Are there actually any good RE brokers?

Micheal Moran and Matthew George of Elliman. amazing guys

"or do they all just try to get listings and let somebody else bring the buyers? "

I'm not so sure this defines a "good broker". For years, I have prided myself as being a broker for some of the most savvy investors and financial institutions, and it's not because of my having any inventory of buyers: it's my knowledge of broker/buyer BS and my ability to see and wade thru it, my knowledge of the properties I am marketing (knowing hidden/ non-obvious strong points, and really understanding the properties weak points and having good answers / defenses), and my expertise/experience in negotiating and teh psychological battle with various broker/buyer types and how to handle different one's in the manner which will lead to the best results. In other words: NOT having a conflict of representing both the buyer and the seller, but being the toughest junk yard dog the seller can put in his front yard (with lipstick on*).

* no, I'm not female. It's an expression.

Those who want listings and get them seem to work them, as far as I've seen.

30yrs has a great analysis at http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/11034-trd-article-shock-recedes-into-stubbornness.

Speak of the devil...

Real estate brokers, like travel agents, are dinosaurs, walking dead but they just don't realize it yet. Welcome to the 21st century where information flows instantaneously and accurately from many sources. Once the U.S. Justice Department declares that the MLS is a monopoly and relic of the 20th century, we'll see brokers become extinct, just like their counterparts in stocks ... when was the last time you heard of a stock broker, or paid a commission to one? Take whatever price the broker thinks is the "best price" and you can do better by his/her commission, which in NYC real estate, are huge numbers usually. It's only a matter of time before the profession becomes extinct!!!

just to point out differences in both cases:

travel: someone decides where they want to go on vacation, and the place actually exists, they can read books on it, it doesn't become available to visit once every 20 years, there are many different, competing airline or other modes of transport there, there are many different places (hotels, condos, etc.) to stay there and these things are currently bid on without seeing them (airfare, rooms,etc.)

stocks: there is a "market" where if you want to buy or sell, all shares are not only fungible, but there is a set (for any given second in time, anyway) price to buy or (more importantly) sell at. When people can look up the market price for their house and push a button and the house immediately sells and settles, you will definitely be right. I don't see that happening any time soon, though.

How about a dead broker?

And, yes, you can't compare to stocks... stocks are a good investment in the long term.

Lol@Nyc... THAT was funny!

30yrs_RE_20_in_REO:

The fallacy in your argument is that because R/E is "unique," you need brokers to make the market. Websites like Streeteasy, Property Shark, Zillow, Trulia, etc. allow sellers and buyers to make the market themselves, without a broker inteferring. Armed with this information, I attended open houses, or made private appointments to see properties I liked, negotiated with owners or sellers' agents, and bought my place for a great deal, compared to my comps and benchmarks. Just slightly more complicated than booking a vacation at Expedia or trading via eTrade. As for going to closing, I dealt with the lender directly, and all the legal work was done by my lawyer. Did I miss something?!? How would a broker add value to this transaction?!? Maybe if I considered adding to my purchase price an advantage, then perhaps a R/E broker could have added value. It's only a matter of time, and that time is fastly approaching.

Cheers.

ManhattanKing, I'm just a sweet little thing. I don't like to tell the seller's broker that I want to offer 20% under, or tell my buyer that I won't do it without a rentback period (i've actually managed to move in before closing, although upstate, not NYC), won't sign without a mortgage contingency despite the fact that it's not common at the time, etc. Let my broker do that for me. Let my broker pay to advertise, hustle clients, deal with all the sellers' brokers for appointments (no small accomplishment the last few years), show the apartment without the emotional burden of it being his own home (PAS, I feel for you, but...), do the coop/condo board submission, etc. I have one friend who is a broker who tells of a client that refused to clean up the apartment. She showed up with an assitant an hour before every open house to remedy that situation. It's a hell of alot of work to sell, and if you want to do a thorough job looking to buy, it's a hell of a lot of work there too. So far a broker has been more than worth it to me. But mine is great, many are not, but certainly not all.

i disagree. I am first to bash current situation but that doesn't mean that there can't be another model. Middlemen that add value exist in every aspect of business. The key is adding value. I have experienced the value in commercial real estate of a savvy broker---very, very different than the current, ridiculous model in residential real estate.

Walmart is a middleman between the workaday consumer and Chinese factories. Good luck trying to face off without them.

Book publishers are middlemen between writer and readers. Despite all of their problems, good luck again without them.

And on and on.

"Did I miss something?!?"

Yes, but mostly because you've never seen a "normal" RE market, just the feeding frenzy we've had in Manhattan for too many years. To put it bluntly, the buyer's broker's job is to force them to look at properties that they don't want to because what they think they want:
1) Isn't really what they want, but is a concoction of what they've seen in movies, what their friends have told them they want and a wish of what exists but doesn't (ex: like, in general, a prewar alcove studio)
2) They really can't afford
3) They don't know that other things exist than what they have been exposed to so they don't know there is something which suits their needs better
4) they can get, but not in the geographic boundaries they are using to search by computer
5) Is asking $2,000 more than what they are plugging into their computer search (ex: asking $501,000 for some stupid reason and they are searching up to $499,000
6) Can't be discerned or searched for in a search engine on any of the current websites or programs
7) Looks bad on paper, but is actually exactly what they want and the broker has seen it, but the buyer never will based on the computer listing (ex: the 1 out of 100 listings that lists the actual square footage, making it "too small" because everyone else is overstating by 200+ SF)
8) The seller is VERY negotiable, putting the unit in their price range, but is still asking high and not putting in his listing "but I'll really take $200,000 less so ignore my high asking price"
9) The other party is "difficult" so when the buyer offers $200,000 less and the seller tells the buyer "go fuck yourself", but a broker would have said "the seller says that's too low, you need to come up a little bit". And eventually a deal gets done.
10 thru 100 I'll save for later because it doesn't matter what I say

"I have experienced the value in commercial real estate of a savvy broker---very, very different than the current, ridiculous model in residential real estate."

I believe I made a similar statement recently here which fell on deaf ears.

as you have said, most residential brokers in manhattan have no idea what selling is all about. seems like an interesting business opportunity.

Sure. Smart buyers will work with a good ethical professional broker to get the best deal for themselves. I think the best way to find a broker is a personal recommendation. Ask friends who they used and liked. The good brokers are memorable and most of their business is based on referrals.

ManhattanKing, i agree with you up to a point. There are a lot of individuals out there who are not as savvy as you and do not know how to search for properties on streeteasy or search acris records. In these cases i can see how a buyers broker could add value, but I still ask the question, does a sellers broker add any value?

I think the answer is NO, unless the broker has a LARGE Rolodex of clients they can call and sell the property to. I think its up to a seller listing their property to do their due diligence and determine which broker will have the correct contacts to sell their property at the highest price. Otherwise there is no point of a listing broker.

I'm like a good accountant--I help people make good decisions (and avoid bad ones) about their money and their assets.

This is an expensive service and not necessarily the right "fit" for most people, but my clients are happy.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

I dont know any good brokers, but I can name a few to avoid at all costs.

I had a great one a few years ago. She was the only broker who found me exactly what I was looking for, and even found me apartments that weren't online. I am looking to buy again but don't remember her last name and can't find her. : (

Give us some more info, I bet someone knows who she is.

1

I do

She is Japanese, tall, young. She used to be a reporter and lived outside of the US. Very organized and efficient. Might have worked in finance before??

During the frenzy market, you could have sold a shoe and called it a 2 bedroom. Just put your add on the websites like SE, Craigslist, etc and you were done, or so you thought.
You have an appraiser come in from Orange County or Suffolk County who doesn't even know what a GPS is. He looks at your building and another, inferior one, and gives an appraisal at 60% of the agreed upon price. Now what do you do?
Renegotiate the price?
Find another buyer?
Ask for another appraisal?
Go to a different lender?

At the point that a buyer gets the appraisal for a lower amount, they are second guessing their purchase price and usually will not request another appraisal.

If you would have a broker, he/she would provide the appraiser with valid comps for the apartment. Remember, when looking at ACRIS, it does not give you any information about coops except for the price. No square footage, no amenities, no outdoor space and no bedrooms or baths. When looking at houses and condos, you don't know what condition they were or was the condo's windows facing a brick wall.

In the current market, it gets much worse just to get a person through the door to look at your apartment. Considering that it will cost you $500-$700 to put a print ad in NYTimes that will actually big enough to be noticed. And do not say that putting it on websites today is enough, it is not. Most of the time you get the clueless who only read the paper who are willing to pay a higher price.

How do you determine what price to ask if the prices are going south every day? Do you want to chase the market down? If the apartment that was on the market for $1M is in contract, do you know what the contract price is?

I live in Brooklyn, in a semi hot neighborhood, and have seen Corcoran and Elliman give their pitches and price the apartments based on................ NOTHING. The sellers sit on the market for 6 months, stuck with the exclusive. Keep lowering the price and missing the hot Spring/Summer seasons. They then break down and go to a local realtor who gave them a real selling price, but it's the wrong time of year and they have to lower their price or wait till Spring again.