The Catalina Foothills

On any Sunday

Some people poo-poo Open Houses.
Amongst other things, they say the only reason agents hold open houses is to try and pick up unrepresented buyers, and not to sell the home being held open.
And that the internet has made open houses a less valuable marketing tool.

Not so.
They don't get the unique benefits that an Open House offers.
The first goal of an Open House is to sell the house, no kidding! But an Open House offers a unique opportunity to do just that.
The second goal is to get feedback straight from the people that count, from potential buyers, about that house.

don't get swept away

just about every expert, every economist, real estate guru and other see-er's of the future who are interviewed by the national media - and many of them are these days- all predict more dark clouds ahead in residential real estate. Given the incessant drum-beat of gloom & doom it's easy to get swept away.
But real estate is local, it's not national. What's happening in Topeka has little or nothing to do with Talahassee or Tucson. If you want to buy or sell a home, don't depend on the national media to understand the conditions in your local real estate market.
The national media reports the big picture, national conditions.
What's important to you is what's happening in your local market, where you live.
Find a local expert where you live that knows their stuff and that you trust.
Find out what's happening where you live and make your decisions based on that.
don't get swept away.

When The Price is Right

My wife and I have been looking for a home to buy in the Tucson Foothills.
We sold our home a few months ago and have been living in a rental because we haven’t been able to find just the right one to buy. What can I say, we’re just picky.
Anyway we have this little game we play when we look at a house. After a quick look my wife asks me ‘how much’? and I say ‘guess’. When we first started looking her guesses were always on the low side, on average 10% to 15 % under the list price. 

Then after a while she started catching on that list prices were high, higher than they should be – and she’d groan, roll her eyes and guess the right price.

And we’d walk away with no further interest in an overpriced home.

In the last couple of weeks we’ve had just the opposite experience.

She says ‘how much’?, I say ‘guess’, and she guesses 10% to 15% over the list price.
What's going on here?
Suddenly we’re doing everything we can to figure out how we can make this home work for us. Because suddenly we're seeing homes that are more reasonably priced.

In the end none of them worked for one reason or another, but in every case we walked away saying, ‘ that’ll be gone in no time’. And in every case within a week or so, those homes were sold. They were priced right for todays market, they showed very nicely, and bingo, they’re gone.

At yesterdays’ regular Tuesday morning office meeting at the Long Realty Foothills office where I work, it was déjà vu time. This same experience about prices for homes was related by a quite a few of the agents in attendance.

The discussion was, what’s the state of the market?
These agents had recently listed a home for sale that was priced right for todays market, or they had recently gotten the price reduced to where it should be, and after a very short time on the market these homes sold. Imagine that.
In some cases they received multiple offers,
imagine multiple offers in this market,
and some of them sold at or slightly above list price.
There are buyers out there and they want to buy a home, and they will –
When The Price is Right

7 Economists weigh in

The Wall Street Journal brings us the opinions of seven economists on whether the latest housing data is idicative of a continued decline or the start of a turn-around in the housing market.
Read it Here

More on, Joesler's in Tucson

Last week I did a piece about Josias Joesler, Tucson's 'Most Recoginzed Architect'.
I just came across two articles that add some dimension to that piece.
The first is from the Arizona Daily Star that offers a comtemporary take on Joesler and the homes and communities he built in the Tucson Foothills along with his patrons John and Helen Murphey.
(It covers all of what I wrote and expands on it)
Josias Joesler gave Foothills character
The architect left a big imprint on Tucson; now his work is being imitated.
Read it Here

The other is an interview with Pamela Marvin, widow of Lee Marvin, one of my all-time favorite actors and former Tucson resident. Pamela Marvin still lives in their home in the Tucson foothills, as far as I know.
-from the interview
In 1975, the Marvins moved to Tucson. While on location in Africa on a movie, they heard about and bought a house in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains that was designed by famed architect Josias Joesler.
"Lee was very, very fond of Tucson," she said. "He loved it even in the summer!"
Marvin in Love
An interview with Pamela Marvin-Read it Here

 

Home Prices Drop After 11-Year Ascent

"The median price of a previously owned home fell for the first time in 11 years last month, and inventories of unsold homes swelled to levels not seen in more than a decade."
From NYTimes.com
Read it Here

The Latest - Tucson Foothills Sales Activity, 9/24

Here's the broad picture of sales activity - from the Tucson Assoc of Realtors MLS, for single family homes in the Tucson Foothills, during the past two weeks, that's 9/11 thru 9/24.
This activity took place against a base of 387 homes currently listed for sale (priced from $225,000 - $22,000,000) that $22 million home is still available.

New Listings = 62 (priced from $225,000 - $2,975,000)
Homes gone under contract = 23 (priced from $319,900 - $2,295,000)
Homes Sold = 17 (priced $212,900 - $1,020,000)
Price Reductions = 50
Price Increases = 0
Expired Listings = 11
Withdrawn Listings = 11

In the current 2 week period, compared to the previous two weeks, there have been- 
5 fewer new listings
4 more homes have gone under contract,
5 fewer have sold,
13 more price reductions,
2 fewer price increases,
2 fewer expired listings
11 fewer withdrawn listings
The only thing that stands out to me is the increased # of price reductions, and that's a good thing, other than that the pace though slow, seems to be holding steady.
'til next time,
Previous 2 Week Sales #'s
The Latest - Tucson Foothills Sales Activity, 9/10
The Latest - Tucson Foothills Sales Activity 8/27
The Latest - Tucson Foothills Sales Activity 8/13
The Latest - Tucson Foothills Sales Activity, 7/30

Here's the broad picture of sales activity - from the Tucson Assoc of Realtors MLS, for single family homes in the Tucson Foothills, during the past two weeks, that's 9/11 thru 9/24.
This activity took place against a base of 387 homes currently listed for sale (priced from $225,000 - $22,000,000) that $22 million home is still available.

New Listings = 62 (priced from $225,000 - $2,975,000)
Homes gone under contract = 23 (priced from $319,900 - $2,295,000)
Homes Sold = 17 (priced $212,900 - $1,020,000)
Price Reductions = 50
Price Increases = 0
Expired Listings = 11
Withdrawn Listings = 11

In the current 2 week period, compared to the previous two weeks, there have been- 
5 fewer new listings
4 more homes have gone under contract,
5 fewer have sold,
13 more price reductions,
2 fewer price increases,
2 fewer expired listings
11 fewer withdrawn listings
The only thing that stands out to me is the increased # of price reductions, and that's a good thing, other than that the pace though slow, seems to be holding steady.
'til next time,
Previous 2 Week Sales #'s
The Latest - Tucson Foothills Sales Activity, 9/10
The Latest - Tucson Foothills Sales Activity 8/27
The Latest - Tucson Foothills Sales Activity 8/13
The Latest - Tucson Foothills Sales Activity, 7/30

Home Prices - 10 years down the road

From How low can real estate go?
"The boom is definitely over, there's no debate about that,"
"Now the question is more how hard is it going to land, if it lands at all."
The way Zandi sees it, the market is going to weaken considerably more. "It has been correcting for about a year, and it's got another year to go," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of West Chester, Pa.-based research firm Moody's Economy.com.

"One possibility is that you get a quick return to normal, which is what the economists for the realtor groups tend to hope for," said Edward Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast. "But there's nothing in the historical record that suggests that we're going to get a return to normal anytime soon."

OK, blah blah blah, we've heard all that before.
The  interesting part of this story is where Moody's.com looks 10 years back and 10 into the future for historic and predicted median home prices in fifteen major metropolitan markets.

From Forbes.com via MSN RealEstate
Read it HERE
Tucson is not one of the markets included in this study. Phoenix however is included, and since Tucson seems to move in a kind of loose, maybe very loose, rhythm with the Phoenix market the predictions may be useful, if you believe what these economists have to say.

raising the bar

Earlier today Jay, The Phoenix Real Estate Guy did a terrific and much needed post about raising the bar for entry into the real estate biz >It is Past Time to Raise the Bar!
Aside from writing a terrific piece, Jay is obviously in the groove, prescient, maybe even a swami.

Because later today the East Bay Business Times- of Pleasonton CA.- reported that Governor Schwarzenegger had just signed a bill to increase the amount of classroom time required before someone can persue getting a real estate license in California.

"There has been quite an influx of new agents into the marketplace over the past several years which has eroded the quality of service, the level of services and the professionalism in the industry," said Alex Creel, chief lobbyist for California Association of Realtors, which sponsored the legislation.
Read it here
At the very least this is recognition that there's a problem. Who's next?

Tucson must have smarter home buyers

Lately there's been a media blizzard about the dangers of adjustable rate mortgages-ARM's, with special emphasis on their even more lethal cousin,Option ARM's.
It's been all over the national media, Businessweek, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN and on and on.
And it's been a big buzz topic in the blog world. I too did a post about this recently,
Option ARM's, the other shoe And then I did another post, Confessions of an Ex-Mortgage Lender ,though this focuses more on the general gouging that goes on in the lending industry. Anyway, from all the attention this subject has been getting and from what I've gleaned from all these reports, articles and posts, is that there are a hell of a lot of people out there holding these option ARM loans. And they're a ticking bomb.
Here's an excerpt from the Businessweek article Nightmare Mortgages that really got my head spinning about these loans. It talks about the number of people who've taken these loans.
"...the best available estimates show that option ARMs have soared in popularity. They accounted for as little as 0.5% of all mortgages written in 2003, but that shot up to at least 12.3% through the first five months of this year, according to FirstAmerican LoanPerformance, an industry tracker. And while they made up at least 40% of mortgages in Salinas, Calif., and 26% in Naples, Fla., they're not just found in overheated coastal markets: Through Mar. 31 of this year, at least 51% of mortgages in West Virginia and 26% in Wyoming were option ARMs. Stock and bond analysts estimate that as many as 1.3 million borrowers took out as much as $389 billion in option ARMs in 2004 and 2005. And it's not letting up. Despite the housing slump, option ARMs totaling $77.2 billion were written in the second quarter of this year, according to investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc."

I don't know why it's taken me so long but today, finally, I looked up the stats for ARM loans used to purchase Tucson homes. My source for this information

Confessions of an Ex-Mortgage Lender

From Businessweek via MSN Money
September 20, 2006 12:00 AM ET
Confessions of an Ex-Mortgage Lender
"The Durham [N.C.]-based nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending estimated in July, 2001, that predatory mortgage lending is currently costing Americans more than $9.1 billion each year."
"...Ted Janusz, who spent an interim period of his career learning the ins and outs of mortgage brokering as a loan officer in Columbus, Ohio, and he'll admit that what is really going on here is a game of subterfuge being played at the expense of borrowers with low credit ratings."
>Click HERE for complete story.

If I'm reading this right, and that's $9.1 billion in 2001, what is the amount that people are being bilked today, given the introduction and common usage since 2001, of so many more risky exotic mortgages?
After you've read this story, read Option ARM's, The other shoe
and see if you don't think that lending industry practices need to be looked at a lot more closely.
A first step in the right direction might be to have a committee (maybe Jimmy Carter could head this one up) come up with a one page boilerplate language exceedingly simple disclosure, in bold print
-THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE AGREEING TO, AN EXPLANATION OF YOUR LOAN TERMS, THE RISKS AND THE COST-
And a requirement that this one page disclosure be given to the consumer when they first apply for the loan with the requirement that they review it, initial each clause and sign at the bottom stating that they fully understand what it is they are agreeing to.
And if at any time up to close of escrow, there are any changes to any of the terms that they initially agreed to, that this same AGREEMENT, now amended to highlight those changes, be presented to them for review, initials and signature.

Yes, while I believe it is the consumers responsibility to fully understand what it is they are agreeing to - have you ever tried to read thru and make sense of a package of loan documents. I also believe that it is the responsibility of the lender to fully explain the terms, costs and risks of the loan. In many cases neither of those things are happening.
As a result many consumers are  ending up with loans that are not what they thought they were. They are either being duped by those in the lending industry that are slick scoundrels and/or they do not take the time to read all the fine print. Instead they are relying on what the lender tells them, and signing the paperwork, not very smart-but true, only to find out that there's a bunch of fine print, and OOPS!,they've agreed to something else, and usually that something else is going to cost them a lot more money.
These important details must be in plain, simple and easy to understand language.

you're not alone

Seems that Tom Stevens the President of the National Association of Realtors has not been able to sell his own home, despite its having been on the market for about a year.
This story is about 10 days old, but I just discovered it.

-click image to enlarge it


"What I should have done," confessed the senior vice president of NRT Inc., parent of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, "was listened to my agent and cut the price by $50,000 to $100,000 early on, ..."
For the complete story from THE WASHINGTON POST
click> Humbling Lesson for Realtors' President

Home Buyers Getting Pushy

The tables have turned and home buyers are now the ones making unheard of demands to get the deal done. This is the new reality of home selling.
From Yahoo Real Estate News

ALL BUSINESS: Home buyers getting pushy

Joeslers' in Tucson

'When asked to name Tucson's most recognized architect, the first name that comes to most people's minds is Josias Joesler.'
From Josias Joesler:an Architectural Eclectic

If I had to pick my favorite architect, builder and style of home in Tucson, my answer to all three would be the same - Joesler. From the 1920's to the 50's Josias Joesler built homes in Tucson that not only endure to this day but are the prized possession of their lucky owners, and coveted by many others.
While Joesler built homes, churches and other public buildings throughout Tucson, I'm most familiar with the homes that he built in the Catalina Foothills Estates area. This area, bordered by Skyline Dr on the north, River Rd on the south and bisected by Campbell Ave is prime Joesler turf.
Many of these homes, originally built as winter residences for wealthy easterners, have been carefully renovated and now serve as full or part time homes for a lucky few.
Rich in architectural style and detail, Joesler also knew how to build a home that was at home in the desert. He used thick adobe walls, clay tile roofs with wide over-hangs and deeply set windows. His homes were sited to capture the views, offer shaded outdoor living areas and maximize protection from the sun.
Not without their idiosyncrasies, Joeslers’ are non-the-less much admired for their timeless architecture and great bones.
When you enter a Joesler, you feel that it was built to withstand time, not just as in durable and 'built to last', but in the sense that the style will endure and never be out of style.

This just in

Homebuilder confidence hits 15-year low

September 18 2006: 2:27 PM EDT CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- U.S. homebuilder optimism sank for an eighth consecutive month in September to the lowest level in more than 15 years, with a surge in the backlog of unsold homes putting development on ice, an industry survey showed on Monday.
Click HERE for the complete story

Virtual tours, they're OK

Today, Jay The Phoenix Real Estate Guy tackled the subject of bad listing photos and marketing remarks in the MLS - Stupid MLS Listings - a topic that needs broad distribution among the ranks.
Unfortunately most of the people who need to learn from that post are probably not the ones who are reading it.
Anyway, I thought I'd tap into that subject matter and take on virtual tours.
They're a pet peeve of mine.
And I realize I'm probably treading on some sacred ground here. Since so many Realtors use them they must think that virtual tours are a very good way to showcase their listings.
I don't, I think that most of the time they're a very mediocre way to showcase a listing.

I used a virtual tour once, I couldn't talk Bob the home owner out of it, and believe me I tried.
He didn't buy it, so what was I to do, I called in a virtual tour.
Score One point for virtual tours, they're easy, one phone call is all it takes.
It was a competently done virtual tour, virtually all the virtual tours are.
Yucks aside, to the point of Jay's post- Stupid MLS Listings -virtual tours are generally head and shoulders above the bad or no photo listings out there. But they're still not the best way to showcase your listings in their best light, and I mean that literally and figuratively.

the tucson foothills, a niche market

When the media talks about real estate in Arizona they are generally referrring to Phoenix, or the Phoenix metro area, that big town north of here with something like 40,000 + homes currently listed for sale. Occassionally they refer to the Tucson metro area, a less big town with 9,000 + homes currently listed for sale.
Never to my knowledge, do they refer to the Tucson Foothills, a real niche market with 369 homes currently listed for sale. That's it, 369 single family homes for sale in the Tucson Foothills.
If you go-ahead and include condos for sale that adds another 473 units, but the condo thing is a whole other story. And I'm not talking condos here, just single family homes.
As a result we tend to draw conclusions about the Tucson Foothills real estate market based on what we hear is happening in Arizona, lumping the Foothills together with the 9,0000 + homes for sale in the rest of Tucson and maybe even the 40,000 + homes for sale in Phoenix.
We don't have much else to go on, the media doesn't hone in on the Tucson Foothills.
And while we are not an island in the Foothills - immune to and unaffected by what's going on in the real estate market in Arizona and the nation - this is a market that is somewhat unique.

David Lereah said

“The boom is cooling now,” said David Lereah, the chief economist for the association, who added that falling home sales have been “a bit worse than we had anticipated.”

The Realtors® association said it expected both home prices and sales would slide in the coming months as the upper hand in the housing market shifts from the seller to the buyer. But that shift has yet to occur fully, with buyers and sellers staring each other down while unsold houses pile up.

“The seller is a lot more stubborn than any of us had anticipated,” Mr. Lereah said. “Sellers for the last five years have been in control. It’s very hard for them to give up control and revise their expectations downward.”
In The New York Times, click Here for full article. (registration, though free may be required)
In an earlier post (Who said that?) I started out giving Mr Lereah a very back-handed compliment, which quickly turned into an outright criticism, for his lack of forthrightness regarding the state of real estate today.
And while I'm sure that that had nothing to do with the more frank pronouncements coming from his office in the last few days, I welcome it nonetheless.

The Latest - Tucson Foothills Sales Activity, 9/10

Here's the broad picture of sales activity - from the Tucson Assoc of Realtors MLS, for single family homes in the Tucson Foothills, during the past two weeks, that's 8/28 thru 9/10.
This activity took place against a base of 369 homes currently listed for sale
(priced from $179,000 - $22,000,000) yes, the $22 million home is still available.

New Listings = 67 (priced from $179,000 - $1,950,000)
Homes gone under contract = 19 (priced from $285,000 - $2,500,000)
Homes Sold = 22 (priced $250,000 - $1,720,000)
Price Reductions = 37
Price Increases = 2
Expired Listings = 13
Withdrawn Listings = 22

In the current 2 week period, compared to the previous two weeks,
(see The Latest - Tucson Foothills Sales Activity 8/27) - there have been,
16 more new listings
9 fewer homes have gone under contract,
4 more have sold,
5 fewer price reductions,
2 fewer price increases,
the same number of expired listings, 13
2 more withdrawn listings
All in all it looks like another drop in sales activity from the previous two weeks, more new listings and fewer homes gone under contract.
'til next time,

who's going to give?

There's overwhelming evidence that the real estate market has slowed across the US, and in many places it has slowed dramatically. (see Tucson and Real Estate in the News)
And the virtually unanimous opinion of economists, real estate guru's and other experts of every stripe - now including David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors - is that in order for sales to pick up, prices must come down.
And home buyers, the real decision makers, the people who set the bar on home prices, have voted
- by their absence from the market- that home prices must come down.

Yet prices have not really come down.
The rate of price increases have slowed, perhaps dramatically in a few markets, but for the most part prices have not come down, they're just not going up as fast, if at all. Yes there have been lots of price reductions, but many of those are just token reductions, or they're price reductions from very lofty levels. Not enough.
Is this a case of who's going to be the first to give. Buyers or Sellers?
Are we at a stalemate and if so, what's going to break that stalemate?

is this a good thing?

From RealEstateJournal.com via Yahoo
Snippy Things Folks Say About Your Home Are Now Also Online

"For years, amateur critics have reviewed books, music and chain saws on the Internet. Soon they may be posting online critiques of your bathroom.
Operators of two real-estate Web sites, ZipRealty Inc. and Reply Inc., in August began encouraging customers to write reviews of homes available for sale. Early submissions suggest it might be better not to know what strangers really think about your house.
After a visit to a four-bedroom house offered for about $1.5 million in Lafayette, Calif., a ZipRealty customer writing under the pen name YuppieHomeBuyer remarked: "The house was OK, but the bathrooms should be cleaner. There were some broken tiles and loose panels. I wonder if water comes into the house or the basement during the rains."
At a condo on offer for $389,000 in Cambridge, Mass., another anonymous Zip reviewer spotted "rot" in the bathroom, said the bathtub should be replaced and commented that the "green paint isn't nearly as charming in person as in photos." If all that wasn't bad enough, the reviewer added: "Neighborhood questionable. Two kids had a loud, screaming fight outside the door during showing. Loud cars drive up and down the street with thumping music."

These rude reviews threaten to undercut the gushing language in marketing materials prepared by real-estate agents. Even worse for real-estate agents, the reviews are popping up just when a glut of homes on the market in many areas is allowing buyers to take their time, dwell on defects and demand price cuts. Some agents and homeowners already are howling that the reviews are hatchet jobs, perhaps motivated by spite or a desire to discourage competing bids for property the reviewers want to buy.
Operators of the sites say the reviews -- some of which are full of praise -- will provide valuable insights for home shoppers. Companies like Zip and Reply hope this free, user-generated material will lure more shoppers to their sites. Redfin Corp., an Internet real-estate broker based in Seattle, plans later this year to start encouraging both buyers and sellers of property to add online comments on the Redfin site." There's more, Click Here for complete article

I don't know, is this a good thing? Who benefits here -besides ZIP Realty & Reply- think about it, does the home buying/selling public really benefit from this. At first this might seem like a neat idea. I did to me, for a split second.
Let the buying public post their reviews of homes for sale.
WOW, that's cool. People get to speak the truth about what they think. It peels back yet another layer in the real estate buying/selling game and takes the process one step closer to being transparent.

Who said that?

...'predicts that U.S. home prices will generally decline during the next few months.'
"I'm hoping for prices to drop,"
Sales have stalled partly because "the sellers are not bringing prices down fast enough,"
"They've been very stubborn."
A drop of 5% to 10% in California and southern Florida "probably would be enough to bring sales back,"
"The quicker we can get negative prices, the quicker we can get sales coming back,"

None other than David Lereah that's Who, The chief economist of the National Association of Realtors® in an article in the Wall Street Journal online (subscription required)
by James Haggerty- September 2, 2006.

And while I commend Mr. Lereah for finally fessing-up, as is often the case that fessing-up is overdue. The evidence of the need for a market correction has been widely available for quite some time.
The head honchos of the National Association of Realtors® are in a leadership role for the industry and in the eyes of the public. They have a responsibility to provide that leadership and not just act as cheerleaders or followers, reluctantly announcing bad news thats already been reported by many other sources.
The National Association of Realtors® has hoards of great information available to them, and they have a responsibility to provide timely, accurate information and frank and honest assessments and guidance based on that information, in good times and bad - just like all Realtors® are supposed to do.

Doing so would simply be doing the job the way it's supposed to be done, and it would go a long way to getting some credibility with the public and also help Realtors across the country get some credibility with the public. This is a responsibility and an opportunity to be the credible industry leader that the NAR claims to be.
There are many other sources of information available to people today, and increasingly, leery consumers are turning to those other sources and dismissing what they hear from the National Association of Realtors®, because often they think it's a con and they don't trust it.
Without the respect of the public the National Association of Realtors® and Realtors® across the country will be relegated to the sidelines, marginalized in our own industry.

And by the way, do we really think that a 5% to 10% price drop in California and Florida will probably do it? hmmm!

Option ARM's, The other shoe

This is a sad and scary story.
From Businessweek.com via Yahoo,
Nightmare Mortgages
I've read a little here and there about Option ARM loans. But I’ve never seen the whole story told as completely and as well as this article does. And none of the clients that I've worked with have used them, so I've been a little blasé about the whole thing. And I never realized how many people have taken out these loans and how really risky and fraught with severe penalties they are.

Well apparently option ARM's are a big black cloud about to burst over thousands of individual home owners, many thousands, and consequently about to burst over the health of an already shaky real estate market.
The way I read it -and I don't know how you can read it any other way- this is also a blatant indictment of lending industry practices, as well as a snapshot of the frenzy and greed that characterized the real estate market during the last couple of years.

If what they say here is true, the consequences for thousands of individual homeowners will be devasting, and will likely lead to further weakening in many real estate markets around the country.
This is a long and detailed story, but very well worth the read.

Builders work to mend fences with agents

Builders work to mend fences with agents from the Arizona Republic 8/28/06

The gist of this story is that last year builders were doing as much business as they could handle and they didn't need agents to help them do it. So they ignored the agents and cut commissions, meanwhile they were having home buyers pay top dollar for every new house and upgrade.

This year the builders are doing very poorly, with a large stock of unsold homes. So they're offering agents increased commissions and some wooing and wining and dining to get them to bring in buyers. And they're offering buyers an array of valuable incentives to get them to buy homes.

But apparently a lot of agents are upset with the way the builders treated them last year, so now that the tables have turned they're ignoring those builders and not bringing their buyers around to those builders sites. They want to get back at those builders for the way they were treated.

Well obviously agents have a responsibility, a fiduciary duty, to show their clients the homes that might be right for them and negotiate in the clients best interests, and not be guided by the amount of the commission or let their personal feelings get in the way.
But sometimes human nature gets in the way anyway, because you usually don't want to be nice to someone who wasn't nice to you.
Conversely, builders DO NOT have a responsibility or duty to agents, to offer agents any particular commission, incentive or anything, in good times or bad.

So maybe you should let your buyers know that Harrys Hillside Homes offers homes that may be right for them. And explain to them that last year Harry was squeezing agents and buyers every which way (if in fact that is true) but that this year Harrys' offering a long list of valuable incentives for buyers and healthy commissions for agents. So let's go out there and take a look.
If they like what they see, you're in the drivers seat.
Now it's your turn to squeeze. Negotiate like crazy to get the absolute best deal for your buyers, and then go back for more. Believe me, the builders have more to offer than what they've laid on the table, probably a lot more. If your buyers are satisfied and you think you've gotten everything you can get for them, then everybody signs on the dotted line. Your buyers get a great deal and you get a fat commission.
Do the right thing for your clients, earn your commission and get back at the builder at the same time. Who knows, that builder might even thank you.

scooped, 9/1

a few stories from here and there that caught my eye,
Sometimes these stories just make you wonder, Real estate agents try truth on home sellers and sometimes they have a bit of surprisingly good information Vacation homes reel in cash with hot tubs sometimes they’re SO la la land Curbing the big, the bad, the ugly Sometimes they’re just unbelievable 296 square feet, but it's home sometimes amusing Real Estate Sellers Call for Higher Agent's Help and sometimes just awfully factual Real Estate Ad Shift Continues, But Web Adoption Is Mixed and sometimes a little creepy For sale: Scene of a crime or How to buy a haunted house Sometimes so highfalutin London overtakes New York as priciest housing market and sometimes very very Hollywood Candy May Net $130 Mil That Tori Won't Get and sometimes Builders Work to mend fences with agents they’re worth commenting on, which I’m going to do with this one in a new post.