Show HN: Find a home close to work
openlistings.co
openlistings.co
I'll be on here with my cofounders today to answer any questions you might have.
[0]: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/distancemat...
But seriously, it is a very neat tool, thanks for making it.
When you buy a home, your agent is paid a 2.5% commission to represent you in the transaction. As a real estate brokerage, Open Listings replaces your agent and facilitates the transaction on your behalf. At close, we refund you half of the commission we receive, usually crediting the refund against your closing costs.
Here's a more detailed explanation plus a fun slider: https://www.openlistings.co/our-commission-refund
The most important thing to understand is the seller decides which offer to accept and that decision comes down to price & terms. The best offer always wins. 100% of the time we've submitted the highest offer, it has been accepted. Our offers are clean and our buyers are able to pay more knowing they'll get a significant refund. So far, so good.
To date, Redfin has built the best home search tools available. But they continue to reduce their refund amounts and hire agents on salary who work individually in a traditional manner. As a competing entrant, we're trying a different approach. Buyers win because they have more choices.
We do have very high stamp duty (basically a sales tax on real estate) which is 5% of the property price which the buyer has to pay.
At the moment is Sydney properties are selling off market which means 0 day sales. The time it takes in the USA seems amazing long.
And a quick response to the Open Listings folks: Redfin agents actually do work on teams, consisting of Support Agents, Listing and Tour Coordinators, field agents who can help customers homes tour on demand, and deal-writing agents who handle the toughest bits -- negotiations, offer-writing, and general guidance to the customer. Just wanted to set the record straight here.
That said, I love what you guys are doing. This is a big enough market for everyone :) and we're excited to see so many folks adopting alternative transaction models.
What are your plans for adding new companies? Are you going to branch out into firms that might not pay as well? Stick with the "top 1%" companies but in different cities?
Real estate service that focuses on tech people seems lucrative. Good idea all around.
The list is crudely sorted by number of page views so it'll tend to just show the big companies.
(A favourite hobby horse of mine. I accept cookies only from specific sites, whitelisted after consideration.)
I live in Texas and my nice modern 2000 SF house is only $190.
[0]: https://www.openlistings.co/our-commission-refund [1]: http://sf-moh.org/index.aspx?page=262 [2]: http://www.shittylistings.com/
Salaries are higher here for one. Say $190k vs 4x as much, $760k. Assuming magic 10% down appears in your pocket, 0% property tax, ignore the differences in state/local taxes, and assume a spherical chicken in a vacuum.... $3200/mo vs $800/mo.
4 times as much! Wow! That's a lot of money. Right? Except.. it's "only" $29k/yr. Most cost-of-living expenses don't scale with income. Now, of course, your salary has to be more than that to cover taxes, but say 20% overall tax rate, you really only need $36k more per year, which you might see straight up on a single salary, based on cost-of-living pay adjustment alone. If you're married, suddenly you only have to make $18k per person per year more.
If you follow the "1/3 of your salary" rule, it would suggest that you need to make $86,400 per year more, which is why expensive housing sounds so expensive. One would hope that in a low cost-of-housing market, you're not spending 1/3 of your income on your housing, because then you really don't have a lot of money left over for retirement or food or entertainment. Similarly, in a higher cost-of-living market, you might fudge that a bit and pay more than 1/3 of your salary, which still leaves you more money for your 401k and transportation and entertainment, and all those things that really don't scale with cost of living much at all.
You could also look at the high cost of living as a savings plan. As long as you retire before whatever particular housing cycle bubble bursts, you can still retire to Texas (or wherever) -- you can just do so with more money (equity, savings, retirement plan, etc).
Also, some tax and expense treatment of housing is pretty regressive. You're probably not getting a mortgage interest/property tax income tax deduction on a cheap mortgage; on a more expensive one you are, so you're immediately paying a lower effective interest rate and property tax rate (if you want to look at it that way). You're not paying PMI for that sub-20% down payment because it's not federally backed. etc.
This is not to say it's cheap, or easy, or affordable for everyone, or even smart. It's just saying how it's possible, and how it's probably not as bad as it sounds.
Perhaps I am being unreasonable because I'm coming from a low CoL state, but I think the 1/3 your salary rule is a very good, smart target (unless you can easily get a HELOC or equity loan in case of emergency because you put so much down when you bought the place).
Do you mean you'd need that $400k down to "compete"?
You would have no problem buying a $1MM home on credit with your 20% down. That would buy you a decent place in San Jose. You could also buy the same home with 10% down, though that will require PMI on your mortgage. In either case, I don't believe you would have too much trouble from cash buyers. Yes, cash means a shorter escrow period. But if you offer more than the cash buyer, most sellers will take the higher bid. Your offer would waive your loan contingency (by getting your financing locked-down in a commitment letter).
If 1/3 is $4000, that leaves $8000 to pay taxes (call it 2400 on 12k/mo), which leaves $5600/mo to live off of. I could deal with that.
I bet that if and when this site begins targeting the other 99% of companies, the listings for those will trend lower to reflect the average salaries.
One of my coworkers who started at the same time as me lived in a 3BR with two roommates for the same period of time, so he was paying half what I was in rent. He still lives modestly (2BR, working wife, no kids) and probably could retire anytime he wants now.
> It’s sad. The typical car LA or SF commuter spends more than 60 hours each year stuck in traffic.
It seems low, it would be an estimate of just over one hour per week, which would be like 10 minutes each morning and evening.
At that rate, though, you save something closer to a hundred hours a year, or more than two work weeks.
For a typical definition, those 23 minutes will not all be spent stuck in traffic.
Woofoo (about 7 people) did remote, but the founder admit it's tough and challenging even for such a small and motivated company (imagine your workforce > 1000 people), though there are some obvious benefits.
It's not just about tools (slack, skype, etc.) and finding a procedure that works, but more about company culture, motivation, discipline, adaptation to remote environment, family at home, etc. Not every employee could survive a remote environment and continue to be productive :(
Before everyone could work from home, maybe the idea of multiple office location/work-space (rather than centralized) could be explored, yet it will have many pros and cons.
Where do you get your data? I used to work for one of the industry dinosaurs; our only competitive advantage was that we had agreements with most of the 674 MLSes to rehost their data for our clients, which were RE Agent companies. Zillow is still using Trulia as a pipe to funnel that MLS data from my former employer.
Is that one of the reasons for piloting in CA - fewer MLSes to partner with?
Running into MLS/vendor issues at my own real estate tech product.
I'm not affiliated with the site at all, I just thought it's a really cool feature.
You need to click on "More Filters", then "Super-Secret Advanced Features"
If you email the address you're looking for to peter@openlistings.co, I'll try to prioritize your area.