Arizona
What will the National Association of Realtors settlement mean for Arizona homebuyers?
Report finds Americans are optimistic about buying a home in 2024
After years of feeling priced out of the market, potential homebuyers are feeling optimistic again, according to a new report.
Scripps News
A national $418 million settlement proposal over real estate commissions could drastically change how much homebuyers pay agents.
Under the National Association of Realtors deal, which needs federal court approval, the group with more than 1.5 million members has agreed to prohibit listing agents from offering buyer brokers compensation.
The case centers around an alleged practice called steering, which involves buyer agents guiding their clients to homes for sale on which they would receive the biggest commissions.
“This is the end of traditional real estate commissions,” said Greg Hague, the CEO and founder of 72SOLD. “It needed to happen. Consumers have spoken, and steering is absolutely happening.”
He gave an example of a $6 million Paradise Valley house that was on the market last year. The seller agreed to a $100,000 buyer agent fee. That’s less than half the 5% to 7% typical commission, which is often split between the buyer and seller agents.
The agent with the listing couldn’t get any showings, Hague said.
Hague said the listing agent was contacted by other real estate agents who required a 3% commission to show the house to buyers. The seller agreed to pay 3%, and the house quickly had 16 buyers looking at it, he said.
Attorneys from Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, the law firm that led the lawsuit against the Realtors group, say the settlement could save consumers billions of dollars a year in broker fees.
The National Association of Realtors continues to deny wrongdoing.
The settlement deal also calls for buyer brokers to have representation agreements that spell out the compensation they will receive from clients.
“We settled the NAR suit because it would have been more costly to keep fighting it. People don’t like Realtors,” said Christa Lawcock of Realty Executives. “But it’s the lawyers who win, not the first-time homebuyers.”
She said buyers without the money to pay commissions won’t have any representation and won’t get help negotiating a price or asking for home improvements or receive the recommendations for appraisers and mortgage brokers that agents can provide.
If the settlement is approved in court, the new rules could go into effect this year.
It’s not clear if this settlement will impact a similar lawsuit filed by an Arizona home seller against the state’s biggest Realtor associations and more than a dozen of its biggest residential brokerages.
Lawyers for Joseph Masiello, who filed the Arizona class-action complaint in January, didn’t respond to questions about the case.
The National Association of Realtors suit is the second settlement over commissions. Last fall, a jury ruled in favor of Missouri plaintiffs over real estate commissions, awarding them $1.8 billion.
Bobby Lieb, associate broker with Launch Powered By Compass, said the settlement doesn’t bother him.
“People selling million-dollar homes will pay experienced real estate agents to sell them because they end up making more money,” he said.
But he said commission issues are driving out inexperienced real estate agents who got into the business during the pandemic housing boom.
Hague said buyers who can’t pay a real estate agent out of pocket can negotiate an agent fee and roll it into their mortgage.
Tougher to purchase: New ranking says Arizona now among least affordable states to buy a house
Reach the reporter at catherine.reagor@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8040. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @CatherineReagor.
Arizona
Arizona man convicted of California cartel-related murders: DA
PHOENIX – A man with Arizona ties has been convicted in California for his role in multiple murders.
In a statement, officials with the District Attorney’s Office in California’s Orange County announced that 33-year-old Raul Gastellum Flores of Phoenix was convicted by a jury on April 29 of four counts of first-degree murder, four “special circumstances of murder during the commission of a robbery,” and four “special circumstances of multiple murders.”
According to the website for the law offices of Cron, Israels & Stark in Los Angeles, special circumstances murder involves aggravating factors that escalate the severity of the come to more severe penalties.
Flores was accused of killing four men in a failed attempt to take over a drug business. The four were identified as Fernando Meza, Edgar Berrelleza, Antonio Medina, and Joel Berrelleza, Edgar’s brother.
Officials say of the four victims, Meza, Medina, and Berrelleza were found inside a burnt SUV in the city of Orange on the afternoon of Nov. 9, 2015. The men were shot multiple times, and Meza was also found to have been stabbed several times.
((U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Joseph Barron))
Berrelleza’s brother, meanwhile, was kidnapped at an apartment in Orange before his death.
“Flores and another accomplice forced Joel Berrelleza into his Pontiac, where he was shot three times as they drove and recorded his dying breaths on a cell phone,” read a portion of the DA’s statement. “[Joel Berrelleza’s] body was left inside his vehicle in Fontana for six days until a passerby called police to report a man had been sleeping inside the vehicle for several days.”
Prosecutors say Flores was recruited by a man named Rosario Adan Roman-Lopez to help carry out the murders, and that Flores traveled from Phoenix to Orange County “with several handguns and Ak-47s to steal tens of thousands of dollars from the Berrelleza brothers, and to murder them if they refused to pay.” Roman-Lopez is believed to have been murdered in Mexico in retribution for the murders.
“[Flores] faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 19, 2024,” read a portion of the statement.
(This story was reported on from Phoenix.)
Arizona
2-year-old boy killed when bounce house blows away in Arizona
A 2-year-old boy was killed while playing in a bounce house over the weekend in Arizona, authorities said.
Bodhi Naaf was playing with other children on Saturday in Casa Grande when a gust of wind picked up the bounce house and blew it away, local NBC affiliate KPNX reported.
After the inflatable landed in a neighboring lot, two children were rushed to a nearby hospital, according to local CBS affiliate KPHO. Bodhi died at the hospital, while the other child suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Sources told KPHO the second child broke her arm.
“This appears to have been a tragic accident,” the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office told local Fox affiliate KSAZ. “We would like to extend our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to the grieving family.”
Winds were consistently between 10 and 15 mph in Casa Grande on Saturday, according to weather records. Gusts reached up to 25 mph, and there was a 23-mph gust right before 5 p.m., when police said the accident occurred.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, “maximum wind speed should be no more than 15 to 25 mph if you are using a bounce house.” No wind gusts over 25 mph were recorded in Casa Grande after 12:15 a.m. on Saturday.
A GoFundMe has been created for Bodhi’s parents, Karl and Cristy. Karl Naaf is a Phoenix firefighter, and his union identified him in an Instagram post.
“Adding to their challenges, Cristy is due to give birth to their second child on May 31, 2024,” the GoFundMe reads. “Amidst their sorrow, they face the daunting task of preparing for the arrival of their newborn.”
The GoFundMe had already surpassed its $100,000 goal as of Tuesday afternoon.
Arizona
Prosecutors won’t retry Arizona rancher, 75, charged with murder of Mexican national on property after hung jury
Prosecutors have decided against retrying an Arizona rancher accused of fatally shooting a Mexican national who crossed onto his property near the southern border after his murder trial ended with a hung jury last week.
The Santa Cruz County Attorney’s Office decided to drop the highly politicized case against 75-year-old George Alan Kelly after jurors were unable to come to a consensus on a verdict following more than 48 hours of deliberation.
Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink declared a mistrial last Monday, which left the decision of whether to retry Kelly for the death of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, up to the prosecutors.
“Because of the unique circumstances and challenges surrounding this case, the Santa Cruz County Attorney’s Office has decided not to seek a retrial,” Deputy County Attorney Kimberly Hunley told Fink Monday.
The judge agreed to dismiss the case and will set a hearing date to see if the dismissal will be without prejudice — which would make it so that the charges wouldn’t be able to be brought back to court.
Kelly’s lawyer Brenna Larkin plans to file a request for the case to be dismissed without prejudice.
In the meantime, the rancher said he felt “relief” when interviewed by a local reporter from KGUN as he left the courthouse.
“The nightmare’s over,” Kelly said.
He offered his “sincere sympathy” to Cuen-Buitimea’s family outside the courthouse where protesters had gathered to demand a retrial so that the victim could get justice.
“Gabriel was a human being,” one of the protesters had written across a sign.
Kelly, whose trial lasted nearly a month, had been charged with second-degree murder for the Jan. 30, 2023 shooting outside Nogales, Arizona.
His victim, Cuen-Buitimea, lived just south of the US-Mexican border in Nogales, Mexico. He was crossing Kelly’s Arizona cattle ranch with a group of other men when the elderly rancher fired nine shots from an AK-47 rifle toward them from about 100 yards away, according to prosecutors.
Kelly claimed the shots were only meant to be a warning and that he didn’t aim directly at anyone, but one of the bullets struck Cuen-Buitimea, killing him.
The case ignited debate across the country with the influx of migrants from the south coming into the US as Republicans have slammed President Biden for his handling of the border crisis as he is up for reelection.
GoFundMe campaigns created to support Kelly — who was initially held on $1 million bond — were forcibly shut down for violating the site’s policies on raising funds to benefit people accused of violent crimes.
With Post wires
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