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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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 listed Starbucks as one of my favorite things the other day, not because of the three-dollar cup of coffee, the line out-the-door, or the traffic jam that the drive-thru causes over at the Garin Ranch shopping center. I’m a fan of Starbucks, Peete’s, or any of the trendy-modern coffee shops because of the opportunity they provide to “get out” of the office or the house.

 So the other night, after a meeting at church, C and I stopped at the new Saxby’s Coffee in Antioch. The thought is, you get a cup of coffee for only a few bucks and you sit down and relax - it’s the alternative to going home, we don’t want to go out to eat at this hour, and we’re not really “bar” people.

You see, it’s all about the experience at these places.And Saxby’s has it dialed-in: big overstuffed leather couches, cool music and the Lakers and Bucks on the Plasma in Hi-Def (another one of my things!).

Well no sooner had I settled in to my Decaf-with-cream and a Kobe Bryant three pointer than the kid from behind the counter comes over to tell us that they were closing in two minutes and we’d have to leave.

Stunned, we got up, looked at each other and walked out of Saxby’s Coffee for the last time. (It was like 9:30.)

What I don’t think the two young people working there realized is that I wasn’t there for a cup of coffee. So for him to take my money and then ask me to leave was frustrating to say the least.

I work in a service business, so maybe I’m more sensitive to these things than others are. But the truth remains, if you sell a product(like a cup of coffe at the 7-11) you treat customers different than when you sell an experience (like a cup of coffee at a Starbucks).

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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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