Remington--8 Dolphin Court, Alameda, CA

It is well established that NAR and the MLS(r) are not the most fair-playing, transparent or sharing of organizations, especially when it comes to relevant information regarding properties for sale. A number of independent sites have emerged to try to blow away the Balkanized, obfuscated, opaque system of rules and restrictions set up by NAR to maximally impede the free flow of information and keep home buyers from making informed decisions--after all, those might lead to lower sales prices or no sales at all if everything were disclosed and available to everyone, rather than artificially space-constrained and restricted in their distribution. It also allows for a cottage industry of compliance officers and lawyers to flourish, all of whom (or whose employers) probably pay NAR dues. The Realtor(tm) must be the final arbiter of what the consumer knows, for an informed customer is a harder patsy to hoodwink.

Today's listing is a particularly egregious example of the kind of downright consumer-hostile practices NAR and the MLS(r) revel in.

8 Dolphin Court came back on the market today. It is a mostly new McMansiony house on a business-card-sized lot:

3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 2,035 sqft, 3,494-sqft lot, MLS(r) #40396446, $599,000

Well Maintained Warmington Home [...] Great Corner Lot with beautiful flag stone back yard [...] Versatile Floor Plan. .. Stainless Steele Appliances. .. .SHOW and SALE

I don't know, nor do I much care, which one of these it is (it's the blue one on the right). It probably doesn't matter, because they're so close to each other you're practically living with your neighbor anyway:

It is also not far from many other monstrosities covered on this blog, which have fared remarkably well not done so great since their construction and initial sale:


One might think $599,000 for a somewhat large house is a decent deal, especially if one believes, as the MLS(r) probably hopes, that this is a new listing, priced to sell, with no issues whatever.

Because the address sounded familiar, I went to Redfin to refresh my memory, where I was greeted by the friendly admonishment below:

So in I sign, and for my trouble I am given the strategically redacted information below (emphasis added):

I don't blame Redfin; they're a broker and they can't not abide by MLS(r) rules if they want to stay in business. At this point I was becoming somewhat irritated, so I turned to an independent site with no vested interest in hiding information, namely Google, and I found this:

Luke Trif's site appeared to be malfunctioning at the time of this writing, but Google had a cached version showing the following data:

I can't ascertain the date, but the Google cached version says (emphasis added):

This is Google's cache of http://www.luketrif.com/process_paragon.php?ct%5B%5D=ALAMEDA&mnbath=2&mxprice=900000. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Jan 19, 2009 17:57:38 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime.

In summary, at various points in time, 8 Dolphin Court was...

• Listed as MLS(r) #40258170 and priced at $860,000
• Listed as MLS(r) #40356830 and priced at $729,900
  
• Dropped to $699,900 
• Listed as MLS(r) #40396446 and priced at $599,000 (today's listing)
  

It shouldn't take this much time and effort on the part of a disinterested, independent third party (that would be me) to find out...

• how this listing has fared since it was first listed,
  
• whether the current owners (be they human or bank-shaped) might be easy or hard to deal with,
  
• whether trying to buy this property is worth the time (banks are notoriously slow and impenetrable, and some folks are giving up or not interested in wasting their time trying to buy REOs and foreclosures)
• the listing's prior price and sale history,

all of which may be relevant to one's decision to pursue this property. They may also be irrelevant, but the MLS(r) is trying its darnedest to make sure potential buyers are never given the opportunity to find out.

There'll be a party at the Opine compound once that antiquated, anti-free-market conglomerate finally disappears in a cloud of vampire dust.

Oh, and that property on Dolphin Court, yes, it's overpriced. Thanks for asking.

(bonus points if you can figure out the title of this post)

Update 9/28/09: Sold for $628,000. All hail Spring fever bidding wars in the worst economy, job market and real estate market in 80 years.