I've learned an interesting lesson the last few weeks.

It's foolish to assume that you can control either side of the transaction, no matter what is at stake.  I imagine there are a lot of "well duh"'s out there after reading that sentence.  But I hope I'm not the only one that had to learn this the hard way.

Also... it seems some buyers think it's okay to simply look up the seller's number and start calling him/her directly, I mean, a lowly agent like myself cannot be trusted, it's best to go around me lol.

Some buyers think it's okay to just send people to check out the house the sellers still own and live in.... with no notice to the agent or the seller in any fashion.  You're doing dishes enjoying yourself one minute, and the next, someone's stomping around on your roof... ok...

Some buyers think it's okay to just come on over to the sellers house that they live in and own and go ahead and mow the lawn without permission or regard for general manners and basic respect or that little thing called "trespassing".

The list is quite endless actually, and some buyers apparently do ALL of these things.

What happened to common courtesy, a simple phone call to the agent, basic "requests", permission, etc.?

Some folks remind me that some things just don't have a price on them, the simple answer is "no". 

Even though showing the proper respect generally gets a quick "yes".

I guess some folks are above the rules and I cannot control that.

For additional details and a virtual tour, go to: www.4120kiowa.com

Tucked away on a quiet street, between Indian Hills and Alta Vista sits a beautiful home, on a huge lot, right across the street from Kiowa Park!
This house has been completely remodeled, including a new roof, a new stucco finish with new paint and already had excellent landscaping!
The inside has a remodeled kitchen, with sila stone counters, stainless steel appliances and a breakfast bar! The wood floors have been refinished, the rest of the house has new carpet. New fixtures have been installed everywhere, including overhead fans in the upstairs bedrooms!
This house looks new, take a look and see if it's your home...

This is an amazing mix of historical charm and modern amenities. This home is in the historic and sought after "tree area" of Laramie, Wyoming. This house has been completely remodeled, from the basement to the attic!
The main floor has Brazilian Walnut Floors, a fireplace, a huge kitchen with custom cabinetry and stainless steel appliances, and a huge pantry!
The master bedroom is huge and has a spiral staircase leading up to a large dressing room and master bath. The master bath has matching vanities, a 2-person jetted tub (with waterfall!) and plenty of space!
The basement has two additional bedrooms, a large family room and much more. Much of the wiring and plumbing are new, the furnace is only a year old!!

For details and a virtual tour, go to: www.3428altavista.com

In one of Laramie's finest neighborhoods, this home has approximately 3,229 square feet, with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms! Huge Lot, mature landscaping, a fireplace, and beautiful wood floors. A large patio off the dining room, plus a study with french doors, a large family room, a wet bar, and even a recreational room. And if you're still not satisfied, the basement is only partial, you can always dig out the crawl space if you run out of room!

I met with a seller today that has some very rare property.  Both are either mixed use or primarily commercial buildings with multiple uses...restaurant, retail, residential, mixed, bar, liquor store.

However, the seller is an artist, and quite an impressive one.  He and She have done so much to these properties that they have almost become works of art.  It reminded me of an artist near my home growing up, named "Starrkempf".  Mr. Starrkempf's yard was full of HUGE metal sculptures, loaded with ball bearings.  Mostly they were birds, and with the wind they would swivel and parts would twirl and so on.  Some of them were over 30 feet tall.  The interior of the home was just as artistic as the yard, which had perhaps 8 of these huge sculptures.

The seller today has this daliesque thing going on.  If you're NOT familiar with Salvadore Dali, he was a famous Spanish artist who designed his own home and the improvement (house) itself was a piece of art.

This seller's buildings were like this, pieces of art as much as pieces of real estate.  Now this man, nor his wife are not famous but that is not the whole issue.  For example, if I have an interior designer come in and pay them $50,000 to decorate a home, and then sell it furnished.... surely that creative addition of the decorator has a value all by itself.  So that is kind of how I was considering it.  The seller believes his buildings are worth about double what they would be by a comparative analysis.  And I am inclined to agree, there are NO comparables, not in this town. 

So, to my question:  Is there some place I might find comparables in OTHER cities like this?  Real Estate, be it residential, commercial, mixed use that has a premium on top for the creative genius and talent of the decorator.  Any ideas on how to price such a thing?  I was just looking for some experience so as not to re-invent the wheel as I've never dealt with any thing like this.  Please add what you can if it may help!

Any fellow economist agents here?  I've always wanted to incorporate MRA (Multiple Regression Analysis) into my CMAs, or at least my valuation studies.  Both for functional use of pricing and also for basic accuracy studies to see how well it might work.

However, I am in a non-disclosure state (sold prices are not disclosed) and of course the agents and appraisers have access to these sold prices but no outside 3rd party does.  This means we would have to create an MRA model manually, particular to our market and then manually add in data points.  Also, many of the data points would not be accounted for on the basic MLS data sheet. 

A good MRA model for real estate might have over 100 variables, including many dummy variables.  So hypothetically, one would have to go to each of these houses and check all these extra features out to create enough variables to make it accurate and give it a good p value, t value, or whatever test you are using to attain statistical viability.

Now to the question:  Does anyone here USE MRA?  If so, how?  How many variables?  Where do you get them?  Any ideas on how this could be successfully utilized for the purposes of pricing?  I ask that last one as I KNOW it has been used for economic studies.  For example, one of my professors when I was in school was working on a model for at least a year to try to build a model that valued trees.  I was always interested to read the results and find out where the point of diminishing returns happened (what number of trees per square foot).  And which trees were a liability on average, which were an asset and so on. 

This is just one example, but it reveals how interesting MRA could make a CMA and how much more in depth it could get.  Call me an egg head, call me a silly economist with a real estate license, or call me and tell me what I yearn to know:  How can one use MRA in real estate brokerage with limited data and especially in a non-disclosure state?

I simply wanted to hear feedback from agents on the issue of "agents who work expired listings".

I recently was in a discussion where the concept was nearly horrifying to an agent.  I said there was nothing wrong with it and he called me a "bottom feeder".  After I was done laughing, I asked him to back it up and explain what was wrong with this practice.  I also asked him to explain how it was wrong to comply with the NAR COE, he ignored all my valid questions and offered only redundant rhetoric that did not address any of my points.

I work in a small town, but always assumed this was quite common in big cities.  I work expireds sometimes, depending on the listing and my needs, etc.  And I can't even fathom the argument against it.  I wonder if these agents are aware of anti-trust laws and so forth.  To be against this idea of working expireds is to be against free trade & fair competition and in favor of monopolies.  That IS what we are talking about here.

Do agents realize that this whole issue in the COE is about avoiding monopoly and complying with anti-trust laws?  This is the same reason that an MLS would have trouble turning down any member that had complied with all requirements.  I've seen them try to do so and always wonder why they would even mess with something so dangerous.  I guess some folks are just afraid of competition.

Personally, this is how I see it:  The agent who already has the listing, most likely for 4-6 months really has a HUGE advantage.  They have the inside track, and have had perhaps 6 months to build a relationship, trust, and confidence from their seller.  If they are even doing half their job, a stranger agent really should be no threat at all.  And if a strange agent CAN come in after this period of time and establish more confidence in a five minute phone call than the previous agent did in 6 months, then we should look more closely at the first agent in my opinion for they must be doing something drastically wrong.

What do YOU think?

We're a crazy breed, we do things that no other profession would consider doing.

I was wondering who Real Estate agents have as heros, those people in your lives, or ones from the past that inspire you as Agents and as human beings, and WHY?

Mine are:

1/ Roald Amundsen, famous explorer, and first man to the South Pole.  I like Mr. Amundsen because he went against all odds and was competing against the most powerful nation (G.B.) at the time (about a hundred years ago) and they had all the advantages over him.  He also showed the power of humility in any quest.  Even though those British had all the advantages, their arrogance led to not only a loss, but actually a major tragedy (the final party of 5, led by Captain Scott all perished in Antarctica and are still buried in the ice there today).

2/ Nikola Tesla, I like that this man may be the most important inventor of the modern age, yet it appears due to Edison's efforts, no one really seems to know who he is.  Quite the creative Genius, he brought us many major inventions and many day-to-day things we take for granted, we owe a big thank you to Mr. Tesla.

3/ Bill Gates, who showed that business savvy is more important than brains.  He took a thing from Apple and made himself the richest man on the planet.  Perhaps the most successful business transaction in history.

4/ Sam Walton, who almost single-handedly switched all the power in Retail from the manufacturers to the Retailer (wal-mart).  Who redesigned the low cost business strategy and became the model to follow and schooled many European nations on GNP.

Now let's hear about yours?

I really want to incorporate floor plans into my online marketing.  Looking for an easy way to do this, perhaps an online service?  Specific software?  I've looked into a few softwares but since I'm new at this, I'd like to hear what others have to say.  Seems like a lot of work, but I do get a lot of internet requests for floor plans, so I'd like to make it a staple of my marketing, little help?

Thanks!

www.ravingrealestate.com

Looking for some help with video tours.  Other than youtube, and embedding tours from a youtube hosting of them, what other methods do you use?  What formats?  How big is TOO big for a video file on a web page?  How long do you think they should be.  Should it be a POV (point of view) video or do you think the REALTOR should be IN the shot, selling face to face the whole time. 

Any ideas from veterans or at least amateurs in this relatively new field very welcome.  Much appreciated!

www.ravingrealestate.com