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Hey? Weird question. Im a nosey nancy and have a friend in austin who is a real estate agent. She is complaining theres no business.

From what i hear, real estate especially in austin is hot hot hot!!!

Any realtors here who can confirm or deny? I thought realtors were making a ton of money these days??? My friends who are realtors in my area are flourishing.

I don't know about Austin but I own a Condo in Plano. I was just 'thinking' about putting it on the market and talked to a realtor. The Condo two places down from mine went on the market for $405K and the real estate person told me she has 12 more OFFERS in the works for those willing to pay more. Geez I paid $150K for my Condo 9 years ago and it's larger than that one for sale! So Plano is probably on the same scale as a nice home in any Austin area, perhaps. So yeah the market is HOT. My condo is leased out for 8 more months but if the market is that hot near the expiration of the lease, I just might sell.

I’m not a realtor but work closely with the real estate industry, and Dallas is hot right now, multiple offers as soon as the listing hits MLS.

Yeah. This is what i thought. Why on earth would a realtor in Austin say business is slow? I would expect her to be making money hand over fist! She specializes in foreclosures so MAYBE thats why??? Weird.

I have family in ATX - the market is hot, but I'm thinking the inventory is very very low.

Foreclosure are very rare right now because of Covid the mortgage companies are bending over backwards to keep people in their homes. What is hot right now is the upper end homes.

She specializes in foreclosures so MAYBE thats why??? Weird.

Yup. Foreclosures are rare as most mortgages are not underwater due to the hot market. No short sales or foreclosures required so letting it go to sheriff's sale would be silly.

So whats a realtor to do in that situation? Just wait for the market to not be so great, or could she get involved in selling regular sales? She has the teal estate license and all that stuff, so I dont even know why she specializes in foreclosures?

Normally, at least in my state, foreclosures are handled without an agent. The sheriff, sometimes quite literally, holds an auction on the courthouse steps and the highest bidder wins. Usually the lien holder has a reserve or makes a low bid to put a bottom on the sale price. I wouldn't think an real estate agent is necessary or even worthwhile as they are typically paid at % of the sale by the seller in this case the sheriff who's not paying.

So when you state she specializes in foreclosures, I see this as she works with someone who either flips foreclosures or purchase them for rental income. A major reason that property is hot right now is there is hedge fund type money investing in homes for rental. You're talking about LLCs that will own hundreds to thousands of SFH in a city and renting them out above the cost of owning them. They spin up a new LLC once they start hitting the legal or practical limits for a region. It's a hedge against inflation and market corrections. These LLCs are running the smaller flippers out of the business as they vacuum up homes for sale. Since she specializes in foreclosures she likely works with the smaller fish. The big ones have their own FT employees doing the work she is doing.

A real estate license is not as important as the relationships and word of mouth. You ask your friends and neighbors who they went with when they bought or sold their home.

[This message edited by grubs at 7:48 PM, Monday, March 14th]

Don’t forget the basic law of business that supply and demand controls price.
More demand than supply = higher price.
The only people really making any money from the high property prices are those that can relocate to lower-price areas or those that invest in real estate. With the state of stocks these days, the unrest in Europe and increasing oil prices real estate is still a good place to store money so investors aren’t ready to cash in on the higher prices, while others might still see the safety of real estate and the income of rent as a better option that stocks.
This IMHO makes the supply low while the demand is probably just as constant as it was previously. Therefor the price-hikes.

Foreclosures? In her shoes I would simply accept a slow market for a couple of months. When the covid-reprisals plus inflation start really kicking in the foreclosures will be rolling in.

As stated, due to Covid there has been some debt forgiveness and relief by all sorts of federal and financial institutions. Although necessary for many I think that those already strained pre-covid that took advantage of these offers are going to come down falling like flies. It’s a very good rule in personal finance to minimize borrowing, use ratios (income/expenditure) to figure out what you can afford in housing, vehicles etc and to stick to a repayment plan as closely as you can.