I go to the gym right near the office, at Columbia Point.  There are no showers or changing rooms, no fitness experts hanging around, and no ‘beautiful people' showing off their perfect bodies.  Usually when I go, there are a couple older gentlemen and a young woman and one or two other people around.  One of the older guys always wears his khakis and a belt and a tucked-in polo shirt for his walk in the treadmill.  He always looks so formal!

On Wednesday it was a treadmill day for me.  I hopped onto the treadmill a couple down from Mr. Formal and set a course and began walking (2.3 % incline, 2.5 mph).  I closed my eyes for a second to relax and get into the walking groove.  I opened my eyes a moment later to find myself at the edge of the treadmill, just about to fall off!  Which I promptly did.

I inadvertantly yelled and everyone turned to look at me.  Because everyone was looking at me and I wanted to affect a sort of ‘I-meant-to-do-that' demeanor, I tried to get right back on the horse that threw me.  Except I forgot that it it was still on.

So, that's right, I fell AGAIN.

Mr. Formal calls out in a helpful tone, "You need to turn it OFF first."

My friends have asked me if I went ahead and worked out or if I slinked out in shame.  I am proud to report I didn't let that incident deter me from my workout ( I have 60 pounds to lose, afterall).

But I awoke the next morning feeling as if I'd been in a boxing match.  And lost.  I was extremely sore and bruised on my arms and legs.

So the lesson here is as follows - great gym, good pricing, helpful people.  Whether you make an absolute idiot of yourself is up to you!

First, a little about me.  I'm not a coffee drinker, so instead of stopping at Espresso World on the way into work for a carmelly-coffee thing, I run by McDonald's and get a large diet Coke with extra ice.  Our local McDonalds' offered an a la carte large soft drink for 89 cents.  With tax it became 96 cents.  This was ideal.  I would go through the drive-though, hand the cashier a dollar and ask them to put the four leftover cents in the charity drop.  Next window, the drink is in hand and I'm on my way. 

On Monday, the same day the Monopoly game kicked off (I do love the Monopoly game), they raised the price on an a la carte large drink to 99 cents.  So, now it's $1.07 with tax which means I have to hand over a dollar and a dime and there are only 3 cents leftover for the Ronald McDonald House.  What a pain!  Of course I can afford it, it's only 11 more cents.  But it's annoying to get a dollar and a dime and have the charity wait 100 more days for one more dollar. This is poor pricing, plain and simple.  I can't be the only one who feels this way.  I asked the cashier at McDonalds if this was nationwide move, or just Tri-Cities-wide.  She said she thought it was local.

How does this relate to real estate? The pricing of houses makes a ton of difference.  I'm a fan of pricing on the 5's or 0's ($180,000 or $185,000) myself, because of the double exposure it brings. But the extraordinary Ardell at Rain City Guide has a great point, too.

So, think about what's convenient for the consumer, and what's going to sell the product.  It might not look right on paper, but if it feels right to the customer, you'll eventually sell more, and at the end of the day, that's the job, isn't it?

I wrote a series of five posts about West Richland and a propsed LID.  They precede this in five separate posts.  West Richland is an interesting area because it's still kind of growing...finding its identity.  As a Realtor who serves this area, I like to chronicle some of the growing pains.  Mostly because it's fun to look back in a few years and say, "Wow!  Remember that?"

Thought I'd change the title ...

In the face of more opposition, they decided to do it anyway.  "They" being the CID, and the "opposition" being an additional 174 objections to the Belmont LID.  

Clearly, this is a more accurate assessment of how people feel.  If it really bothers someone, hopefully he or she has spoken up now.  In the meantime, the majority still rules...

Gee, this is getting a little like Rocky...

Anyway, the Tri-City Herald recently reported that the CID is going to take another look at the "if-we-don't-show-up-that-means-we're-in-favor-of-it" aspect of the LID vote.  I'm glad that all is not lost and that the little guy still can make a difference!

Do the folks at the Herald read this blog?  They finally reprinted the map I've been begging for!  You cannot see it in the online version of the story, which is a shame, but at least it's there in the actual paper.

It's affecting fewer people than I thought.  It looks some part of the LID is slated for future development.  And, if someone has never known a different way of watering their lawn, they're far less likely to complain, of course.

The next step is the angry citizenry approaching the city council on the 21st.  Yes, of course I'll keep everyone posted.

Saw this on the 12th.  Not happy about it.

At least we have a better idea of the true boundaries.  Now it makes sense that the Polo Club is affected, as it is in within the area mentioned in the article.

Maybe I'm spolied by the Internet and the nifty graphics that appear alongside most news stories.  But, again, shouldn't they have reprinted the official CID boundary list/map?

Another thing that is annoying about it, is that as a Realtor, I know CID is the most difficult to work with of the local irrigation districts.  They're not forthcoming with information, and that's annoying when a transaction is on the line and you need an answer now.

We've got us some angry homeowners...

May 10th's Tri-City Herald brought us this story...

And May 11th's story told us how the meeting turned out...

Here's a hint...not well!

The paper discusses the huge assessment assigned to Polo Club property owners (mostly 1 acre+ tracts), but the 10th's article places the eastern boundary of the irrigation district along S. Highland Blvd, which doesn't even come near the Polo Club.  I called CID, and I was told that S. Highlands is indeed the boundary, but some Polo Club homeowners would be affected.  I asked her how and she told me that the Tri-City Herald had published the boundary maps sometime back.  She didn't know when, but she knew they had been published.

Wouldn't the 10th have been a good day to reprint that boundary map?  Yeah, I thought so too.

I posted this on my regular non-AR blog back in January, but it's still true today...

 Aaaaaaargh! It happens every time. Every time a newspaper prints an article or television reports a story about the time to buy is NOW, because the market is IN THE TOILET and sellers are SCARED and can't compete with new builders and their DRASTIC DISCOUNTS, I am invariably called upon to write an offer significantly below asking price. Here's what's frustrating:

Our market is not in the toilet. Our market is healthy. We never experienced a bubble that by economic necessity needed to be popped (corrected). We've had steady growth over the past few years. Incremental increases have been the norm. But because some markets are experiencing a downturn, buyers assume everyone is, and therefore it's okay to offer less. In fact, if they don't offer less, they will miss the spectacular chance to have a story to tell their grandchildren ("I remember in the real estate glut of ‘07, I bought this estate for 10% less than asking price. I saw an opportunity to negotiate, and I took it!").

Here are just a couple problems with that way of thinking...

1) the sellers are now reading the same articles and are jumping on any offer that comes their way. No, no, no! Houses should be sold for the amount the market dictates. But when you get the media manipulating the market, that's bad news.

Real estate is local. USA Today is national. CNN and Fox are national. Mr. and Mrs. Smith's house is local. You can't take the information of the nation and apply it to your neighborhood. The market is not designed for that.

Nordstrom department stores began in the Northwest. Their first forays into other states began dismally. Why? The decor that absolutely worked in rainy Seattle, failed in sunny Southern California.

What's the old theater maxim, "But will it play in Peoria?" Just because the New York City environment (both the literal physical environment and the cultural, intellectual and moral environment) approves of it, it doesn't always work in every hamlet of the nation.

Look at fashion, too. I'm sorry, but anyone who wears those skinny jeans when their body is not similarly skinny, looks ridiculous. Just because someone else ‘looks great' and something is ‘all the rage on the runway' doesn't mean the average American should buy it.

2) the buyer misses the opportunity to buy the house of his or her dreams because they THINK it should cost less. Maybe they go down the block and find a desperate seller and DO pay want they think they should, but that doesn't change the fact that they're telling the story to the grandkids in the wrong house!

3) agents with negative attitudes hear this stuff, too and think, "Hmmm, we really must be going down the tubes. I better get out of this business" Wait. That's not a problem after all. But until they do get out of the business, they're telling buyers to ‘offer low' and the sellers to 'sell low', and that's not good representation.

I am not a Pollyanna. I have no misconceptions about this being a magical market where the sun always shines and home values never decrease. I do believe in the strength of the Tri-Cities economy and I am blessed to have a brokerage behind me that does, too. I know that over the last 10 years, our prices have steadily increased, and ours will not drop all of a sudden because people on both coasts are crying out in despair due to the poor state of their markets. 

Remember, your market is your market. It is as individual as the people who live there, the jobs they work and the homes in which they live. Be informed, but take all mass media in with a grain of salt.

I wish building a house, a custom home, was the easiest option.  However, as anyone who has built one or as the lender who has loaned on one or the realtor who has sold one, can tell you, it can be a mess.

Among the budget troubles and timeline challenges you can read about, there is just a ton of uncertainty involved. 

My least favorite aspect is the possibility of some serious lien issues arising.  When the buyer buys the lot, and then arranges for the contractor to build upon the lot, that buyer also owns the title to the land.  If they get mixed up with an ethics-challenged contractor, who dosn't pay his or her subs, then guess who gets stuck with the liens on the property?  The liens (which are essentially debts against the property) then prohibit the buyer from ever actually owning the house they've just built, because you cannot ‘close' on a home that has a cloud on the title (which is what the liens provide).

I'm not a negative person, as any reguilar reader of this blog knows, but that's the tough side of building a custom.  And I used to think the biggest headache would be getting the colors right!