We all want to understand how we got into this current real estate market, and there’s no single easy explanation.

However, I read a great piece about “cash back at closing” that goes a long way towards answering that question. And it’s not the obvious piece about predatory lending or misleading consumers or folks who simply overbought. It’s not that conspicuous. And yet it’s really at the core of how the “frothy” markets of the early 2000’s did us in. And it points back to the question of ethics, or how you do business (or live your life for that matter).

Click on this link to read the piece. Let me know if this makes sense to you.

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Handling foreclosure properties is always tricky. Marketing this beauty on Canterbury Lane in Dublin required strategy, imagination and hard work. Check out the website at http://www.7624canterbutylane.com

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I’m beginning to have my doubts about the new economic stimulus package. On the surface it would seem that the new higher loan limits should help Bay Area families to afford to buy a house. But there’s so much more to it, that I’m beginning to wonder how much help it’s going to be.

On the one hand, yes, we’ll have conforming loans up to $730,000. Take the average $900,000 house in Pleasanton, put 10% down, and you’ll get a conforming 80% first mortgage and a reasonable 10% second to go behind it - something that’s not very easy to do at the present moment (pre-stimulus/post subprime-jumbo meltdown).

And I’m not saying that I don’t want my $300. Or is it $1200 because I’ve got kids? Or do I not qualify because I made more than $42,000 last year? But my kids would qualify? Oh forget it, the loan-limits thing is way less confusing.

But wait a second, those new jumbo-sized conforming loans are going to have their limitations. It looks like you’ll have your choice of 30 or 15-year fixed products, fully amortized of course. That means no interest-only payments, no adjustable rates.

Along with the higher loan amount will come a higher interest rates (risk and return are indeed correlated, no bill is going to change that). We’re already seeing that effect in the market, rates seemed to go up for no reason at all last week.

I heard this bill referred to as “Economic Cialis” - it may help us out for a period of time, but when it wears off we’re still left with the same underlying problem, be that a slowing economy, a correction in housing, or a full-blown recession.

It’s an interesting discussion, for a while. But I’m really unsure how it’s going to play out. If it works and gets the market moving, and they’re really going to cut-it-off on December 31st, I can only imagine what the last two months of the year are going to be like.

So is this the jumpstart that we need? Is it a band-aid? Does it get us throught the toughest part of the market? What do YOU think? Leave a comment, and keep the discussion going…

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It’s worth the eleven-minute commitment. Or twenty-two minutes if you’re like me and you need to watch it twice.

Fair warning, it has absolutely nothing to do with real estate, paperless transactions, customer service, markets or investing. But it has everything to do with our success.

And if you tell anyone that I put Oprah on my website…

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Apparently I’m not the only one trying to save some paper with a Tablet PC. President Bush was spotted signing the 2009 federal budget on a Dell Latitude XT.

Sure it’ll take me a while longer to save as much paper as he did - roughly 20 tons of paper or 480 trees were spared  by eliminating some 3,000 copies of the 2,200-page budget that would have normally been printed.

On the other hand, my approval rating has never been higher!

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There are a lot of Realtors out there who claim to be expert negotiators. I think there’s even a designation for some kind of negotiation training class or seminar that you can take. It seems to me that, in the real estate business anyway, negotiation is a fairly simple process that needs to be focused on creating an acceptable outcome for all - you know, win-win.

I imagine someone is going to leave a comment telling me that I’m just not a good negotiator, but I don’t think that’s the case. In the age of transparency, negotiation isn’t about getting-over, it’s about getting to an acceptable end.

Our job as “agents” is to represent the best interests of the principals for whom we work (our buyers and sellers). And rarely (never) is it in their best interest to beat-down the party on the other end of their transaction. What is in their best interest is buying or selling their property, in the right time frame, for the right price, with the right amount of exposure.

A successful negotiation is about finding the common ground.It’s about aligning the objectives of the buyer and the seller. In a successful negotiation there is no loser, there are two parties working together towards a common goal. The negotiation is defining that goal.

Problems arise in negotiations when we lose sight of our objectives, when we let our ego get involved. When the negotiation becomes about “extracting our pound of flesh” rather than getting to the end we had set-out for.

We don’t have to be friends with everyone involved in a negotiation, but we do need to be respectful - respectful of their position, of their vantage point, of their objectives. And we need to be willing to exchange enough information to discover where the common ground is, so that we can figure out how to get there.

Too many people in this business liken negotiating to a poker game. The problem is that a poker game has a loser. In fact, it has several losers. And unless you’re willing to become one of those losers, you really shouldn’t play.

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I was talking with an agent this morning who said that he tells clients that if they don’t have a friend with a real estate license then they probably don’t have any friends!

Reminded me of the time I got pulled over and the cop asked me for my registration, proof of insurance and my real estate license. I said to him, “Don’t you mean my driver’s license?” To which he replied, “No, not everyone’s got a driver’s license…”

Maybe that’s only funny to me.

Actually, it brings up one of the real positives to come out of this market - fewer realtors. And better representation for the buyers and sellers.  

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