real estate education

I saw a Facebook ad. In fact, a broker pointed it out to me where they were wondering if the agent was soliciting referrals in a way that was illegal here in Utah. Hey, I'm Danny, the ethical realtor. In Utah, there is a rule that says a real estate professional cannot pay for referrals as in for someone who's not licensed. So, as a broker, I can't go out and say, “Hey, I'll give you 100 bucks if you bring me a referral that turns into a property sale,” because that enters into the realm of people getting [...]

I noticed a very disturbing trend in Utah real estate pass rates over the last six months. And this is very concerning to me. The real estate school that you choose to get your real estate license matters a lot. There are a lot of different options out there, and they have different programs, different ways for you to get your education. And you have to pass your license exam to get your license. And so, we all prepare people differently. We all prepare our students in different ways. And here at the Institute of Real Estate Education, we [...]

A realtor posted a story about a potential material defect that wasn't disclosed to a future buyer. And that created a big question. In this story, they said they had a client that was going to buy a property. And during the due diligence, during their inspections, they found out that there was an addition on the home and the floor of the home was placed on top of a wooden foundation, rather than like a concrete slab or something like that. And so that was one of the reasons that their buyers decided not to purchase the property. [...]

If you have an agent on the other side that's not doing what they should do, if they're not communicating properly, if they're not keeping track of the conversation and things, this is something that agents complain about each other online constantly about. But I have four tips on ways that we can work together to increase the professionalism in our industry and help, agents to do a little bit better. 1. Hold brokers accountable for their agents’ actions. Already, sales agents can't work in the industry unless they're supervised by a broker. That broker needs to know if [...]

How much have home prices inflated over 250 years since our country was founded? Hey, I'm Danny, the ethical realtor. Happy birthday, America! 250 years, amazing, love it! Great country to live in, I'm glad I'm here. I saw an infographic going around showing price inflation on various things. One of them was home prices, one of them was commodities, like coffee, one of them was things like livestock, one was the price of gold, since that's like a currency over the years. And one thing stood out to me immediately. Home prices have inflated way more than any [...]

Hey, my name is Danny, the ethical realtor. I want to talk about something called DEI. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. But that has gotten a little bit political in the last couple of years, so I want to try to leave the politics out of it and talk about it as a society, as a community, about what the purpose of it is, why we would want to do a thing like that and whether it's working. So the programs such as the DEI, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, one of the main reasons that these started to come into [...]

Why would a buyer agent ask a seller agent if they offered the buyer agent commission for the buyer? This was a question on Facebook. Verbatim it says, “I guess I don't understand why agents call and ask how much commission the seller is offering. My understanding is the BAC is negotiated upfront between the buyer and the buyer's agent prior to seeing any homes and executed in writing, so they both know what commissions are. I know the buyer can ask the seller to compensate their buyer's agent instead of the buyer directly paying it.” And that's it. [...]

Hey, I'm Danny, the ethical realtor. How much does our unconscious bias cost us or cost others? Does it cost $1,000, 10,000? 50,000? $100,000? $200,000? There were some cases not too long ago in real estate appraisal. So there was a situation where a homeowner in the East Coast, I think in the new Jersey area. They got an appraisal on their home and the appraisal came in lower than they expected. It came in at about $475,000, and they felt like that seemed a little bit low based on the other homes that had been selling in the [...]