This is part of an email I got from my dear friend, Mary Creighton. We became friends almost fifty years ago as students at University of North Texas. She later married the Dean of the Texas Senate, Senator Tom Creighton.
Mary, on the other hand, has devoted her talents and entire career to public education.
I think Mary's report of going to the UNT Homecoming shows what former students can get out of going back to their college home every chance they get.
I went to UNT/Army game on Saturday in Denton. First football game I have attended in five years. It was a good game. Fun to see all the mean green fans and the West Point (Army) fans.
I had split ties with the game as my son Clayton and his wife were both graduates of West Point and Michelle and I were graduates of UNT. So I just yelled for everybody.
The band was great. The dancers and cheerleaders were awesome.
But the most impressive parts I found were the pre-ceremony honoring of veterans and recognizing some of the Ft. Hood people who helped those injured needlessly by that idiot. Also, at half-time, they had UNT ROTC students who were to complete their studies in December to be given their commission by the visiting general and superintendent of West Point. Very patriotic day.
I also had my son Lee in the crowd and he had just returned from Afghanistan so that was special to me.
Do you ever go to your school's homecomings? How about class reunions -- high school or college?
From the time I graduated from college until at least five years after completing graduate school, I was a banker. In fact, I drifted into being a real estate loan officer.
Carey Mayfield was an attorney as well as the president of the first bank I worked in. Within twenty minutes he taught me how to underwrite a real estate loan.
"Take the application, accumulate the stuff the bank examiners are going to insist on, then sit back, look the guy in the eye and ask him, 'Are you going to pay us back?' Watch his face carefully and listen to how he responds. If you believe him, make the loan. You don't need a loan committee's help."
I used that method for all of the years I made loans. And my delinquency ratio was a teeny bit on the positive side of zero.
Isn't it odd that had the lending industries insisted on the loan officers following the Mayfield Principal, chances are most of the bad stuff wouldn't have happened?
The zillion member Dallas men's chorus known as THE VOCAL MAJORITY is one of the city's prize possessions. They've been entertaining here for years. The Christmas Show 2009 at the Eisman Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson will be staged on December 3rd and 4th and on December 16th.
<<======Carol M. Smith, Praxis Real Estate Advisers, Atlanta.
This is my friend of at least thirty years, Carol M. Smith. She is a remarkable residential real estate marketeer, having worked for and understudied the great Charlie Williams (RIP), President of Dallas' Sales Street Group.
Williams and his marketing brainy staff specialized in turning around failed subdivisions for main-stream developers like Fox and Jacobs, for an example.
I was vice president of residential development for a Houston company, Columbia Communities, when I first met Charlie and Carol. And we met because Columbia desperately needed their services.
You see, we had begun a financially huge waterfront development in an area of the country we simply didn't understand. It looked to us like the market hated us.
So we were stuck with a big inventory that wasn't selling. We're talking about millions of dollars worth. What to do, and do fast! We got wind of Sales Street Group and its remarkable Charlie Williams and Carol Smith. We rolled the dice and retained them.
Within a few months. Sales Street Group's manager of our account, Carol Smith, had taught us how to turn our development from failure to success. And from that, we learned to keep Sales Street Group on retainer, so that our future developments could be assured of starting out successful.
Today, Carol lives and works out of Atlanta. Her firm is called Praxis Real Estate Advisers. And she has bailed so many condominium projects out of trouble throughout New York, Atlanta and Florida that her clients have given her the name -- CONDO CAROL, and it has stuck.
I'm passing this important source on to you. You're likely to be involved in or know of a residential real estate project that, if it hasn't already, stands a chance of crashing and burning. You'd do your clients a favor by retaining Condo Carol (Praxis Real Estate Advisers) to get it back on course. I might even come along to help.
By the way, Carol is a licensed broker in New York, Georgia and Florida.
Did Carol ask me to write this? Of course not, and I don't plan to tell her that I did.
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There's good news for two catagories of home buyers:
The $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit has been extended.
There's now a $6,500 tax credit for anyone who buys a home and who has lived in their crrent home for any five consecutive years of the past eight years.
The old version of the tax credit was set to expire at the end of November, and the old version did nothing to stimulate home owners who wanted to sell their current home and move-up to a more expensive one.
The new rule will also give additional incentive to those who wish to move to other parts of the country, perhaps for another job or for retirement. And then there are those who really want to downsize now that their children are no longer living at home.
At Bill Cherry, Realtors, we are happy to assist you in finding a home, whether you qualify for one of these new tax breaks or not. But with these incentives, it is an especially good time, in our opinion, to buy your first home, or to sell your existing home and move to another.
My friend has been in the mortgage banking business for many years. In fact, he's been president of this-and-that mortgage banking association.
Here's his latest story:
A young pastor accepted the call of one of the enduring longtime medium churches here in Dallas. And it's associated with one of the major denominations.
Of course his wife and children came with him.
Now after 21 months of searching the real estate market, they found the home that would suit their family just fine -- near the church, near the wife's employment, and a stone's throw from the church-affiliated school they picked for the children to attend.
So the plan was to apply for and get an 80% FHA home loan. You know the ones that have rates of less than 5.50% for thirty years; the ones that if you haven't owned a home in three years, the government will give you an $8,000 tax credit.
Well all was going fine until the underwriter was checking out the couple's employment. The pastor had come to Dallas several months before his wife and children were able to move.
So even with a down payment of 20%, $20,000 more in cash left over in their savings account, the loan was denied. You see, they wouldn't count the wife's income because she had only been employed in Dallas for twenty-one months. They wanted her to show a full two years.
Explain to me how making a home loan to this couple was anything more than a minimal risk.
Can't do it...
But this and countless other examples of government over-kill is why this economy is in shambles and why lenders are taking back homes by the thousands.
Does the National Association of Realtors have lobbyist? Do they ever lobby anything? Or is their job to collect dues and dream up and print little brochures that they can sell the membership to give to potential buyers and sellers?
LEARN WHY HOMES DON'T SELL ________________________________________
REMEMBER THOSE BIG ADS BRAGGING ABOUT THEIR SALES?
Many of those who ran the big braggadocios ads about their real estate sales expertise have evaporated into thin air.
THEY'RE GONE...OUT OF BUSINESS!
You see, in reality their real estate prowess was nothing more than their own aberration. Anybody could sell homes back then, for goodness sakes.
BUT EVEN THEN, THE MAJORITY NEVER SOLD MORE THAN 10 HOMES IN THEIR ENTIRE CAREERS!
Now it's time to go back to using Old Faithfuls when you need a Realtor.
I'VE SOLD THOUSANDS! BEEN AT IT FOR 45 YEARS! SO WHO DO YOU WANT TO REPRESENT YOU?
Hands down, the most HANDS ON Realtor serving Dallas. Our Comparative Market Analyses are both free and reliable. We usually sell our listings in just 45 days!
SO HERE'S HOW YOU CAN LEARN WHY HOMES DON'T SELL!
Call or email for our CD titled "A REALTOR'S SECRET WEAPONS!" It's free, there's no obligation, and I'm holding a copy for you. CALL 214 503-8563 OR EMAIL cherrysells@aol.com and merely leave your name and address with my assistant. No salesman will call you unless you specifically request it.
Since 1964. BILL CHERRY, REALTORS 9936 Windlake Circle, Dallas 75238 214 503-8563 FAX 214 666-9985
Biography selected by the editors of Marquis Publishing Co. for inclusion in the prestigious - WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA, WHO'S WHO IN BUSINESS AND FINANCE, & WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD and of course, WHO'S WHO IN U.S. REAL ESTATE.
"Local, competent and banker are three words that should not be used in the same sentence. Businesses, governments, and schools work best that are governed closest to home. Restoring local accountability to these entities upon which we depend would solve many of our national problems."
If you'll recall, Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, have pushed as one of the primary factors of staying right with God, the biblical requirement called tithing.
In the main, tithing is founded in the concept that everything we have was the result of a gift from God; therefore, we should give back at lt least 10% of it to the furthering of His work on earth.
Ministers, priests and rabbis take time at least once a year to remind their congregants that they need to be regular contributors, and that, while the church or synagogue will gladly take whatever amount the member chooses to give, in reality they expect you to tithe,
But here's the missing ingredient. For whatever the reason, church officials, in the main, have never pushed the concept that members should first try to do business with each other before they employ the services of those outside of the church's membership.
Supporting those with the same beliefs as yours has enormous merit, starting with that it builds the value of your membership in the church.
Years ago, my church needed to raise a sizable amount fast. Its big pipe organ had been seriously damaged by a Galveston hurricane. So, I took on the task of being the head of the committee that would raise the money as well as find the organ designer and builder.
The hardest part was going to be raising the money. While it had been in the past, the church was no longer one that had many wealthy members.
So I came up with an idea: For every piece of real estate my company sells that involve a member of the church or member of his family, we will contribute 10% over and above my personal contributions, to the church's organ fund.
By example, we got the other business owners and the insurance salesmen, car salesmen, doctors, etc., to agree to follow suit.
We raised the money in record time, and we even had sufficient funds left over to add an exciting rank of pipes known as trumpets en chamade (which I may have misspelled here).
The excitement this campaign brought to the church was electrifying, and the attendence reached dramatic new records.
Nevertheless, as soon as the organ was built and installed, the parish saw no reason to encourage the continuance of special tithe campaigns. Attendence went back to about where it had been and the church facilities resumed their aging and tired look because of lack of money.
Many churches find membership dropping, facilities wearing out, church member fellowship waining. I submit that programs like the one we used to raise funds for our new church organ can go a long way toward reversing those trends.
And it's the perfect place for Realtors to make a difference and be in sync with the Lord.
This is a place where the ins and outs of real estate and home ownership are discussed.
All in the light of my 45 Years as a licensed Texas Real Estate Broker.
I've represented several thousand clients. That experience can be yours, too, and it doesn't cost a dime more.
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This is part of an email I got from my dear friend, Mary Creighton. We became friends almost fifty years ago as students at University of North Texas. She later married the Dean of the Texas Senate, Senator Tom Creighton.
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