estate agents working with them) make decisions based, at least in part, to those things, it is imperative to know you have the right data and that it is the relevant data or information. Making a large financial decision, such as one related to buying or selling a house, on inaccurate, misunderstood or mispresented date or information, can literally cost you thousands of dollars.
A quick, and current, example…The St Louis Housing Inventory…
A report was released this past week from within the real estate industry that indicated there was an “inventory of homes for sale” of 3,272 in the City and County of St Louis combined and that this was “down 24.9% from 2018“. I saw many well-meaning real estate agents copy and paste the graphic or data on Facebook with messages that, if a buyer would create a little bit of a panic or concern on “missing out” and, if a seller, thinking competition is down so now is a good time to list your home and name your price.
Continue reading “Is The St Louis Housing Inventory Down 25 Percent Or Up 10 Percent? The Importance Of Understanding The Data.“
By Dennis Norman, on January 27th, 2019 The list of the 10 St Louis cities where homes sold for the highest average price last year shown below reveals that the little city of Huntleigh, consisting of a land mass of just 1 square mile but home to some of the wealthiest people in St Louis, is where homes sold for the highest average price during 2018. Granted, there were only two homes sold in Huntleigh during the past year (which were in the MLS) but with prices of $2.785 Million and $9.8 Million (for an average of $6,292,500) it catapulted Huntleigh to the top of the list of the most expensive average home sales price for St Louis. Coming in a distant second to Huntleigh is Ladue where the average sales price was $1.104 Million.
See the most expensive homes sold in St Louis in the past year here.
[xyz-ips snippet=”St-Louis-Luxury-Homes-and-Condos—For-Sale-and-Open-House”]
Continue reading “St Louis Cities Where Homes Sold For The Highest Price In Past Year“
By Dennis Norman, on December 21st, 2018 In the last week, I’ve seen several reports indicating declining home sales on both a nationwide basis as well as for the St Louis market. The reports vary widely but one local report indicated single family home sales were down 6 percent from a year ago, which, of course, should cause some concern for both agents as well as consumers since a 6 percent decline is significant. However, this is why, for this very reason, MORE, REALTORS® developed their own proprietary software to analyze and report the market data (the same MLS data as the aforementioned report was based upon) and present it in a manner that more accurately depicts the market conditions and is more applicable than many of the other reports out there.
Before I go further, I’m not picking on anyone reporting market information, as most are simply reporting the data that is available to them and doing so in a common manner which is to look at data for one specific month (in this case November) and compare it to the same month a year ago. I’m just suggesting that due to fluctuations that can be caused by, for example, weather during the month, the number of Friday’s during the month (a popular day for closings), etc. looking at a single month doesn’t paint a true picture of the market. It also matters what area the data is for, is it the St Louis MSA (which includes 8 counties in Illninois) or the city of St Louis, or some other combination?
As you will see from our STL Market Report™ tables I’ve prepared below, the St Louis real estate market is actually holding fairly steady in terms of sales when we look at the past 12-month period and compare it with the prior 12-month period. In terms of home prices, St Louis home prices have increased about 4% – 5% in the St Louis area, depending on how we look at the area.
Continue reading “St Louis Home Sales Remain Steady But Trending Downward“
By Dennis Norman, on November 1st, 2018 It would be an understatement to say that Zillow® has many real estate agents nervous about their future. It’s not just Zillow® though, it’s Amazon, big banks, and dozens and dozens of new real estate start-ups and changing business models.
A true dysfunctional family…
The most common name that comes up in real estate agent circles when discussing the impact of the internet on the real estate profession topic is Zillow®, and usually in the context of “the enemy“, so to speak. It seems to me the biggest fear among agents about Zillow® is that they want to eliminate real estate agents and instead give consumers a marketplace to buy and sell homes without the need for an agent. What is most interesting to me about this, is that Zillow® made something like nearly $1 Billion last year from selling leads to, guess who? Yep, real estate agents. So, the group that is afraid Zillow® is gunning for them, is lining their coffers with cash to do so, see the dysfunction? To be clear, I’m not blaming agents here for doing business with Zillow®, nor am I saying what Zillow® is doing is wrong, I’m just commenting on what I see and find it rather fascinating.
But wait there’s more…
Going back to Zillow® and all those leads they sell to agents, what makes it even more interesting is the fact that Zillow® is able to generate all those leads as a result of getting more than 1 million real estate agents in the U.S. to send their listings to them and give them permission to market them. Hmm…
Continue reading “Will Zillow Put Real Estate Agents Out of Business?“
By Dennis Norman, on June 25th, 2018 Homes have sold in the St Louis area at an increasing rate for a little more than 3 years now, however, as the chart below illustrates, the trend is flattening. The chart below, which was created from software our firm developed which compiles data from the MLS, plots homes sales for the past 12 months for each month. So, rather than just seeing the activity for one month and all the seasonal fluctuation, you can actually see the sales trend.
Since March 2015, the 12-month home sales trend has steadily increased at a fairly steady pace however, it appears we may have hit the ceiling. For the 12-month period ended May 31, 2018, there were 27,755 homes sold in the St Louis 5-County Core market (city of St Louis and counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson and Franklin) a very slight increase over the 12-month period ended April 2018 when there were 27,653 homes sold and just a 1.5% increase from a year ago when there 27,339 homes sold in the prior 12-month period.
St Louis 5-County Core Market- 12-Month Home Sales Trend – Past 5 Years
(click chart for live chart and table)
By Dennis Norman, on June 19th, 2018 Something that has become fairly common today in the St Louis real estate market are “MLS exempt” (or “non-MLS”) listings. Also known in the industry as “Pocket Listings“, this refers to a home that is listed with an agent but is not entered into the MLS. When I first enteered the real estate business, back in 1979, these type of listings were known as “Vest Pocket LIstings” with the reason being the agent would instead of turning the listing agreement into his or her office, making everyone aware of it, would keep the listing in their vest pocket so they would be the only one aware the home was for sale. At that time, from my vantage point, the only reason I saw for vest pocket listings was so the listing agent could “double dip”, meaning sell it themselves to a buyer without the involvement of a buyers agent, thus getting to keep all the commission themselves.
Before I go further, let me give a quick lesson on how real estate commissions work. Almost always, the seller, in the listing agreement, has agreed to pay a percentage of the sales price of their home as commission. This commission is split in some fashion between the listing agent and the selling (buyers) agent. In fact, a requirement of the MLS is that all listings that are entered by listing agents must offer compensation to the selling (buyers) agent. However, if the buyer is not represented by a buyers agent and works with the listing agent directly (which is a bad idea, see DontBuyFromTheListingAgent.com for why) then the listing agent keeps all the commission.
[xyz-ips snippet=”Seller-Resources—Listing-Targeted”]
Continue reading ““MLS Exempt” Listings – Is This Approach Good For Sellers Or Just Listing Agents?“
By Dennis Norman, on May 10th, 2018 Just over 1 of every three (34%) homebuyers in 2017 were first-time homebuyers according to the With the growing population of millennials reaching an age where many are buying homes, I expect to see the percentage of first-time homebuyers increase over the next couple of years.
Many first-time homebuyers find the home buying process to be a little intimidating which is largely due to just lacking the experience of having done it before and the knowledge that is gained from the experience. However, with a time spent getting educated on the process, the fears can be calmed and the home buying experience can be a great one for a first-time buyer!
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5-Things First-Time Homebuyers Should Do BEFORE Buying A Home…
(the summary is below but you can see the complete report by clicking the link above)
Step 1 Ask a real estate professional if current market conditions make now a good time to buy a home?
The real estate market suffered a blow when the housing bubble burst in 2008 but has now recovered and the talk for the past couple of years has been rising home prices and a shortage of homes for sale. So does this make now a bad time to buy?
Step 2 Ask yourself these 3 questions to determine if now is the right time for YOU to buy?
- Do you want the responsibility? Home-ownership does bring with it the responsibility to care for it and maintain it (there is no longer a landlord to call to take care of things for you); you are responsible for maintaining insurance coverage on the home, paying property taxes, subdivision association fees and, of course, your house payments on time.
- Are you financially ready? DON’T BUY if you have not saved enough money to make a reasonable down-payment, pay closing costs, moving costs, etc., and still have some money left in the bank for “reserves”. Also, make sure your income is adequate to support the house payment you are taking on and if there is any doubt then either don’t buy or buy a lower-priced house, you can always move-up later down the road.
Is your income stable? If you get to this point and feel you are OK and can afford to buy a home, step back and look at the source of your income and consider how solid you think it is.
Step 3 Educate yourself on the market, the process and your rights.
Even though you will be using professionals in your home purchase and, particularly if you follow the advice in this report, will select good ones, you still should educate yourself about the process to give you a better understanding as you go through it. Plus, by knowing your rights and how the deal should go, you will notice when something is not right or you are not be treated properly.
Don’t buy before checking out the resources below:
Step 4 Pick a REALTOR® to work with you.
If you think the timing is right for you to buy a home, then the next step is to select a REALTOR® to work with you to help guide you through the process and avoid the “landmines” that are out there. Many buyers want to go it alone for a while and there are plenty of websites out there where you can search for homes for sale from now to eternity, you will save yourself a lot of time and aggravation by simply utilizing the services of a professional REALTOR® from the outset.
7 Questions you MUST ask an agent before choosing one
Step 5 Get pre-approved for a home loan
This step is important for several reasons: One, it confirms to you that you do have the financial resources to buy a house in the price range you are interested in and, two, when you provide the pre-approval letter to the seller with your offer it shows you are not only a serious buyer, but that you should be able to get a loan to buy their house. This gives you a leg-up in your negotiations over a buyer that is not as prepared.
(See The COMPLETE Report by Clicking the Link Below)
5-Things First-Time Homebuyers Should Do BEFORE Buying A Home…
By Dennis Norman, on July 14th, 2017 Yes, I often harp on the importance of having accurate information when it comes to the St Louis real estate market and, admittedly, am a data nerd, however, considering that a home sale or purchase is generally one of, if not the, largest financial transactions a person makes, I think it’s worth the effort to get it right. This is why at our company, MORE, REALTORS, we have spent thousands and dollars and thousands of hours of work over the course of several years to develop software for our agents, and clients, that provides what we feel is the most accurate and relevant information out there when it comes to St Louis home prices and sales information.
Yesterday, after I arrived at my destination for a lunch meeting with my business partner, I pulled out my iPhone and opened the RPR® (REALTOR® Property Resource®) app (only available to REALTORS) to see what it would show me about the real estate market for the area I was in, which was Sunset Hills (63127). The app correctly identified my location and then showed the information on my screen that I show below. While I liked the look of the screen, it was definitely ascetically pleasing, I immediately noticed the rather large “-19.2%” on the screen next to “Median Sales Price – 12 Month Change”. What??? Was I that out of touch I thought, could home prices in the Sunset Hills area really have fallen over 19% without me, the data nerd and, in some peoples opinions, “market guru”, even noticing? While I don’t know exactly what is meant by the label on the app, whether it is for the most recent month compared with the same month a year ago, what I do know is one way or the other they are indicating a big drop on home prices which would be very scary to me if I were a homeowner in that area, and very concerning to me if I were considering buying.
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Continue reading “The Importance Of Accurate St Louis Home Price Data for Sellers and Buyers- Prices Down 19%?? Or Up 8%??“
By Dennis Norman, on June 24th, 2017 Ok, I’ll admit it, I know I’m sort of a big data nerd and not everyone is, so I may be in the minority when it comes to the attention I give, and time I devote, to market data, stats, trends and the like. However, while not everyone wants to study this stuff, anyone in the market to buy or sell real estate either needs to be up to date on what is going on in the market in terms of price (and the other stuff I mentioned) or be represented by a real estate agent that is. Otherwise, without this information or, worse yet, with bad information, home buyers and sellers can make some really bad decisions.
There is a lot of “bad” data out there and it can hurt you!
When I started in the real estate business, way back in 1979 and the age of 18, it was very hard to get much data on home prices, sales, etc, heck, it wasn’t even easy to find out what was listed for sale. Today, largely a result of the internet, things are much different. There is plenty of data and information available to home buyers and sellers today and it’s easy to find. The hard part today isn’t getting the data and information, it’s getting good, accurate and relevant data and information. You don’t have to spend much time online, whether on social media sites, real estate websites or even “news” sites, to discover all sorts of inaccurate, incomplete, dated, useless and conflicting data and information. For example, in the past week, I saw reports, even from people in the real estate profession in St Louis, indicating home prices declined last month from a year ago to the tune of about 3% or so, but I don’t believe that is the case. Bear with me and keep reading and you will see why I say this as well as what I think is accurate with regard to St Louis home prices.
Usually the source means well and the data is believed to be accurate, but….
With regard to real estate, I think most of the data published on real estate sites, social media sites, etc by real estate agents as well as others in the industry, is believed by the person putting it out there to be accurate, the problem is it often is not. The problem is, without really digging into the source of the data, or examining what criteria was used to compile the data or report, people are often passing along information they are just assuming to be accurate but often is not.
So, where can you find good, accurate and relevant information and data on the St Louis real estate market?
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Get Home Prices and Sale Tables and Data For ANY Area- STLMarketReports.com Continue reading “The Importance Of Accurate Home Price Data And The Danger Of Bad Data“
By Dennis Norman, on June 22nd, 2017 St Louis continues to enjoy a pretty robust real estate market, albeit it a challenging one for buyers due to the low inventory of homes for sale in most areas, with St Louis home sales, during the past 12 months, up over 5 percent from the prior 12-month period and St Louis home prices up over 5 percent for the same period as well. As the table below shows, in the 5-county core St Louis market, there were 27,437 homes sold in the 12-month period ending May 31, 2017, an increase of 5.13% from the prior 12-month period when there were 26,099 homes sold.
Year-over-year for the month of May looks good as well…
As I frequently comment, looking at home prices and sales activity for a 12-month period is the best way to get a realistic view of the market, less affected by timing of sales due to weather, day of the week the last day of the month falls on etc, it’s still worth looking at the most recent month and comparing it to the prior month, as well as prior year, to help spot trends or changes in the trend. With this in mind, as the chart below shows, for the St Louis core market there were 3,070 homes sold in May, 2017, an increase of 21.2% from the month before when there were 2,533 homes sold, and an increase of just under 1% from May 2016 when there were 3,042 homes sold. As the chart also reveals, homes sold in St Louis during May, 2017 were sold for a median price of $185,000, an increase of 2.8% from the month before when the median sales price was $180,000 and a slight increase of just one-half of one-percent from May 2016 when the median price St Louis homes sold for was $184,000.
Franklin County has the largest increases in home prices and sales during past 12 months…
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By Dennis Norman, on May 30th, 2017 Of the 6,137 homes that were sold in St Charles county during the past 12 months, 5,839 (95%) of them had a garage. Nearly 68 percent of the homes sold with a garage in St Charles county had a 2-car garage, nearly 24 percent a 3 car garage or larger and just 8.5 percent had a one-car garage. So, if you are a St Charles county homeowner with a one-car garage, how much can you expect to be impacted price-wise when you sell? Of, if you are a buyer, looking at a home in St Charles county with a one-car garage, how much should you discount what you pay for it versus a similar home with a 2-car garage?
To address these questions, I went to our STL Market Charts to pull data from our MLS database for home sold in St Charles county in the past 12 months to see how, on a price per foot basis, the price varies based upon garage size. For the sake of this discussion, and to keep it to an “apples to apples” comparison the best I could, I pulled data for 3 bedroom homes in St Charles county, listed at $150,000 – $250,000 and sold within the past 12 months.
As the tables below illustrate, the 1,506 homes sold with 2-car garages sold for a median price of $122 per square foot and the 48 homes that sold with 1-car garages sold for a median price of $120.41 per square foot or about 1.3% less than it’s 2-car counterpart. Naturally, this will vary by price range and area, but for the typical 3 bedroom St Charles county home, it appears a 2-car garage is worth about $1.60 per square foot, or about 1.3%, more than a similar home with a one-car garage.
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Continue reading “What Is The Value of a Garage?“
By Dennis Norman, on May 28th, 2017 I am always marveled by great marketing and promotion therefore I must give a tip of the hat to Zillow® for their new “Instant Offer” program. First, it’s getting them tons of attention and press, particularly within the REALTOR® community, which is probably where it is the most beneficial to them since real estate agents are, after all, Zillows’® paying customers. Courtesy of Inman News, REALTOR.com and others, this new program has received the equivalent of thousands and thousands of dollars of free advertising, which is the type of thing I love and dream of getting this type of free publicity for my firm.
Instant Offer concept is not new…
So, why do I say it’s nothing new? I have nothing against Zillow® (although many in the REALTOR® community are not fans as they see them as a threat) however, I really don’t see anything “new” or revolutionary about their instant offer program. Basically, according to their website, what their program does is allows you to submit information on your home to them which then goes to a group of national investors who then submit you a cash offer for your home. Then, an inspection is done of your home (I’m guessing the offer is subject to this inspection being favorable) and if so, then you proceed to closing. Homes have been sold in this manner for decades, including right here in St Louis, so it’s nothing new. When I entered the real estate business here in St Louis in 1979, there were many “speculators” in St Louis, including the broker I worked for, that would make sellers a cash, as-is, offer on their home and would offer to close as fast as 24 hours. So, basically, the same thing as the “new” Zillow® instant offer program with a few exceptions including that our offers were typically unconditional (other than that the seller had good title), truly as-is and we were local, people the sellers could meet, talk with and establish a relationship with as they contemplated whether or not this approach to selling their home was a good decision. Over the years, I was involved in the purchase of over 2,000 homes in this manner right here in St Louis. Today, thanks to internet webinars, reality TV shows and just a wealth of information being readily available, there are many, many people, that, in addition to the established “professional investors”, out there trying to buy real estate in this manner.
Do you want an “instant offer” on your home?
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By Dennis Norman, on March 30th, 2017 New home sales in St Louis declined in 2016 after increasing during the prior two years, for both the entire St Louis MSA as a whole as well as the St Louis 5-County Core Market. As the 10-year charts below show, new home sales, fell steadily from 2007 for about the next 4 years as a result of the housing bubble burst and failing real estate market. Since hitting rock bottom around 2011, new home sales have increased slightly but have not done so with any great momentum.
New home sales in St Louis 5 County Core Market are still just a fraction of what they were…
In 2007, there were 1,374 new home sales reported in the MLS in the St Louis core market, and last year there were 603 new homes sold, a decline of 56% from 2007. Last years new home sales were down over 11 percent from the year below and are lower than the prior 4 years. In fact, in the past 10 years, only 2011 saw fewer new homes sold with just 568 that year.
The median price of new homes sold, as the charts illustrate, dropped from $240,750 during 2007 until hitting bottom in 2010 at $211,144, and then after falling off the 2011 level in 2012, has increased every year since and hit $273,000 last year. This represents an increase of 29% in the median price of new homes sold in the St Louis core market since 2010.
New home sales increased last year in St Louis County but fell in St Charles and Jefferson Counties…
As the individual county charts below show, St Louis county saw the number of new homes sold increase last year from the year before, increasing 34% from 127 in 2015 to 184 new homes sold in 2016. The median price declined during this period however, from $520,000 during 2015 to $467,990 in 2016.
St Charles County saw new home sales decline nearly 23% (22.9) from 363 in 2015 to 280 during 2016 while prices increased from $221,705 to $228,424. Jefferson County followed suit with new home sales falling 22.5% from 129 during 2015 to 100 in 2016 while prices increased 14.6% during the same period from $205,000 in 2015 to $234,917 in 2016.
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