Las Vegas Homes, Condos, Land and Commercial Real Estate Blog

After losing on a second deal in a month because the listing agent did not answer my offer, and since this is recurring problem I placed a call to Sue Naumann, the president of Greater Las Vegas Realtor Association to discuss this issue:

Why the listings in Las Vegas MLS are no longer accurate and what the association has done to protect the vast majority of its members from being badly hurt by a very small percentage of its membership. Mrs. Naumann graciously returned my call the same day and asked me to write about the issues that I want to discuss with her prior to our meeting. So here it is.

I have repeatedly written about my problems with Las Vegas REO agents and these problems are well known by most of the Realtors and mortgage officers who deal with foreclosed properties in Las Vegas and have been recurring for about a year and half. This means the failure is system-wide and no one has lifted a finger to correct it, otherwise the same problems would not be repeated for a year and a half.

I have discussed these problems in few articles two of which are:

Las Vegas foreclosure (REO) agent who never answered my offer on a Las Vegas foreclosed home for sale he listed

and

What will happen to Las Vegas homes and condos for sale pricing?

I have discussed in the above articles that the problems with marketing foreclosed properties in Las Vegas hurts everyone as the real estate prices in Las Vegas will not stop falling until banks make it easy for the public to buy their properties. What is going on in the current Las Vegas real estate market is just the opposite.

While it is estimated that 150,000 real estate agent nationwide are qualified to handle foreclosure listings and at least a couple of thousands of them are my fellow Las Vegas Realtors, only less than 6,000 Realtors have sold more than 1.7 million foreclosed homes and condominiums nationally.

Las Vegas is not exempt from this and the number of Las Vegas Realtors who have the vast majority of foreclosure listings in Las Vegas are limited and less than 1% of Las Vegas Realtors. All of my problems that I have discussed have been with this small minority of the agents.

My second question is, why has this small number of Realtors been allowed to do as they wish with impunity?

The whole foreclosure fiasco that has drowned the world economy and destroyed millions of lives happened because of the lack of regulations or enforcement of existing financial regulations. Now that it is time to dispose of these foreclosed properties, there is nothing on the books that I am aware of to regulate the disposition of these properties.

The same small number of REO agents in Las Vegas with thousands of listings can legally sell their own listings, (dual agency) and everyone has put up a web-site for their own listings. They make twice the money on a deal while representing no one and it is not in their interest to cooperate with buyers agents and they don’t. I keep getting advertisements from these REO agents that are seeking buyer’s agents to join their team since they have too many listings to handle. Now pay attention, I didn’t write listing agents, I wrote buyer’s agents. Nevada is one of the few states in the US that allows dual agency which I would never do and I do not permit anyone who is associated with me to do it.

Mrs. Naumann, what motivates these Las Vegas REO agents to cooperate with the buyer’s agents when they can make more money by selling their own listings?

Who makes sure that all offers made to these Las Vegas foreclosure agents are passed to the bank?

Why is Nevada one of the few states in the US to allow dual agency, which is making a great deal of money for these REO agents and is decimating the rest of your membership?

What motivates asset management companies to try to lose money by giving 500-600 listings to a single agent who can’t possibly manage them instead of giving 20 listings to 30 Realtors or 10 listings to 60 Realtors who can manage them effortlessly?

Are these Asset Management companies regulated?

I firmly believe that there is rampant corruption in disposing of foreclosure properties in the United States and that the Congress and Department of Justice should take a careful look at it. The reason is easy; the higher these foreclosed properties sell for and the earlier they are disposed of the sooner our current economic problems will go away.

If you want to motivate a few REO agents in Las Vegas who are killing my profession

OUTLAW DUAL AGENCY IN NEVADA NOW. AT LEAST FOR THE FORECLOSED PROPERTIES, ACTUALLY OUTLAW DUAL AGENCY BY THE SAME BROKER.

Doing so doesn’t cost a penny but can motivate these REO agents to market their listings properly.

OK Mrs. Naumann, you wanted to know what I wanted to discuss with you, I think we have enough for starters; I am looking forward to discussing these issues and more with you. If someone doesn’t start to do something about this problem people will lose more jobs and our economy will be destroyed.