Q: What can a home seller do about a deadbeat real estate agent? Knowing we are in a buyer’s market, I signed a listing agreement with a high-profile agent professing to have great marketing skills and a fabulous sales record.What I wound up with was an agent who put up the for-sale sign, listed my home on the MLS and then disappeared. No communication, no updates about marketing, and more important, no showings. Can I cancel the listing contract with no penalty and list with a more-competent agent?

Suzanne Z.

Oakland

With all the dismal reports about the home real estate market, don’t lose track of something important: Mortgage interest rates have been falling quietly but steadily for weeks, and are now at their lowest level in half a year, barely a percentage point above 40-year lows.New mortgage applications are up sharply, the number of pending home sales is up, the national economy continues to expand moderately, and the rate of unemployment just declined again — to 4.6 percent.

 Q: I own a house in Fremont and rent it out. Normally, the tenant will clean the carpet when they move out as that is how they received it when they moved in. But for the first time, I have a tenant who is refusing to clean the carpet and said that California law says they do not have to clean it. They also broke the lease by having a cat when the lease specifically states “no pets.”

Landlords attorney Ted Smith replies: California law states that the rental property should be left in good condition and repair, less ordinary wear and tear, when the tenant vacates.

Real estate brokers and agents are caught in a tug of war, each manning the rope of their own issues. They’ve become blind to all that really matters, blind to the fans who sat on the sidelines — the consumers. The tighter each side pulls, the more rigid the rope. No slack. No give. No resolve. Every once in a while, one side gains a slight advantage. So what, you’re both not in the game anymore. You’re losing viewers. The consumer may be focused on a different game. 

Someday the rope will tear. Both sides will fall back and tumble. From the dust, more new business models will emerge.

Office Boom Continues in Dallas
The Dallas office market is about to receive the most space it’s seen in 20 years. Nine buildings are in various stages of construction, which, when finished, will add 3 million sf to a market already experiencing some of the nation’s highest vacancy rates. Developers are convinced businesses will respond to the new space, favoring the new space to the old. Rents are projected for more than $30 per sf in the new towers while rents in the area are currently about $23 per sf.