December 2023 Archives

I have said repeatedly that buyer's markets are not the time to be selling a property if you have any choice.

There is one exception: People looking to turn around and buy a more expensive property.

If you're looking to move down market, do it when things are hot. But moving up works best when the market is cold. This is because the price of the more expensive property is what influences these moves the most.

It's still better if their budget will stretch to hanging onto the current property while buying the new one, because when the market turns they'll still be able to sell the first property for more than they can now. Nonetheless, it's still a good idea to move up in a buyer's market - even if you need to sell your current property - provided you can afford to do so.

Let's do some math! I'm going to use a real example. Let's say you bought a condominium ten years ago for $150,000. At peak of the seller's market, it was probably worth about $330,000 or more. Now it might be worth $260,000. Even if you bought with 100% financing, as long as you haven't taken cash out, you only owe roughly $130,000. Less 8% cost of selling, you're netting about $110,000 from the sale. Less roughly $10,000 for closing costs, and you're looking at having a 20% down payment for a $500,000 property, and you're still a conforming loan. In my favorite zip code at this update, that buts a really nice 4 bedroom 2000 square foot detached home with a panoramic view of the city and no Homeowner's Association! Not to mention the commute is pretty darned friendly for most folks and the public schools are top notch. Total monthly outlay, for loan, taxes, and insurance: just over $2500 per month ($2507. at more typical loan rates we're likely to see soon, more like $3000). Income to qualify: Just under $5600 per month, and that's with a thirty year fixed rate loan that I could lock right now without any points to the borrower, so the closing costs for the loan and property would be well under $10,000. About half that, in point of fact.

Now, let's say you wait for the market to recover. Let's say everything is a straight linear computation, even though it won't be - I'll bet you money that the more expensive home goes up further, faster, not to mention relative bargaining positions of a condominium owner versus a detached property owner. Let's say the loan rates stay exactly the same as today, which they won't, because in a period of high demand and increasing prices, there's more competition for money and therefore, higher rates. If you waited for that condo to be worth $330,000 again, that property you can get for $500,000 today becomes a $635,000 property. Straight line proportionality. You net roughly $173,000, again less $10,000 for closing costs on the new property. Now you do have slightly better than 20% down payment, to be sure, but you've still got to borrow $471,000. You can either do so with a Jumbo loan, or via a conforming first with a Home Equity Loan on top of that. Even using the full $10,000 for closing costs, your rate ends up higher. Equivalent cost per month that way: $3760. Income to qualify: a little over $8350. For making the exact same exchange, under conditions that I'll bet money are going to be less favorable than this. At this update, the market for desirable single family residences has definitely come back strongly; the market for condos is still languishing.

If you decide to go the route of the conforming first with an equity loan on top, it's a little more favorable: Assuming a 720 credit score, you can have a rate of 8.25% on a fixed rate 30 due in 15, giving you a total of just over $3650, saving you about $100 per month and cutting your income to qualify to about $8120, as opposed to the $6650 you'll need to document to make this exact exchange right now. Some people can work a little harder or longer hours, charge more for their services, etcetera, but most people make what they make. The one is less than a standard deviation over area median income; the other is almost two and a half. That's an awfully large number of people priced out. Assuming a normal distribution of incomes and given San Diego's median and standard deviations, (via Hyperstat) we're talking about the difference between 20.46 percent of the population and 1.30 percent of the population, a factor or 15 decrease. The difference between more than one family in five and less than one in 75 being able to afford said property, holding assumptions constant.

It is to be admitted that market constraints in the latter case might keep the prices down somewhat, but that's only as a counter-weight to all of the other forces, and it is quite easy for a mathematician or economist to prove that the actual equilibrium point will still be significantly less affordable than the current state of affairs. Don't worry, I'm not going to drag you through that. Nor are we talking properties that the average family can afford with this particular example, but the principle applies to every affordability range, from a bottom of the market condo to the top of the line. Nor does it take any great mathematical skill to tell you that the affordability of a good that everybody is trying to buy right now is less than that of the same good when large numbers of people are trying to sell and very few people want to buy. Think any number of hot tech gadgets or "must have" Christmas toys. Real estate isn't that much different, economically, but people can have perfectly great financial futures without the latest tech gadget. It's unlikely they will have an equally bright future without owning at least the property they live in. In a buyer's market, property is affordable because lots of people want to sell and very few want to buy, leading to a huge disparity between the number of people who could afford a given property if they wanted, and the number of people actually willing to buy, and thence to greater affordability. When a larger number of people are ready and willing to buy, the affordability will decrease. It's all a matter of simple supply and demand.

Caveat Emptor

Original article here

(This was originally written February 16, 2006, but it's relevant still)

One of the occasional questions I get from people has to do with why the housing bubble got so big (or if you're one of those still in denial about it, how prices jumped so far so fast).

This has to do with several factors. Legislation made real estate investments more attractive. Interest rates got low, and nontraditional loans proliferated. People took their money out of the stock market because of the tech bubble popping, and wanted to invest it somewhere. The feeling that the housing market could never go anywhere but up. And I will address all of these issues in the coming paragraphs, but the largest factor is and was psychological. People were simultaneously scared that if they didn't buy now, they would be locked out of the American dream, and avaricious in anticipation of buying and flipping properties for multiple tens of thousands of dollars profit.

The first enabling factor happened in 1996. President Clinton sponsored legislation giving huge tax exemptions to gains from the sale of personal residences. There were and are good arguments for doing so, nonetheless it had the effect of making real estate a more attractive investment. When a married couple can make up to $500,000 tax free over their basis every two years, that's a major incentive to start moving into a new house every two years in order to fix it up, or at least hope for a gain in fast growing areas. By itself, this was a minor factor initially, but by making real estate such an attractive investment (literally the best there is, considered in a vacuum), it started the bubble off. Since it hasn't been repealed yet and may never be, the value increase from this aren't really a bubble component, but the value increase for what was a one time systemic shift whetted appetites, even while the dot com bubble (itself a fear and greed phenomenon) was going on.

The second enabling factor was that interest rates got low. This meant prices had the leeway to rise, as most people buy homes (and other property) based mostly upon the payment. When 30 year fixed rate loans go to 5 percent, the same payments buys a lot more house than it does at 7.5 percent. If you could have afforded a loan for $100,000 at 7.5 percent, you can afford a $130,000 loan at 5 percent. Instead of a $300,000 loan, you can afford $390,000 for the same payment. $500,000 becomes $650,000. Even though rates went up after early 2004, this helped start the phenomenon.

The third enabling factor was that people had gotten burned in the stock market as the dot com boom deflated, and the real estate market was doing well. With both sides of "fear and greed" working the equation, this amounted to quite a bit of incentive to chase returns in the real estate market. "I just took a bath in tech stocks, but look at how the real estate market is going!" This is known as chasing last year's returns, but large numbers of people do it. Consequently, quite a bit of personal wealth was dumped into the real estate market. This had negative consequences on the stock market, exacerbating that decline, and for the real estate market, dumping a couple trillion dollars into the demand side of the equation didn't exactly hurt real estate prices. Supply and demand are always working. The important trick is to separate fear and greed, which are real but have mostly short term effects, from real long term changes to the market.

The thing that really drove the whole thing from behind the scenes was that the federal government "encouraged" lenders to expand their creditworthiness criteria. Thirty agencies of the federal government got together and used the Community Reinvestment Act (as renewed in 1995) as a bludgeon to force lenders to lend to minorities at the same rates (and rates of approval) as non-minorities. Since certain minority groups are statistically less scrupulous about doing things that maintain creditworthiness and financial stability (just as other minority groups are statistically more scrupulous), that meant relaxing standards. The loan market controls the real estate market. When practically anyone could get a no income documentation loan they couldn't afford for 100% of value, macroeconomic constraints upon price vanished.

Members of my professions, meanwhile, did absolutely nothing to slow the madness. Indeed, they added as much fuel to the fire as they could. As I have said elsewhere, buying a home really is a fantastic investment, all things being equal. It literally clobbers renting and investing over the long term, with those last four words being the critical part. There are limits, and many agents and loan officers went over them and three states beyond. Anybody who takes any real estate agent's unsupported word for investments and sustainability probably needs a guardian. Reality check: Here's a person who makes thousands of dollars if they tell you you can do something, and nothing if they tell you you can't, and has very little responsibility in the law for telling you lies. They're not financial advisers, after all. What do you think the average person will tell you in this position? (And before anybody sends me email or comments about the "superior ethics of Realtors®" they were just as bad statistically and worse morally, because they were holding themselves out as ethically superior, thus using the propaganda to allay legitimate concerns. I'll believe Realtors® offer some ethical advantage when I start seeing the Boards of Realtors® imposing some real disciplinary measures upon significant numbers of scumbags that the state regulators don't. Aside from advertising to build brand awareness, I haven't seen anything that the Boards of Realtors® contribute to real estate practice, and they actively work against consumer interests in significant ways.)

So there we are, with these factors doing everything they can to drive values up. This goes on for a little while, and now psychology starts becoming a real factor. "They're not making any more land!" making a scarcity argument. "Real Estate always goes up over the long term!", making a safety argument, and ignoring any number of past bubbles and downturns. Heck, I remember four previous ones in southern California! "You can always sell for a profit!", ignoring transaction costs, which are significant, and flat out misrepresenting liquidity. Real Estate can beat anything else, investment-wise, but it is certainly the least liquid class of investment that comes to my mind, as well as being sensitive to many factors beyond your control.

Couple this with a couple of years worth of twenty percent returns, and the feeding frenzy really kicks in. There starts being a real fear factor - people get afraid that if they do not buy now, they are never going to be able to afford a home. When prices rise by 50 percent in two years and wages rise by six, who can really blame them? Most people do not have the economic background to sit back and consider who buys houses, and what controls housing prices. So the mentality of "buy now or rent forever!" took hold, further exacerbating the rise. People were willing to do literally anything they could to qualify for a home, lest they be unable to qualify forever. And with the thinking detailed in previous paragraphs, they were told that "Even if you have to sell in a year, you'll still come away with a huge profit!" Yes, that's greed again, rearing its ugly head.

Up until this point, things were within reason. But into this situation stepped the lending community, particularly the sub-prime lending community, driven by the federal government breathing down their necks. More and more lenders started being willing to loan 100 percent of the value of the home. "Hey, why risk your own money when the bank will lend theirs?" This drove market leverage to never before seen heights. Furthermore, in an effort to sustain volume, lenders started a trend of competing ever harder for the most marginal case. Stated Income, Interest Only, and short term hybrid ARMs proliferated (The most common sub-prime loan is only fixed for two years). Finally, lenders started pushing the Negative Amortization loans, for those borrowers who couldn't really make even the payments required on the short term interest only alternatives.

Lest anyone think otherwise, the community of real estate agents was fully on board with this. Always higher, and fast increasing, prices meant they made more money in commissions from selling the same number of homes, and the apparent virtues of real estate as an investment of the moment kept seducing those who did not know any better. Those few voices of sanity were drowned out, and many left the business. There just aren't that many people who really qualify to buy homes at the peak prices we had based upon the traditional metrics, even relaxed as they have become, and if you won't put them into something they can't afford, somebody else will. Furthermore, during this period, more and more real estate agents were starting to do their own loans, further isolating any voices of sanity in the loan community. Speak the truth that a client probably cannot afford a loan once, and the real estate agent will never bring you another client again, and will try everything they can to pry any clients that they can away from you. After all, you 'cost' them a commission once. Interest only, and negative amortization loans further proliferate, as agents try to persuade prospective clients that they "really can afford those payments." Forty year loans start making a comeback, where they were all but extinct, and fifty year loans are introduced. Sub-prime underwriting standards are loosened until they ignore what happens when these hybrids adjust (or Option ARMs recast) and concern themselves only with the minimum starting payment. A larger and larger portion of purchasers is forced into the sub-prime market if they want to qualify. And still property values rose.

Or, more correctly, prices rose. The actual property value certainly wasn't growing that fast, only the common perception of value, aka price. People were getting away with these terrible loans, complete with prepayment penalties, because even though they weren't able to make their payments in many cases, prices were still increasing fast enough such that even if they sold relatively cheap, in order to unload the property in a hurry, and paid a prepayment penalty, they were still coming away with money, further aiding the illusion that there was no way not to make money. When workers are making more money buying a house and holding it for two years then selling than they are at their jobs, that's an incentive to keep doing it. That's an incentive for more and more people to get in on the act. And the feeding frenzy builds. Fear and Greed. When someone holds a house for two years and sells for a huge profit despite the fact that they did nothing to enhance the home's value, that has the appearance of easy money. When people start buying with the intention of short term flipping without doing any work (We call this "Hoping for a bigger fool"), and when they'd call to see if I knew of any such properties and hang up when I'd start telling them about properties that really were good investments but needed work, I knew the end was coming very soon.

The first group to holler "enough!" was not the lower income folks who were getting priced out of stuff even at the lowest end of the market. It might be what you'd expect, but it wasn't the case. My theory is that those people simply don't know any better, and didn't think they could afford to wait. It was the better paid, more economically savvy buyer at the higher end who first called "Bull****!" At least here locally, higher end McMansions and such were the first to start sitting on the market. These prospective buyers made plenty of money, and knew they weren't on the verge of being priced out completely. If they were right, they'd buy a better property when things fell apart. If they were wrong, such is life, and they could still afford something. Meantime, they were going to rent.

Lessons here: Always separate psychological factors from real market shifts. The general rule is that once they find an investment that appears to be working right now, the crowd always overreacts. Many times you will make more money in the long term by bucking the obvious trend, particularly if that trend is Fear and Greed driven.

When I first wrote this piece in early 2006, the advice I gave was these two paragraphs:

"If you are in an untenable position with your loan right now, whether because it's negative Amortization or interest only or just about to start adjusting: Either sell now for what you can get, refinance into something fixed for at least five years right now, or be resign yourself to disaster. With the yield curve inverted right now, there is practically no spread between the five year ARM and the thirty year fixed rate loan. Even someone who is as huge a fan of the 5/1 ARM as I am has to admit that, at the moment, the thirty year fixed rate loan is looking very attractive by comparison. When you get a much better guarantee of the rate not changing, for the same price, and the the loans are otherwise identical, what's not to like? As I've said before, you can survive and prosper when you're upside down on your home, as long as you have the right loan for it.

If you can make the real payments on such a loan, I would do it now while appraisers still have the ability to appraise your property for near peak values. If you lose the ability to appraise for near peak values, then you may well be a member of that rather large group in many parts of the country where the market will no longer bear a price greater than the loans on your property. When you owe more on the property than the market appraisal, then for all practical purposes you are stuck in your current loan. If it adjusts, amortizes, or recasts, you're suddenly going to be making much larger payments. If you qualified under one of the less sustainable programs I noted earlier, when this happens you are going to be in a world of hurt, and probably unable to refinance. Most common result: Losing the home, credit ruined for years, and a 1099 from the lender that says "we lost money on you!", for which the IRS will demand taxes. If your loan is going to start asking for higher payments soon, and you can not refinance, or cannot afford to refinance, it's time to sell, right now."

Very few people took this advice then. Lots of people wish they had now. Now, my advice is significantly different,

Caveat Emptor (and Vendor)

Original here

When and Why does a Mortgage Company Sell your Current Loan to another Mortgage Company?

Lenders sell their loans because the lender can make an immediate premium of anywhere from 1.5 percent to four percent by selling your loan to Wall Street. Yes, this is less than the six to eight percent per year interest that most primary homeowner loans get, let alone second loans, commercial loans, etcetera. Nonetheless, they can turn the money several times per year, earning far in excess of what they could earn from the interest on your loan itself, and that's why they do it.

Selling your loan doesn't just get them four percent once. It lets that lender turn around and do another loan and make more money without getting more money in deposits. Many lenders can turn the money three to six times per year or more, getting them a twelve to eighteen percent bonus in addition to anything they make those few months that they hold the loan.

There are several philosophies on when to sell the loan. The one that seems to have the most adherents currently is the pure packaging house philosophy, where they sell it off immediately upon closing, or within a few days. Given this, they can turn the money a dozen times per year if they work at it, selling the loan for a smaller premium, but getting twelve markups per year, amounting to somewhere between twenty-four and thirty percent on the money.

The second philosophy is one that is practiced by a smaller, but still significant number of lenders, who fall more into the traditional lender's model of doing things, and that is to wait until one payment has been received. Since this eliminates a noteworthy fraction of the fraud that's out there, they get a better markup for their loans. The downside is because they have to hold it an average of two months before the first payment is received, that means they can only turn the money six times per year at most, as opposed to the twelve for the previous model of lender. So they get six markups of three percent or so, maybe close to 20 percent over a year. To this, they add maybe three percent, to cover the interest they actually received from borrowers directly. Net: maybe 22 percent. Furthermore, this leaves them stuck with those loans where the first payment is late, because nobody wants to buy those. Better from their mortgage bond buyer's point of view, not so hot for their bottom line because there is a high percentage chance of those loans becoming what is known as "non-performing." In other words, default. The bond buyers got stuck with the results of default in the first scenario, which the lender views as a much better thing than dealing with it themselves. In other words, this scenario forces the lender to actually live with the results of their riskier underwriting scenarios. They actually can sell those loans, but anybody who's paying to assume that kind of risk is going to demand a commensurately lower price for it, which is reflected in a lower bottom line. So the lenders who hold a loan until after the first payment usually have tougher underwriting than those with pure packaging house mentality.

Finally, there are still a few lenders who wait until they have three payments, giving them the best prices of all when they sell. Unfortunately, it takes about four months for them to be able to do this, so they get four percent for the loan, but can only turn the money three times per year. This actually gives them a chance to fix bill paying problems that might have afflicted the second group, but on the other hand, more people have a late payment somewhere in the first three. Nobody wants to pay a good price for loans that are not current, and a little less if it has been delinquent but is no longer, as that's a flag for possible future problems. These lenders get maybe 12 percent per year in funding markup, plus four percent or so for interest actually received from borrowers, netting maybe sixteen to seventeen percent. Needless to say, this model has largely fallen out of favor by most lenders because it doesn't put as much money into the firm's bottom line, but they still get over twice what the lender who actually holds the loan makes per year.

Selling loans has been part of what has driven rates down from their rates of years previous, as lenders face increased competition from other lenders who "want in" on that twenty-four to thirty percent per year from turning the loans, and are pressured to deliver lower rates by the fact that most of their money actually comes from selling the loan, as opposed to servicing loans they do make. Many lenders actually retain servicing rights when they sell the loan, as this gives them continuing income. Indeed, may people out there whose loans have been sold multiple times are blissfully unaware of the fact, as they are still sending the check to the original servicing company.

Another thing that this has driven is the increased use of pre-payment penalties, as the entities buying the loans, which are mostly large Wall Street entities, are very attracted by the consequences of buying loans with prepayment penalties, and thus, pay more for them. If you know that you're going to get that 7% for at least three years, or get a one time stroke of three percent if you don't, you are willing to pay more for those bonds than if the people involved could just hand you your money at any time. Many times the sub-prime market will offer the same people a better rate with a prepayment penalty than the A paper market will without a pre-payment penalty. It's all well and good to save half a percent on a half million dollar mortgage, which is $2500 per year, but if you don't last the three years you are out $15,000, twice the maximum you possibly could save! Pre-payment penalties are mostly to make the aggregated mortgages more attractive to Wall Street.

Finally, I should mention that if you're totally committed to writing the check to the same lender and sending it to the same address so you're willing to pay a price for it, there is such a thing. It's called a portfolio loan, and you can figure that the interest rate will be about one full percent higher, or maybe a little more. Even there, it's not that they legally cannot be sold, it's that they are priced higher to make up for the fact that certain loans don't meet the standardized criteria for sales in packages of fifty million dollars or so, but may still be perfectly good loans. The higher interest rate - price of money to the consumer - is there to counter the lowered rate of return for the lender.

Caveat Emptor

Original here

A recent court case wherein it was decided that seller's have the right not to pay the buyer's agent (well DUH!) created a lot of furor. The truth is this has been well-established in law and precedent for I don't know how many years. But having the right not to pay them doesn't mean it's smart.

Let's go back to first principles and the way things work. A standard buyer's representation agreement says that they are due x% of the sales price, but that if there is a cooperating broker's fee (Cooperating Buyer's Broker, abbreviated CBB), then that is used to offset that fee. This is actually paid to the brokerage for which the agent works, and the agent only gets a percentage). I generally ask for 2%, because the average CBB in my area is two and a half to three percent, so I can mostly ignore the CBB unless it's below that or significantly above.

The CBB is determined by the seller and their listing agent. You don't have to offer a penny if you don't want to. I'll explain in a minute why this is foolish in many cases, but there's no law against being greedy to the point of stupidity. The buyer and their agent have no input in whether a Cooperating Buyer's Broker fee is offered at all, much less the amount. In fact, it is flatly against the law in California (and I suspect, most other states) to attempt to negotiate a higher CBB, or any CBB when none is offered. Nobody can make a home seller offer to pay the buyer's agent (in reality, their broker).

That said, why do you think sellers started doing it? Your grandparents weren't any more generous or altruistic in selling their homes than you. There was a reason why sellers started offering to pay the buyer's agent, and it still applies today, although you have to dig a little deeper than the surface to discover it.

The vast majority of buyers need a loan. Go ask any loan officer in the country what the most common failure point is in a viable loan. I'm not talking about people with horrible credit, or clearly insufficient income. Those get kicked out of the system in ten minutes, and these days, they usually can't even get the process started - as everyone they talk to wants to know about their qualification level. I'm talking about viable applicants who can actually afford real payments on a real loan that can otherwise be done. That failure point is buyer cash to cover the down payment and closing costs.

Buyer cash is difficult, because in general, it has to be saved dollar by dollar from their regular income stream, and it takes years. On a 700k property, five percent down is thirty-five thousand dollars. If saved $500 per month, that's six years. Most people can't put $500 away per month, and every little financial bump in the road extends it out. Unless they have access to a VA loan, 3.5% down payment for an FHA loan is the absolute minimum these days - and both of these loans require the seller to pay certain costs as they cannot be paid by borrowers and nobody else is going to pay them. Then they need closing costs of the loan on top of that, as well as various and sundry other closing costs. My area may be a little more costly than most, but 5% is a pretty minimal down payment. Adding another two percent or more significantly extends their need to save before they can get onto the property ownership train, and rational buyers know they want to get onto that train sooner rather than later. If they can't buy your property, they'll buy someone else's. Let's repeat that for clarity: If they can't buy your property, they will buy someone else's.

Buyer's may not be able to negotiate a higher CBB (or any CBB where none has been offered), but that doesn't mean they cannot or will not consider the effects of a low CBB (or none) upon their ability to buy a property. Let's repeat that for clarity and emphasis: Buyer's may not be able to negotiate a higher CBB, but that doesn't mean they cannot or will not consider the effects of a low CBB upon their ability to buy a particular property. In other words, by offering a below market CBB (or none), you have essentially removed your property from their consideration. You've essentially sold them someone else's property rather than your own. By the way, market level CBB is priced into what all your comparable properties are selling for. Any buyer's agent they have representing them will be aware of this.

By refusing to pay what every other seller around you is willing to pay for, you've removed your property from their consideration. You know, that's fine if someone with plenty of cash comes along ready to put an offer they're prepared to consummate on the table. But those buyers aren't your typical buyer - most buyers are struggling to find enough cash to make it happen, as soon as they can. Those with larger amounts of cash aren't looking to buy a place to live for themselves - they're investors. Being aware of all of this, they not only are prepared to drive a harder bargain than average, they know all about normal and customary costs and who pays them, and they are typically represented by buyer's agents who are a cut above average in terms of knowing the market and ability to negotiate. Investors in this category are absolute top of the list for being prepared to walk away rather than go above market value - and you being unwilling to offer a CBB knocks your property down in value by more than the cost of the CBB. Most investors are well aware of that, even if they don't have an agent representing them.

Finally, they may not be able to ask for a CBB directly, but buyers can certainly negotiate for 'non-recurring closing costs' as part of the sales price. You don't have to agree, but, again, they don't have to buy your property if you won't. They have this cost obligation, and no cash to meet it if you won't. Do you think you're going to get a consummated sale if you won't help meet it? You might get a contract - but that loan won't actually fund if they don't have every penny of the required cash to close. In case you're unaware, a negotiated contract that can't be consummated is the absolute worst position to be in as a seller. The property is tied up, you can't sell it to anyone else, and there's always the possibility that someone turns to lawyers and court action. When lawyers and judges and juries (oh my!) get involved, you never know what's going to shake out at the end - and while it's going on, the property sits unsold. If you're trying to sell, that's the exact opposite of everything you want. So what's likely to happen? I'll tell you what's likely to happen: After several months of impasse, your listing agent - who wants their commission - starts pressuring you to give in on the non-recurring closing costs. After all, to their way of thinking, they brought you this buyer who wants to buy the property, and there's this contract between you and them for the sale of that property. If it falls through, they have a court case for their commission to be due despite that falling through. So in order to avoid having to pay that commission without having consummated the sale, you agree.

So wouldn't it be better just to agree to pay a market level CBB in the first place, and avoid all that delay and all of those monthly carrying costs of the property - not to mention the hassle of whatever reason you decided you wanted to sell the property in the first place remaining unfulfilled?