u/cmanson

I am becoming increasingly radicalized against realty as a profession.

If you are an even slightly detail-oriented person with solid organizational and communication skills, and you have a good attorney and home inspector you can lean on, you should not need a buyer’s agent. It is a rent-seeking scam and they simply do not provide value to the transaction in the age of Zillow and easily-accessible public records.

Well, a good agent (which most are not) provides some value by being a client advocate/market expert/seasoned negotiator…but for 2.5%? If you’re buying a $500K house, are they really doing $12,500 worth of work? It is a scam. The profession preys on information asymmetry and the anxieties of buyers and sellers. Buying and selling a house isn’t that hard, the process is just mystified to the benefit of realtors.

TLDR: Ideological rant aside…just wondering if anyone’s had success going agent-less and buying a house in the local market?

I have no concerns about navigating the process or negotiating. Just curious to what degree I will be blackballed or dicked around by listing agents for refusing to give a 2.5% cut to one of their buddies.

Thanks!

Hi there. I am shopping for a house and I’m very confused about the way Colonie assesses properties for taxes. Just wondering if anyone who owns a house in the town of Colonie (i.e., the part of the town that’s NOT the village) would be willing to chime in.

Looking at public tax bills, there is a field for Full Market Value and Total Assessed Value. I understand that Colonie uses an equalization rate of ~48% to deflate the assessment value used for calculating taxes due.

BUT……what I keep seeing in many cases is that the “Full Market Value” for many of these properties is nowhere near what the house is actually worth. Often times like 50% of the actual market value.

Can anyone chime in? Does the “Full Market Value” on your tax bill actually align with your house’s real economic value? Or is it also wildly out of sync? Like are there TWO layers where they are intentional under-assessing property values?? I’m so confused.

And lastly…if I buy one of these homes that has a Full Market Value assessment that’s way lower than the “real world” value….is this a ticking time bomb? Like would my taxes get doubled overnight if they reassess?

Thanks. Hopefully my rant made sense. This is all very confusing