All Forum Posts by: Gates Mueller

I appreciate everyone's responses and hope all of you have a Happy Thanksgiving!

@Russell Brazil thanks for the suggestion! Happy Thanksgiving :)

@Mike Cumbie thanks for the reply. Never thought about the ignore strategy like that before.

Maybe I should have asked for responses for agents only.

@Chris Mason thanks for the suggestion about looking at agents listing prices compared to the final sales price. 

The condescension in the rest of your reply was not necessary, but thank you for taking the time nonetheless. I understand that you seem to think the problem is with me or my clients, not the listing agent or seller, duly noted.

According to your logic, if a house is listed on the MLS for $100,000 but the market indicates it is only worth $80,000 it would be a waste of time to offer a "lowball" $80,000? I would not advise a client to put an offer of $100,000 if the comps do not support that price. Sure, they might love the house, but they are paying too much.

@Jeff B. if you read my whole post, you would see that I mentioned the offers are within 10-12%, not anywhere close to 50%. Take the same $100,000 listing, and you would consider an offer of $90,000 to be lowball, not genuine, and not worthy of a response? I think that is a bit harsh.

Since the properties that I have encountered a "declined offer" response on have not actually sold, I think your replies are based on a false presumption that there are multiple (or better) offers. I understand how multiple offer situations work, that is not what I am referring to. One of those properties has been on the market for 587 days. I guess the consensus is that 10% is considered lowball.

Over the past few months here in San Antonio I have encountered numerous situations where I send in an offer on a property and receive a flat out "no" or "we are declining your offer." I always encourage clients (selling) to counter every offer, even if it is a "lowball." You never know if there is a deal to be made by outright refusing to engage in a negotiation. The offers that have been declined are within 10-12% of the list price, which I would not consider to be offensively low. Has anyone else encountered this?

Trying to figure out if this is a result of bad Realtors overpricing homes and giving bad advice, or if the "amazing growth" in San Antonio has just gone to everyone's head. Today an agent told me "it wasn't worth my time putting together a counter offer to your client." He responded to my email, which is all the time it takes to counter...another agent a few weeks back sent, "My clients laughed at your offer, that's the only response you will get." That house dropped $30,000 in the course of 3 weeks on the market before they fired their agent and took the house off market, and their final price was only $8,000 above our offer.

Bob,

To answer your question specifically regarding the area your property is located in, over the past 6 months there have been 3 sales and 1 listing that was canceled (going back 12 months only adds 1 additional expired listing). The sales are all 3/2 town homes and the average price is $131,916. DOM are 15, 17, and 73. Heading into the holidays things typically slow down, but due to low inventory the market is still moving. I am happy to help if you have any more questions.

- Gates

Mr. Gulley,

Clearly you have had a negative experience with the oil industry in Texas. There are standard provisions in most oil and gas lease forms now that give "limited" protection to the surface estate, and most oil and gas companies will attempt to get a Surface Use Agreement from the surface owner. The Texas Railroad Commission has an article titled "Oil & Gas Exploration and Surface Ownership" that is very informative on that topic. My background is in mineral ownership reports and title research (most people just call it "landman work") and I often advise clients that are purchasing land, even when there are no minerals conveyed, to have proper title work done. Knowing who the mineral owners under your property are gives you a much better chance at negotiating a positive outcome should oil and gas development ever occur there. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, I am happy to help!

Setting up your own LLC is a very easy process. Do some research on what structure you need to have for your specific goals and you can do the filing on the Texas Secretary of State "SOS Direct" webpage. It costs $300 for the filing fee. I think doing that research yourself and understanding the different structures, etc is very beneficial knowledge for a business owner. As @Rick Pozos mentioned, make sure you actually need an LLC first!