I was sitting at home, minding my own business, settling down to watch the mindless premiere of Desperate Housewives when my downtime was interrupted by an ad from WPLG. The were not advertising what was coming up on the 11 o’clock news or the latest reality show, but rather real estate. All you had to do to buy or sell a home was log onto their website and cruise the MLS!
Well, let me tell you, my Sunday night downtime was over and replaced by barely controlled panic. I logged on to their website and clicked on real estate and found Homekeys. The first thing I see when I enter the site is “Find Undervalued Homes”. I played with that option for a while, clicking on properties that showed a price difference between the price and the “value key”. I clicked on a couple of them and a bright red sentence popped up on the bottom of each that said “Rebate of “x number of $s ” on this property”. I clicked on the “more info” button and found out that they give buyer rebates by becoming the selling agent.
Luckily, the more I scrolled, the less panicked I became. I saw a listing that I am familiar with and saw that it’s valuekey was a whopping 20% under the estimated value. All I can say is I feel sorry for the person who reads “undervalued” and “rebate” and purchases the house anywhere near the current asking price as the rebate they get back will not be enough to compensate them for what they overpaid for the house at the current asking price. However, I also feel sorry for a seller (and their listing agent when they try to get a price reduction) who looks at the price of what their house is value keyed at and doesn’t understand why it can’t sell at the bargain price. Just proves that sometimes too much information, especially the wrong information, is a dangerous thing. Caveat emptor and caveat venditor!
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