Useless Conversation

[Draegan]

Has anyone gotten their hands on a MS Surface tablet?  I'm thinking about getting one of the reviews are positive once it's released.

[Chimpy]

Has anyone gotten their hands on a MS Surface tablet?  I'm thinking about getting one of the reviews are positive once it's released.

They have not been released yet (the only access to them anyone outside of MS has had was at the announce event). No one knows if they will even be out by the holidays of what they will cost.

[Paelos]

Enquiry negotiator is probably the same thing we call a "leasing agent" here in the States. It's a trumped up title for young chicks with no skills who answer questions about the the properties before they get knocked up and go on maternity leave.

[Salamok]

I've toyed with the idea of getting a license and getting into exclusive buyer agency. There aren't any around here, and mixed agency is a mess of interest conflicts imo. Problem is, it's a bitch to make money when you are honest about houses and it's commission based.

I was lucky to have a girl who likes research and looking at houses, we did almost everything ourselves and still have a firm grasp of property values pretty much everywhere in our area.

Having a grasp of real estate values and being able to price a house are handy but the only required skill for being a successful real estate agent is the ability to acquire clients.

[Miasma]

Tuesday 18:30pm at Lizman House.

Tuesday 18:30 at St George Wharf.

One is at 18:30pm and the other merely at 18:30 without the pm.  I'm guessing 18:30pm is some sort of trendy London thing which combines 24 hour time with am/pm in a really cool fusion.

You should just get your friend to buy the one at Lizman house, it's so hip it uses this new type of time.  Upon reading it again the person also tells you to meet the person on Wednesday when these two times are Tuesday.  You should just hit this person on the head if you ever manage to meet them at the same place in the space/time continuum.

[Draegan]

Has anyone gotten their hands on a MS Surface tablet?  I'm thinking about getting one of the reviews are positive once it's released.

They have not been released yet (the only access to them anyone outside of MS has had was at the announce event). No one knows if they will even be out by the holidays of what they will cost.

I know they haven't been released yet, but you never know if anyone here has had access!

[Merusk]

Goddamnit, Miasma, that was going to be my response.

[Nebu]

Ok... honest question.  

I don't like iPhones and tablets.  Touching the screen just seems like a messy and not-very-durable-or-accurate way to interface with a system.  I much prefer a laptop or a desktop.

I'm wondering if this is because I'm just getting cranky in my old age or if some of you younger folks agree.  I spend A LOT of time on my PC at work and don't get joy out of my kindle fire... like zero.  

[Paelos]

Define younger folks.

[Nebu]

Define younger folks.

< 36

[Samwise]

Younger folk here.  My iPhone's fine for what it is, but as soon as I start scrolling a web page I wish I had a scroll wheel, and as soon as I start typing I wish I had a keyboard.

[Nebu]

Younger folk here.  My iPhone's fine for what it is, but as soon as I start scrolling a web page I wish I had a scroll wheel, and as soon as I start typing I wish I had a keyboard.

That's EXACTLY how I feel using a tablet. 

Thank you for partially restoring my sanity.

[Nebu]

On a side note associated with all of this dental stuff...

I thought that ghost might find THIS article interesting.  Apparently dentistry has been practiced for a long time. 

[Ingmar]

Realtors literally add nothing to the economy. They don't provide a real service, they create no product, and they siphon cash out of a system where they are completely unnecessary.

They stop people from getting ripped off, actually, and at least in California there's rather a lot of complicated legal nonsense that they help you navigate through. They're a lot like accountants that way. 

[Trippy]

Ok... honest question.  

I don't like iPhones and tablets.  Touching the screen just seems like a messy and not-very-durable-or-accurate way to interface with a system.  I much prefer a laptop or a desktop.

I'm wondering if this is because I'm just getting cranky in my old age or if some of you younger folks agree.  I spend A LOT of time on my PC at work and don't get joy out of my kindle fire... like zero.  

Older folk. Love my iPad. Touch screen is durable. Accuracy can be an issue, especially on the smaller iPhone screen or if you have fat fingers.

[Merusk]

Younger folk here.  My iPhone's fine for what it is, but as soon as I start scrolling a web page I wish I had a scroll wheel, and as soon as I start typing I wish I had a keyboard.

That's EXACTLY how I feel using a tablet. 

Thank you for partially restoring my sanity.

I turn 38 tomorrow and the only problem I have with it is the resolution: screen size and my obsessive need to wipe it down.  Other than that no real issue.

Though I also don't own a cell phone, so I don't have to transition from keyboard to thumboard (phone) to tablet-board typing during the day so the typing hasn't bothered me.  I'm nearly as quick as touch typing on my keyboard.

[Ingmar]

It took me a long time to give up the physical keyboard on my phone. I still would prefer to have it but the bigger screen on my Galaxy Nexus compared to the Droid 2 probably outweighs it. I loathe typing on the touch screen, so I probably send less email from my phone which is really probably an overall good thing. I also went through a transition phase several years ago where I didn't want to give up the scroll wheel on the side of my Blackberry when I switched to a Windows phone.  I didn't mind giving up the pager before that though.

I have fewer problems with typing on the tablet though (I have a Xoom, love that thing), the only thing is sometimes on websites with lots of links adjacent to each other it can be very hard to target the exact one I want, even when zoomed in. Forum pages, MTG card lists, that sort of thing.

[Paelos]

Realtors literally add nothing to the economy. They don't provide a real service, they create no product, and they siphon cash out of a system where they are completely unnecessary.

They stop people from getting ripped off, actually, and at least in California there's rather a lot of complicated legal nonsense that they help you navigate through. They're a lot like accountants that way. 

I don't agree they stop people from getting ripped off. Like at all.

[Samwise]

Realtors literally add nothing to the economy. They don't provide a real service, they create no product, and they siphon cash out of a system where they are completely unnecessary.

They stop people from getting ripped off, actually, and at least in California there's rather a lot of complicated legal nonsense that they help you navigate through. They're a lot like accountants that way. 

I'm glad I didn't have to navigate through the legal nonsense, but for all my buyer agent did to help keep me from getting ripped off I might as well have just gone straight to the selling agent and believed everything they told me.  I'm not sure if it's because she was shady or incompetent, but she helped me buy a house that was in the middle of foreclosure proceedings (unbeknownst to me because the warning about that was buried in the pile of documents that I was trusting her to understand and explain to me).  Which led to me arriving at my new house, all set to move in, and finding changed locks and an eviction notice from the other guy who had bought it.

Luckily it all got resolved without me having to pay for anything other than changing the locks back; whoever it was on my side that had fucked up (some mixture of the agent and the title company) essentially re-bought the house from the other guy and gave it to me.  My agent pretended that what was going on was that the other guy didn't have a claim and they were just chasing him off, because that made the whole thing look like less of a fuckup, but I actually read the paperwork the second time around and it was pretty clear that I was re-buying the house from the other guy.  I let the agent pretend because if she knew how pissed I was she might have focused her efforts on hiring lawyers for herself rather than trying to get me my house.

I'll be happy if I'm never involved in any real estate transaction ever again.

[Ingmar]

Yeah there are always going to be individual failures, of course. That's a pretty fucked up situation.

What I mean by the 'stopping getting ripped off' thing is that in a macro sense the existence of people who's job it is to know how the fuck it all works, is going to lower the number of opportunities sellers have to overcharge buyers who don't know any better. For people who know how to find information on the internet, tell the correct information from the bullshit, don't mind doing all the research and making sure their paperwork is exactly right and self-filing and all that other stuff, etc., sure, they're probably a bit redundant. That is not most people though.

[Pennilenko]

Ok... honest question.  

I don't like iPhones and tablets.  Touching the screen just seems like a messy and not-very-durable-or-accurate way to interface with a system.  I much prefer a laptop or a desktop.

I'm wondering if this is because I'm just getting cranky in my old age or if some of you younger folks agree.  I spend A LOT of time on my PC at work and don't get joy out of my kindle fire... like zero.  

Older folk. Love my iPad. Touch screen is durable. Accuracy can be an issue, especially on the smaller iPhone screen or if you have fat fingers.

I'm 32, I love my Samsung tablet and my android phones. I prefer them for surfing the internet and mobile gaming, I almost never pull up a web page on my laptop or desktop or media center anymore. I am fairly happy too, I had been looking forward to touch device evolution for years before they started to catch on.

[Signe]

This isn't even for a sale, it's for a rental.  And it's not the first time for confusion.  Twice the estate agents were no shows.  Once they forgot, once they didn't remember.  Whatever.  Fuck.  I give up.  They make me crazy.

[Paelos]

My response to that Ingmar, after having worked in the RE industry from the multi-family and land development side, is that most realtors are fucking incompetant. There are rare exceptions, but I wouldn't trust most of them to make me coffee, let alone navigate the legal/locational issues involved in purchasing property in a weird market.

To get a real estate license in GA you basically have to pass a test, a background check, and get 6 hours of education a year.

[Salamok]

Yeah there are always going to be individual failures, of course. That's a pretty fucked up situation.

What I mean by the 'stopping getting ripped off' thing is that in a macro sense the existence of people who's job it is to know how the fuck it all works, is going to lower the number of opportunities sellers have to overcharge buyers who don't know any better. For people who know how to find information on the internet, tell the correct information from the bullshit, don't mind doing all the research and making sure their paperwork is exactly right and self-filing and all that other stuff, etc., sure, they're probably a bit redundant. That is not most people though.

Most if not all of this is handled by the title company and the lender, both of who have a vested interest in you not getting ripped off.  A real estate agent is the exact opposite, their main interest is that you close on the property so they can get paid and move on to the next client.

[Sky]

If you don't want to get screwed, you're going to need an attorney anyway. I laugh when an agent says you don't. At this point, a home inspector is a waste of money, too. The one I used wasn't happy when I wrote him an email of all the codes violations he missed, half of which were his suggested fixes for things. Granted, he can't be expected to know local codes, but state codes? C'mon, man. Talk about phoning it in.

[Merusk]

My response to that Ingmar, after having worked in the RE industry from the multi-family and land development side, is that most realtors are fucking incompetant. There are rare exceptions, but I wouldn't trust most of them to make me coffee, let alone navigate the legal/locational issues involved in purchasing property in a weird market.

To get a real estate license in GA you basically have to pass a test, a background check, and get 6 hours of education a year.

That's pretty universal.  Realtors (sales agents) make a big stink about being much more than they are; people who like to talk and drive around a lot.   The education and certification process involves less actual training and schooling than your average Customer Service phone jockey.  Considering they want 3% of a very significant financial transaction that's pretty big bullshit.

Real Estate Brokers are another matter but aren't typically who you're working with when buying your house.

[Rasix]

Yeah there are always going to be individual failures, of course. That's a pretty fucked up situation.

What I mean by the 'stopping getting ripped off' thing is that in a macro sense the existence of people who's job it is to know how the fuck it all works, is going to lower the number of opportunities sellers have to overcharge buyers who don't know any better. For people who know how to find information on the internet, tell the correct information from the bullshit, don't mind doing all the research and making sure their paperwork is exactly right and self-filing and all that other stuff, etc., sure, they're probably a bit redundant. That is not most people though.

Most if not all of this is handled by the title company and the lender, both of who have a vested interest in you not getting ripped off.  A real estate agent is the exact opposite, their main interest is that you close on the property so they can get paid and move on to the next client.

Not always.  Our agent had us walk away from our latest attempt to purchase a new home.  It was over a failed roof inspection and a seller that was indicating that he would not perform any repairs, even stopgap measures.  She could have tried for additional time, bargaining, etc, but she advised us to walk away.

She would have gotten around $14k from closing and would have gotten rid of a client she's had to deal with for 2+ years.

We're pretty easy now, however, as opposed to when we started. We know where we want to live, how much we're willing to pay, size we need, and condition the house needs to be in.  We don't see many houses anymore.

[Abagadro]

All depends on whether you have a good agent. Ours knew the markets and neighborhoods, cut down on a lot of wasted time in showings, knew the REPC process backwards and forwards, helped with our sale, and recommended good contractors on stuff we wanted to do after the purchase.  I think pegging the cost of the service as a percentage of purchase price is the main problem with it. If it was a flat-rate that gave value, no one would bitch as much.

I also LOL a bit about the lender and title company being protection against being ripped off.  They look out for themselves. That's it.

[Salamok]

I also LOL a bit about the lender and title company being protection against being ripped off.  They look out for themselves. That's it.

I agree that they look out for themselves but the lender generally owns more of your property than you do (I'm pretty sure that is the very definition of a vested interest) and the title company is insuring that the property is not legally entangled and as such on the hook for at least the loan amount if such an entanglement were to arise after the purchase was complete.

[Samwise]

the title company is insuring that the property is not legally entangled and as such on the hook for at least the loan amount if such an entanglement were to arise after the purchase was complete.

I believe that's what ended up happening in my case.

[Abagadro]

Lender cares if its equity is protected by ensuring a high enough debt to value ratio or having mortgage insurance. Title company only cares if there is a compensable claim available against the title policy (ever try to file one of those? LOL).  They could care less if you are paying 10k too much.  

[Paelos]

Not only do they care less. The realtor cares less because it's upping their commission if you close at a higher price.

[Abagadro]

Like I said: depends on if you have a good agent.  A good one will advise you properly on price.

[Paelos]

Like I said: depends on if you have a good agent.  A good one will advise you properly on price.

I agree with you. Then again, good agents are like good contractors in both rarity and professionalism.

[Salamok]

They could care less if you are paying 10k too much.  

LTV? Last I checked it was the lender requiring you get the property appraised before loaning you money. They also "care" that you have the financial means to not default.

edit - They also "care" about the condition of the asset, hence lender required repairs.

edit2 - Technically a Realtor is on the hook for misrepresentation or fraudulent dealings but stupidity is not fraud, a Buyers agent would just claim they were duped and as much a victim as the buyer.