Commercial Real Estate in Memphis and our Galaxy

Honestly, I haven’t watched 60 Minutes in years. Last week they bared their teeth and went after real estate agents and the 6% commission. Here’s a link to the transcript of the story, along with some excerpts.

Even with today’s housing slump, real estate agents will pull in about $60 billion this year. And the reason is, as any homeowner knows, they charge a six percent commission on the price of every house they sell. So, for instance, a home that goes for a half a million dollars will net agents $30,000 right off the top.

For realtors, the six percent commission is sacrosanct. It’s remained in place, even as the price of homes has quadrupled over the past 25 years.

But as correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, things are beginning to change. What happened to travel agents, stock brokers and book sellers – the encroachment of the Internet – is beginning to affect real estate agents. And the sacred six percent is under assault from online discounters.

Sacrosanct? As in “Regarded as sacred and inviolable”, Sacrosanct? 6% isn’t a holy number to anyone I know. Who told them that? Read more »

I’d hate to spoil the season finale, and possibly next season of Lost for you, so be warned.

One of the stars of Lost is selling his 4,335 square feet, 5 bedroom, 6 bathroom home in Maulukua Place, Haleiwa, HI for a cool $2,940,000. He’s asking for that, I don’t know what he’ll take.

I got the link to The Real Estalker from a Lost site I check out from time to time, The Tail Section.

Name and picture after the jump. Read more »

Someday, I’ll be able to check the news without hearing about our own Kennedy-lite family. Here’s the real estate related Ford family news, whether you like it or not. Check out this news story, and then check out the (conspiracy?) theory about “the rest of the story”.

From the Commercial Appeal:

Memphis City Councilman Edmund Ford may be able to keep his mortuary in its Whitehaven home after all.

His landlord, Dennis Churchwell, had threatened to auction off the 5.8-acre property on Elvis Presley because of its notoriety. It’s where Ford was allowed to rack up a five-digit Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division bill, touching off a scandal that led to the resignation of the utility’s president.

But after the live auction Saturday afternoon, the property’s only bid came from a lender of the Supreme Lending Group in Memphis, who offered Churchwell $750,000 to purchase the property on Ford’s behalf…

Read more »

I found out about Flipper Nation from my friends over at the Rain City Guide, a Seattle-centric real estate blog that shows us a little link love from time to time.

 Headlines show that the real estate market has hit its peak and it’s only a matter of time before the bubble bursts. The market seems to be saturated with wannabe real estate tycoons.

Let’s hope they have room for two more: Richie Tatum and David Kimball. They are way too late in the game Read more »

The little letter to the editor I wrote last week was published in Friday’s Commercial Appeal. Here is the official version.

Real estate commission’s a bargain

The writer of your May 16 letter “Not the business of legislators” repeats the familiar cry: “Sell real estate by yourself and save thousands in commissions.” That would be great if it were true.

From July 2005 to June 2006, the median price of an agent-assisted home sale in Memphis was $212,000. The median price of a home sale by an unrepresented seller was $166,000. That’s a difference of $46,000. Figuring a good agent will cost you 7 percent of your $212,000 (about $15,000), you’re better off by $31,000 using an agent. Everyone wants to save money, but being a “do-it-yourself” real estate agent is no better than being a “do-it-yourself” lawyer or doctor.

Will Hicks

Memphis

From the Commercial Appeal:

The Tennessee legislature approved a bill Monday banning brokers from giving rebates, gifts or prizes in a real estate transaction despite a strong, rare warning from federal antitrust lawyers that it is anticompetitive and will “cause serious harm to home buyers and sellers.”…

Realtors across Tennessee support the ban on rebates, gifts and prizes — and thus the bill. They argue that repealing it would hurt consumers, not help them. The Memphis Area Association of Realtors was one of several Realtors’ groups that wrote letters to the commission opposing a repeal of the ban. Read more »

The U.S. Government is selling off 29 of my embassies overseas. They didn’t ask my permission, but I would have said ok.

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK):

From Kinshasa to Katmandu, Bangkok to Bogota, U.S. embassies, ambassadorial residences and other diplomatic digs are up for sale as the State Department moves its employees to more secure locations, upgrades facilites and combines operations in multipurpose compounds.

Some 29 properties worth more than $205 million are now on the market in 21 countries, including a huge and historic embassy annex in the heart of London, large chancery buildings in Panama, Nicaragua and Nepal and homes fit for envoys extraordinary in Belize and Venezula.

I was in Moscow, Russia a few years ago Read more »

From the NY Times:

Less than three weeks after putting the historic headquarters of The New York Times Company on the block, Tishman Speyer Properties sold the building for $525 million, three times the $175 million it paid in November 2004…

In Midtown, “for anyone looking for a block of space in excess of 300,000 square feet during the next two years for less than $100 per square foot, this is your only option,” said Darcy A. Stacom, the broker at CB Richard Ellis who sold the property for The Times in 2004 and handled the sale to Africa Israel for Tishman Speyer.

$525 Million? <whistle>. The building was on the market for less than three weeks and it sold for $525 Million? Three years ago ol’ Darcy A. Stacom sold the same building for $175 Million. Those were a couple good years for him. He must have been off his game in 2005 and 2006.