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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We had an interesting discussion around this video at our weekly office meeting this morning.

I am not a lead

I think I understand where they’re coming from. And I’m trying to reconcile their sentiments with a responsible business plan. Fact is, I need to grow my “database” and generate “leads” in order to build a successful business. But I hope I never make anyone feel like they’re just a number to me.

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In the past seven days, since I got my Lenovo X61 Tablet computer, I’ve gotten a listing agreement signed, written an offer to purchase, and received and countered an offer - all without generating a single piece of paper.

It’s easier than I could have imagined, thanks to VREO’s Real Estate Dashboard. And it’s not just faster, more secure and more economical - it’s fun.

 There was a concern that the clients would have an issue with it, but they haven’t blinked. It’s not even novel to them. The most meaningful comment was that it’s “just like Home Depot.”

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I’ve been living without a laptop computer for two months now, and I’m discovering just how much I need one. I know, in the grand scheme of things it’s not really one of the things I need. But my lifestyle, the way I live and certainly the way I work have been drastically altered without it. And it got me thinking about the other non-necessities that I never want to live without.

1. Starbucks/Peete’s - I know this will sound like sacrilege to some of you, but I don’t really favor one over the other. I’m even willing to try the occasional knock-off from time-to-time. (I have a post in my pocket about my experience at the new Saxby’s coffee in Antioch the other day - not good.) It’s not the coffee - I can brew that at home - it’s the ability to stop in on your way to work, or after a movie, or just for an afternoon break. It’s an excuse to take a five-minute diversion that these trendy coffee houses offer. And I like to do it.

By the way - I can’t imagine where we took these breaks before there was Starbucks? Maybe it’s why so many people used to smoke? Maybe it’s how all those people ended up at Denny’s after church? Maybe it’s the reason there’s not a decent donut shop in Brentwood?

2. Hi-Def Television - Yes, I watch too much TV. Well actually, as football season winds down, the writers’ strike moves on and LOST is still lost…I’m actually not watching as much as I used to. And while I can guarantee you that back in the late nineties while I was watching the Broncos win back-to-back Superbowls I never once thought to myself, “This picture sucks!” the evolution of HDTV has made a High-Def snob out of me.

3. Smartphones - I got my Treo 650 almost three years ago, and trust me I was reluctant to spend $200 on a phone. Like a lot of folks, I didn’t see the point - it seemed like overkill. But within six months, it began to seem ridiculous that anyone, especially in our business, would find themselves out of the office without their full contact list, their calendar and their email. In this day and age, communication has become much more than a phone call or a voice mail. Expectations for response times are immediate.

4. Satellite Radio - Have you got this in your car? You can drive for miles and listen to the same radio station without even a hint of static. There are low- or no-commercial channles, dozens of talk and information choices, comedy channels, kids channels, rock, hip-hop, showtunes…ok I’ve never put on the showtunes channel, but I know it’s there.

Great News! I just got an email indicating that my new laptop just shipped from the factory. That means in a couple of days I’ll be able to write these posts without having to kick the girls off of Webkinz.com first. I can write while taking a coffee break at Starbucks! Or from in front of the TV! I’ll be able to sync my phone with my computer again! Halleluja, my life will be back to normal!

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Just as every part of the Real Estate market is experiencing monumental change, there’s something very familiar going on in the background.

It’s true, the sub-prime fiasco we’ve experienced is unprecedented. And affordability rates are at all-time lows. Meanwhile, technology has changed the whole buying/selling experience. There are record defaults and foreclosures on the horizon, builders offering unheard-of incentives and bankruptcy rumors surround the country’s largest lenders.

We’re in uncharted waters for sure…or are we.

Sure, it’s different this time, but the bottom line is we’re experiencing another market cycle. Just keep one eye in the rear-view - we had a fierce, long-term seller’s market (’01-’05) followed by a bumpy, volatile transitional market (mid ‘05 - ‘06) and now we’re in the full-blown buyer’s market (’07 - ??).

How long is it going to last? Who’s to say? NAR just changed their prediction from ‘08 to ‘09. The Fannie May guy says 2010. I heard one analyst say that prices have to come down another ten percent. I guess that depends on where you’re at.

So what’s it all mean? 1. Don’t sell unless you have to and 2. Buy if you can - because it will transition again at some point, and you know what comes after that…

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Assuming the readers of this website are all my friends, I’m fairly comfortable posting (some of) my New Year’s resolutions in the public domain. Sure it’s a little risky, but there’s that accountability that comes with declaring our goals to people we care about.

A quick side note: My first paragraph of the year has already begged the question, Are you my friend? If so, please do me a couple of favors.

1. Subscribe to this blog, allowing us to stay in contact and providing me with the motivation to keep sharing.

2. Leave comments on your favorite posts. This is supposed to be interactive, back-and-forth, a community and so on. Please participate.

If you’re not a friend of mine yet, give me a call and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee - let’s get to know each other.

Back to the resolutions.

1. Shed those Holiday pounds. This has become an annual thing, as reliable as Mom’s spritz cookies at Christmas, or the homemade Fudge that my sister has now perfected. The good news is that by this point I know how to lose the weight almost as quickly as I put it on. I can usually get within spitting-distance of my goal before a new season of American Idol begins. The trick is maintaining those healthy habits. This year, I’m going to maintain a weight at or under 180lbs.

2. Blog regularly. That means about twice a week, save for any vacation time that I might take. How about 100 posts for 2008? Seems like a reasonable goal. The real purpose of these posts goes back to that friendship piece - what better way to keep you (my friends) up to speed with my life, my family and my business? How about YOU make a resolution to check-in regularly?

3. Create a whole new experience for people buying and selling real estate. We’ve all made quantitative goals around our business, and those are both positive and necessary. But this goal is different. 2008 is the year we go paperless! And it doesn’t end there. I’m talking about embedded video tours, viral internet marketing, constant web-based communication - the whole shootin’ match. I’ve got all the pieces coming together to create a convenient, secure, eco-friendly real estate transaction that takes advantage of today’s technology. Like everything else, better-faster-cheaper. I’m so excited about this one!

4. Be a better Husband, Father, Son, Uncle, Brother and Friend. Real Estate markets will ebb-and-flow, technology will continue to evolve, and some day 49ers may even be good again. But it’s our relationships and the lives we touch that really matter. So I’ll be working on that this year as well.

Go ahead, scroll down a bit, and leave one of your resolutions on my site…

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I can remember back in 2002 being implored by Mike Fanning, Windermere VP of Technology at the time, to invest in a digital camera. The idea was that as a modern real estate agent I would have the ability to snap digital photos of a listing for upload to the MLS or (this was really hot) a custom Windermere photo gallery.

It’s true. Just about five years ago not everyone had a digital camera, and not every listing on the MLS had a picture.

Then I can remember, a couple of years ago, standing in front of a group of Windermere agents imploring them to put away their digital cameras and hire a professional photographer. We had gotten to the point where a few snapshots weren’t enough. With the rate at which buyers were searching properties on the web, we had to make a great presentation on-line.

And then yesterday, at our last office meeting of the year, I handed down a new directive: embedded video.

Face it, you’re already there. How annoyed do you get anymore at a web page that requires you to actually read big blocks of text in order to get the information you’re looking for? (Like this one!) Video is the new killer app on the web. Why do you think those YouTube guys are gazillionaires? Read the rest of this entry »

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1. Everybody else wrote on it. You can find knowledgeable commentaries here, here, here and here. OK, that last one may be a bit over my head.

2. The federal funds rate is a short-term economic tool that the Federal Reserve uses to manipulate the money supply. The cut is intended to spur the economy on a macro level. It’s effects on the local real estate market are all indirect at best.

3. It’s boring. C’mon, this is a boring post.

4. The best plain-english article that I’ve read on what the action means to mortgage rates has already been written at CNBC.com. I could have plagiarized it, but that seemed like a lot of work at the time.

5. Maximizing the sale or purchase of your home has little to do with what the Fed Chairman says or does. Those market forces are all beyond our control. So let’s worry about the things we CAN control - marketing, merchandising and pricing strategies. Now those are topics I could talk about…

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It’s Monday evening, and as is often the case, I find myself doing whatever I’m doing with Monday Night Football on in the background. I’m not a fan of either of the teams that are playing, but it’s the NFL and it’s in high-def. Maybe when my wife gets off the phone with her cousin it’ll get switched to Grey’s Anatomy or something, but for now I’m getting a little football fix.

Ron Jaworski, a former quaterback and current analyst/commentator caught my attention with his evaluation of tonight’s quarterback play. He borrowed the old real estate axiom of “location, location, location” to describe how a successful passer delivers the ball to his receivers in a way that allows them to make a play, while limiting the risk of an interception.

Well, being a successful, licensed, full-time, professional football fan - I can tell you with certainty that there’s another element to becoming a successful quarterback that Jaws has just omitted from his analysis.

Completing a pass in the NFL is about putting the ball in the right location for sure, but any coach or player will tell you that just as critical is the timing of the pass. A ball has to be delivered right on time in order to have a chance to be caught. The game just moves too fast - even the slightest hesitation leads to a missed opportunity, or worse.

Jaworski’s mantra should be “location, location, timing.” Which sounds like something my Dad said recently about real estate.

Of course, the location of a property is the one critical element that can never be changed and has the most significant impact on its value. But the other element of a succesful real estate purchase has to do with timing. Making a mistake with regards to timing can be the “fly in the ointment” of an otherwise sound financial decision. And the risk isn’t just in possibly buying at the top (apologies to those who bought in late 2005), but also in not buying at or near the bottom.

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There’s a lot of excitement brewing around the investment opportunities that are becoming available in light of the ongoing foreclosures and REO auctions in the real estate market. But be careful how you play this game, there are as many scams out there as there are opportunities.

Ever hear those ads on AM radio that promise to teach you a simple no-money-down, no-experience-needed, magical method of becoming a real estate investor at a three-hour seminar? Or the newest one, the guy who says he can teach you how to fix-and-flip properties for big profits - just like he does on TV? (My four year old daughter has figured out that what she watches on TV isn’t real, so why does this guy think I’ll fall for that?)

A friend of mine shared an article in Money Magazine with me that seemed to expose one of these scams. The article is about a training program that teaches investors how to make money on foreclosures. Granted, foreclosure investing is a complex business and there’s plenty to learn, but the article makes this training sound like little more than lessons in cold calling. And while this journalist found plenty of folks putting out thousands of dollars for the course, he didn’t identify more than one succesful student of the program.

It’s just a reminder, there’s no free lunch. Foreclosure investing is a profitable business (one of my best friends does very well at it). And this market is going to provide tremendous values in the form of REO properties and bank foreclosure auctions. But like anything else, if there’s an investment opportunity that sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So before you write a check to some “Guru” to learn how to make money in this real estate market, talk to someone who’s actually doing it. And if they make it sound really hard, then they’re probably telling the truth.

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