Real Estate Agents Beware

This work shows agents how to structure their business in a manner that protects, deals, increases success, and keeps agents liability-free.

Real Estate Salespeople say that buying a home is all about location, but for the salespeople themselves, real estate is all about disclosure. Now, in his expanded and updated guide, real estate lecturer and lawyer Mark Weisleder shows real estate professionals how to serve their clients in a manner that protects their deals, increases their success, and keeps them liability free. Using real life examples, Weisleder covers a wide range of important topics, including key disclosure issues, new Internet brokerage models, multiple offers, identity theft and mortgage fraud, Canada's Privacy Act, how to handle disciplinary hearings, and much more

Author, Terry Ryder, has long been an eloquent critic of the real estate industry -- a vast and complex industry that, he claims, has been allowed to grow fat on the Australian passion for owning your own home. Terry, like many Australians, is outraged that, at every step of the path to property ownership, first-home buyers and others are being stung by processes that are under-regulated or regulated but not policed, or not regulated at all. In response to such criticism he is tired of hearing that well-worn platitude 'buyer beware'. This serves only to push the responsibility unfairly back onto those caught up in the infinite web of lenders, developers, agents, builders, brokers, lawyers, valuers, accountants and tradespeople. In his popular first book, Confessions of a Real Estate Agent, the author invited readers to write in and share with him experiences of dealings with members of the real estate industry. This is where he started his research for Buyer Beware and this book takes the reader on a house-of-horrors journey that exposes many players in the industry: from those on the shonky seminar circuit to others expounding the virtues of easy finance.

Why this handbook? Texas real estate contracts are driven by consumer-focused law. In some ways, it is as if the seller is viewed as a giant corporate manufacturer of this large product to be sold for many thousands of dollars, vs the poor, defenseless buyer, whom we must protect. To provide this protection, there are more than thirty "outs" for buyers in our residential contract and related addenda. There are only three for the Seller! This book outlines and explains the entire Texas Real Estate Sales Contract for the resale of One-to-Four Family Residential properties and includes all related addenda explained by a seasoned negotiator. It will benefit any Agent, Broker, Buyer or Seller of residential property in Texas. Many of the aspects may also apply to contracts available in other states, but this book applies to practice in Texas. The real estate sales contract is THE most important document in a real estate agent's briefcase. Listing agreements are nice, buyer representation agreements are nice, but their use only indicates the possibility of income. Nobody is going to get paid until a contract is written and closed. It is imperative that you know the contract inside and out, for yourself and for your clients, since the contract conveys property and large sums of money. It is the single most important aspect of our business.

Buyer Beware! by veteran real estate agent, educator and trainer Carla Cross, offers home buyers their own bill of rights in assuring fair and effective representation from real estate agents. Though some home buying books touch on the basics of selecting and working with an agent, they don't delve into the potential perils inherent in the buyer/agent relationship. Buyer Beware! reveals the inner workings of the buyer-agent relationship, proving that more knowledgeable consumers are better positioned to have a positive home buying experience.

If Terry Ryder's book has one underlying theme, it's Buyer Beware. Terry Ryder wants to make it absolutely clear at the outset that he is not, never has been and never will be a real estate agent. So what is he doing writing a book of confessions? The answer is that Terry has been a journalist for over 25 years and a specialist real estate writer for the past 18 of them. In that time he has dealt in various capacities with thousands of real estate agents ?as a journalist writing about their deeds and misdeeds, as a consultant writer employed by them and as a buyer or seller negotiating with them. And one or two of them, perhaps weighed down by guilt, have opened up their hearts to Terry and confessed everything. In this book Terry tells it all. To protect the guilty he does not reveal his sources, but these are the frank confessions of the best and worst of Australia's estate agent community. They should be read by the 70% of Australian households who buy their own homes and therefore are exposed to the devious, duplicitous and deceitful tactics of one of society's deadliest species. The more people understand their mind-set, the less likely they are to be duped, deceived or disadvantaged.