Real Estate Blog, Mortgage, and Development News

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This advertisement from Nike is so dead on. For agents and non agents, to be the best you have to be willing to fail publicly. As Michael Jordon said, “26 times I have been trusted to take the game winning shot and I have missed.”

Are you willing to step up and take the game winning shot even if there is a chance you will fail?

The carnage is running rampant in California these days in the housing market as in some communities there seems to be a home on every street that is in some stage of foreclosure. For example, Stockton is leading the list and one out of every 30 homes is in some stage of foreclosure.

The one thing I am noticing is that some markets are in free fall. I do feel sorry for those who bought honestly in these markets.

Top 10 Worst Metro Areas For Foreclosures, 1st Quarter, 2008

“There are some incredible buys out there for first-time home buyers.”

When you start seeing quotes like the one in the headline, you know we are getting near the bottom. In the middle of a gloom and doom report coming out of Florida, and it is very rough there right now, a nugget pops out that starts to say the conventional wisdom may be starting to lag the market.

And like any market, when prices drop far enough, consumers re-enter and start buying. When enough buyers drop in we get a firm bottom. At that stage word starts to filter out to those who have been waiting on the sidelines and the market starts  to turn upwards.

And then 6 months later the conventional media will have a string of articles asking if we have hit bottom.

Sandra Israelson, an agent with Michael Saunders & Co., had bank-owned listings that included a two-bedroom one-bath home on Baldwin Avenue in Sarasota listed for $114,000 and a luxury Siesta Key penthouse in The Pointe that was going for $437,000.
In both cases, the bank asked that the homes be priced at a point that allowed them to sell within 30 days.
Apparently, Israelson struck the right prices. She received four full-price offers for the Siesta Key penthouse within one week, and the pending sale is set to close next month.
The starter home on Baldwin also found an interested buyer, who has made an offer and is waiting to hear back from the bank.
“There are some incredible buys out there for first-time home buyers,” she said. “These homes we’re seeing are the type of houses that would be perfect for them.” via  HeraldTribune.com

One of the great problems that is affecting foreclosures in Arizona, California, and Florida is what happens to the pools after the homeowners leave. These pools turn into a breeding ground for mosquitos that have the potential to carry disease and make neighborhoods unsafe for all who live there.

Enter the mosquito fish, or it’s technical term, Gambusia affinis. The fish is perfect to be dropped in these pools and then eat the larvae and juvenile mosquitos before they can develop into a nuisance. Town officials can put them into an abandoned pool and these wonderful creatures will do the rest saving the cities from spraying pesticides in these neighborhoods. 

How cool is that.

The mosquito fish is well suited for a prolonged housing slump. Hardy creatures with big appetites, they can survive in oxygen-depleted swimming pools for many months, eating up to 500 larvae a day and giving birth to 60 fry a month. That can save environmental crews from having to repeatedly spray pesticides in the pools while the houses grind through the foreclosure process.
Some local agencies, increasingly worried about mosquito-borne diseases like the West Nile Virus, are taking to the air to find problem swimming pools. The Turlock Abatement District, near Modesto, Calif., last month hired a plane to fly over 55 square miles, snapping pictures of pools from about 5,000 feet. On the ground, mosquito-control crews cross-referenced properties that had greenish-brown pools with a street map and a database of local foreclosed homes.
A significant threat to public health can be resolved through the use of a biological intervention. Learn more about the fish that eats mosquito larvae to reduce the threat of the west nile virus. WSJ’s Michael Corkery reports. (May
In the Turlock district alone, about 475 stagnant pools were identified on the flyover. Many of those will be filled with mosquito fish. via WSJ.com.

Michael Jackson, world famous singer and one of the worlds most bizarre individuals, was given a reprieve when Colony Capital purchased his 23.5 million dollar mortgage that was in foreclosure. The company says it is re negotiating the lease while they also search for buyers. The Neverland Ranch is famous for it’s collection of roller coasters, amusement rides, and zoo that Michael Jackson had to entertain his guests.

Reportedly there are celebrities looking to buy the home such as soccer star David Beckham.

Michael Jackson avoided foreclosure on his spectacular Neverland Ranch Sunday when a new bank took over the mortgage on the property.
The 2,700-acre spread, complete with amusement park and menagerie, had been expected to be auctioned off this week after Jacko defaulted on payments.
But Colony Capital, a real estate investment firm, bought the $23.5 million mortgage and said it was negotiating a new payment plan. via NY Daily News.

Luke Mullins at US News has more on the Neverland Ranch mortgage sale.

Want to keep marriages lasting longer? Keep the housing slump going.

According to experts, the housing slowdown is causing the divorce rate to drop as homeowners are unable to sell their homes. Essentially, couples can not afford to be separated.

There is the good and the bad in this situation. Those marriages that just need work may get the time to sort things out. The flip side is the marriages that have gone completely upside down may cause worse tensions to arise in the household.

But either way the long term drop in the divorce rate is one benefit coming out of the housing slowdown.

For many homeowners, a sluggish real estate market just means a delay in making a move. But for a married couple no longer getting along, it is much more than an inconvenience.
Divorce lawyers and therapists report that the shift in real estate is making breaking up harder to do.
“They are trapped. They’re trapped! It’s like putting a cat and a dog in a cage and say, here get along!” said Suzi Mohn, individual, couple and family therapist.
Mohn says that divorce is strongly tied to economics. Today, some couples are forced to live under the same roof because they can’t afford to move until their home is sold. via  KING5.com

The real estate world has always protected their MLS data like it was gold, and to them it is. Go to almost any real estate office and see the security that is put on the MLS computers. If you think of Fort Knox you are not far off. But the protection of the data that the MLS thinks is what gives the power to the real estate agent is breaking down.

With the advent of online listing services the data is being put out there many different ways. The agents realize that their worth is not being the conduit of the information as it was in the past, but rather the services, support, and institutional knowledge they offer to their clients.

Will this lower commissions, sure, but not that much. I would be worried if I was an agent that thought that putting a sign in a lawn was marketing a home.

Professionalizing the industry and weeding out the dabbling agents is the benefit of breaking the walled garden mentality of data protection. Once the data is available to all then the true worth, knowledge, and skill of an agent will be the defining criteria for paying a commission.

Selling a home is a complicated and difficult process. The buyer and seller can do somethings alone, but there will be a large part of the population that will need the help that a trained and caring real estate professional can offer.

The idea that an agent can hold the 6 percent commission hostage is long gone, but an effective agent will find that being a true professional they will bring enough benefit to the public to have a long and prosperous career.

The triple threat of a weak market, legal pressure and increasing competition has compelled real estate professionals to offer their information more freely online, putting cracks in a walled garden of data that stood strong while the industry enjoyed its breakaway growth. It also presages an end to the days when sellers must list their homes with a broker so buyers can see them.

The trend revolves around the nation’s roughly 900 multiple listing services, or M.L.S.’s, where local brokers post information about homes they are selling. In years past, these services were highly restrictive about where and how that information could be distributed — for instance, frequently not permitting Web sites to display M.L.S. listings alongside for-sale-by-owner homes, bank foreclosures or other properties not represented by real estate agents. via the New York Times

If you have luxury properties that are sitting empty you may look into a breed of professional home sitters, the home manager. Homes tend to maintain so much better when someone is living in it. The homes also show to potential buyers when they are under constant care.

The  home managers job is to maintain the home in pristine condition for showing, making sure that the home is clean and prepped and perfect for prospective homeowners to see.

And the home manager must be prepared to get out quickly in case of a rapid sale sometimes as quickly as 10 days. In return for keeping the home in perfect condition, the home manager pays a much lower rent than the market would demand.

A true win-win.

Fee has used about 30 home managers over the years to help sell properties whose owners have relocated, moved in with relatives or have another home in which to live.

She sees many practical advantages, the most obvious being that a house is not left vacant and uninviting — a place where mail and dust can accumulate and leaks may go unnoticed — or perhaps become a target for vandals.

An empty property, she said, can signal a “sense of desperation” to potential buyers who may reduce an offer accordingly. Just staging a home with nice furniture is expensive and still doesn’t produce that personal, lived-in feel, Fee said.

Home managers can make sure the place is kept heated or cooled, as the case may be, and are on hand to turn on lights and soft music before a showing. In addition, in brand-new homes, managers can help iron out any quirks, such as showers or ovens not working properly. via Los Angeles Times.

So you were reading online that to rank for your hometown and real estate is important on this internet thing. Someone even told you that there were buyers that did not pick up the glossy magazine and searched for homes online. So after some research looking over another Realtors shoulder at the Starbucks while you were having your latte you decided to start one of those blog things.

You heard how they were owning East Podunk by blogging on it. Your business is in West Podunk and by golly since the newspaper ad you have run since 1988 has not brought in a buyer in 2 years. And we will not mention that traffic generator, Podunk Real Estate Monthly has brought you 2 buyers and 1 potential listing in the last year. It must be better than what I am doing now.

So you called the 14 year old down the street and for the price of a dinner at the local steakhouse he set you up “The West Podunk Real Estate Blog”. It even looks pretty with a picture across the top of the historic row of smokestacks from the closed buggy whip factory. Check it out…

But now how will you get people to come see this thing called a blog?

My answer, 2 things. First you need some content. And you know what, you have loads of content. Since you have been a real estate agent for a few years you have written more content than you can shake a stick at.

Content for the blog can come in many forms. Pictures always work with well written titles that have the towns name in it. Is there anything happening in the town that people would be interested in, write about it.

How about all those emails that you wrote back and forth with Mary Smith about why West Podunk was a great place to put her fabric company? You poured your heart into convincing her that this was the town and you had her dream house just waiting for her (and she is still loving 4 years later). Could you repurpose some of those 83 emails into blog posts on why West Podunk is the place to live and work? Sure you can.

You have spent the last 23 years writing first on a typewriter, then on the computer telling folks why people should live here. It is time to go through all that great information and turn them into blog posts.

Also, read your local papers and see what is happening. Turn some of these into a blog post. Of course, do not copy what they wrote, that is stealing or what we call plagiarism, and besides being wrong something that will get you in trouble. But re-write it and show up to some of the events and take some pictures. People love pictures.

And then you will want to start reading others in the community of bloggers.

Community of Bloggers? What is that? Think of all the real estate agents and others writing in blogs across the country. Some of them focus on their town, some like myself on national issues, and some even on how to teach others the tricks on how to blog. We will go into it in much greater details in a later post, but lets just say it is another amazing resource that will help you every step of the way and also work towards getting these magical things called links. 

When you have some posts up and are reading some of the other bloggers, it will be time to concentrate on links.

What are links and why are they important to bloggers?

We will have a third post talking about links and how to get your West Podunk Real Estate Weblog high in the Google rankings. And when you end up high in the Google rankings is when buyers start to find you. How cool is that, for your time and effort, folks will be calling you to learn about real estate in West Podunk. Sure beats the 500 dollars the magazine was charging each month for that little ad! And what is cool is that links are the currency of the internet.

Getting high in the rankings is not hard, but it will take some work. But again, the resources are all on the web for you. There are some amazing people that concentrate on just that called Search Engine Optimizers who freely share this information. I may ask a couple of them to come over and give me a hand in a later post on this theme.

So you ask, this blogging thing is all fun and games? Nope…

Blogging is work, no doubt about it, but it is also fun and very rewarding. If done correctly blogging about your city or region can bring you a bunch of business in a slow market. You’ve been watching many of the people in your office around the water cooler complaining about how slow things are. Well, use some of the slow time to learn an important new skill that will make you the top producer in West Podunk.

If you commit to it you will not be disappointed.

The tide is turning in San Francisco too. As we talked about earlier with Karl Case of the Case Shiller index saying the statistics indicate we have hit bottom in the market. Now word come from the SF Gate that the sentiment in the San Francisco Bay area is that the deals now are too good to pass up.

Consumer sentiment plays a huge part in the real estate market. Which is why we get the bubbles and the downturns. When the herd of buyers that have been sitting on the sidelines re-enter the market, the supply will dissipate rather quickly.

Then we will come back with a normal market for a period of time until speculators and buyers push the pricing beyond the comfort zone. And then guess what, we will have another downturn.

Markets are so interesting unpredictable yet utterly predictable at the same time.

Those in San Francisco may look up there real estate agents number and take a peak at what is out there. You may be in for a deal.

Not so, according to some individual investors, who think the market slump has made selected pockets of the Bay Area more desirable than they’ve been in years.
“Look at this,” said Dan Shiner of Mill Valley, one such investor who was en route with his agent to visit properties for sale in Santa Rosa last week. “This duplex sold for $599,000 two years ago and now it’s listed for $414,900. That’s why people like me are coming out of the woodwork.”
Shiner, who works in finance, said he avoided investing in local real estate for years because prices were so ridiculously high. But the current market has drawn him back in because suddenly he sees relative bargains. Last week he looked at a dozen Sonoma County duplex and triplexes, and had offers accepted on two.
“The way prices have come down is absolutely amazing,” he said. “I think it’s a phenomenal opportunity for the small investor to buy their first rental properties.” via SF Gate