loan approval: Woulda Coulda Shoulda Can Drive you Nuts! - 05/19/09 07:48 AM
Don't we all ask about the Woulda Coulda Shoulda every once in a while?
If I woulda taken this short cut, I coulda saved a couple of minutes...
If I coulda met with the buyer on this day instead of that day, they shoulda gotten an offer accepted...
If I coulda talked with this person, I woulda saved a lot of time and energy...
If I woulda locked in my rate on this day, I coulda saved so much over the life of the loan...
Every situation has a Woulda Coulda Shoulda, but you can't live your life always thinking back.
(17 comments)

loan approval: You Can't Help them All... But some you can! - 05/18/09 08:27 AM
I met with some nice people Sunday afternoon.  They were foreclosed on about 2 weeks ago.  The problem?  They were never once late on their mortgage payment!
What?  They made their mortgage payments on time every month?  YES, they did...
The thing is, they fell upon some hard times a few months back and missed paying their property taxes.  The lender decided to pay their taxes for them, and instate an escrow account. 
The problem this time?  The home owners didn't get the notice that they were to pay an escrow until the bank already noted them as 6 months behind … (17 comments)

loan approval: Dallas Real Estate - Appraiser on the Watch List - 08/12/06 01:48 PM
It seems as though I'm not "allowed" to have a smooth transaction.  I posted a few days ago about a situation where the buyer wants to meet the seller for a final walk through before closing.  Boy did this almost blow up this week.
So, the lender had 4 appraisers take a look at the house, and we let the listing agent and her sellers pick the final appaiser.  Even the highest appraisal was $10k below our sales price.  After 3 days of bickering on both sides, the sales price was lowered to the appraised amount and closing costs were reduced.
We put … (5 comments)

loan approval: Buyers and Sellers go Full Circle - 08/12/06 01:42 PM
I represented these Sellers.  We get to closing 6 days late because the buyer's loan all of a sudden was not in a clear to close mode like we were all told.  That was actually ok, because my sellers were buying a new home and we hadn't received the CO yet, which actually came through around 5 pm on Wednesday.  We kept pushing and pushing for the buyers mortgage people to do their job, but were also pushing for the city to do their job simultaneously...
So, finally on Thursday morning, it's 8:15 and the title company opens early for us so … (0 comments)

loan approval: Dallas Real Estate - Rain Finally Arrived! - 08/12/06 01:31 PM
The Country had the second hottest July on record, behind 1936.  I think Dallas having one of it's hottest summers ever, but definitely doesn't beat 1980 or 1998.  We've had about 20 days over 100 degrees, and even though people think Dallas is hot, that's actually unusual.
But then, this morning, I woke up to rain!  I hadn't seen rain since the 4th of July weekend!!  It was weird because I wanted it to rain, but then I was telling the rain to go away because I had an appointment in an hour and I didn't want to take the magnets off my … (0 comments)

loan approval: Dallas Real Estate - Change your Locks after Closing - 08/10/06 10:37 AM
After you close on a house, you need to change your locks.  You don't actually have to change the actual lock as rekeying a lock is much cheaper, but you never know who has copies of the keys.  If the previous owners didn't change their locks, you could have people from years earlier that still have keys.  That's so dangerous!
There have been many times when I've gone to pick up keys for the buyers and the sellers are like, there are only 3 keys there, but I know I had 4 so I'll get that to you when I find it.  … (2 comments)

loan approval: Dallas Real Estate- High Rises Missing a Floor - 08/10/06 09:45 AM
This is hilarious... did you know that some developers omit the 13th floor of a high rise building??  I had never heard of this before.  There's a new condo conversation going on in Dallas and instead of having a 13th floor for residences, they are putting the pool and workout equipment there to top off the building.
Many builders are afraid that people on the 13th floor would never have the resale value of people on other floors and it would hinder sales completely. What's weird is I know many people where 13 is their lucky number.  My brother's birthday is on … (7 comments)

loan approval: Dallas Real Estate - Mixed-Use Community - 08/10/06 09:35 AM
It seems as though mixed-use communities are sprouting up all over the place.  The developers have this plan to make suburban areas more like urban areas so people who move to the suburbs reluctantly can still have the city feel.  It's happening all over Dallas and now they're sprouting one in Ft. Worth called Montera.
They're going to start with apartments and build houses and retail from there.  I always get frustrated when I hear they're going to build apartments as part of communities like these.  The communities should be mixed like this for the convenience of home owners who are going … (0 comments)

loan approval: Dallas Real Estate- July had 10% Drop - 08/09/06 03:53 AM
My seller's are constantly wondering why the showings have slowed down or why there aren't any showings period.  In July, there was a 10% drop in home sales which followed a 5% drop in June. 
We currently have 47,391 listings on the market which is about 8% higher than last year!!  WOW!  My view of that is that our market is basically still holding steady.  At the beginning of the year, there were about 46,000 which is not that large of a change.  I recently heard that the Phoenix market went from about 3400 listings in Jan '05 to about 46,000 … (0 comments)

loan approval: Dallas Real Estate- Specific Performance - 08/08/06 12:54 AM
Within an executed contract, the seller has agreed to sell their home, with no way out of the contract.  That's called Specific Performance, as they must perform their end.  However, the buyer has a way out almost every time as you can just claim something about financing.  Or if they default, the earnest money would revert to the seller.  Buyer can always back out, seller cannot.
I'm in a situation right now where we're having appraisal issues, and the seller is wanting to terminate the contract so an appraisal is not stuck on their house, so they can still turn around and … (2 comments)

loan approval: Dallas Real Estate- Commuting to work - 08/04/06 01:24 AM
I just read about a contest going on in the North Texas area about trying to get people to car pool.  They estimated about 3 million people driving to and from work everyday and 9 out of 10 are driving alone.  The contest is at http://www.tryparkingit.com/.  "Only" 235,512 miles have been saved thus far.
My problem with this is though people care about the environment and people talk about trying to carpool, people don't and won't do this.  People in North Texas have pride in their cars and they want others seeing them driving their cars.  People can't see the prestige if … (0 comments)

loan approval: Dallas Real Estate- Seller's Closing Costs - 08/03/06 11:37 AM
It amazes me how many sellers think they can just get a contract on their house, show up to closing, and get the amount of the sales price at closing.  Many sellers don't understand that they have their own closing costs, just like a buyer.
Sellers don't just pay a commission to sell their house.  Sellers also have to credit the buyer the taxes on the property from Jan 1 through the day of closing.  When towards the beginning of the year, this number is small.  Towards the end of the year, this number gets bigger and bigger. Also, you will be buying a … (0 comments)

loan approval: Dallas Real Estate- ASP- Accredited Staging Professional - 08/02/06 12:05 PM
I got my ASP today!  I am now a certified ASP REALTOR®.  The ASP is an Accredited Staging Professional.
Staging is NOT decorating!  Staging is de-personalizing.  Staging is getting a house ready to sell faster and for higher dollar.  A staged home makes all the difference in the world.
For our final exam, we hit a house in Plano and we tore it apart and then put it back together.  It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun!  We had strict rules about not putting any furniture in the garage, so we were basically forced to use everything in the house, … (1 comments)

loan approval: Yesterday's National Night Out - 08/02/06 12:10 AM
National Night Out was fun in my neighborhood.  There was a live band, a jump house, and some other air blown slide thing for the kids.  I definitely think we had enough people to keep you Crime Watch signs up for another year.  You have to have something like 40% of the neighborhood show up and sign in for that recognition.
The police stopped by and talked with the kids.  Even the firemen stopped by with their firetruck so the kids could climb up and into the truck.
We collected  alot of canned goods as well.
The hit of the party was my "Donna … (0 comments)

loan approval: Big Dallas Business Cutting Jobs- EDS - 08/01/06 12:03 PM
Plano based EDS announced that they will be cutting anywhere from 3000-4000 jobs, globally, in the second half of the year.  IKES!!  Collin County is already seeing high foreclosure rates and this does not look good.  I imagine many of those people will have problems finding comparable jobs and then I get the calls from friends asking me to help their friends/ co-workers through a short sale...
I say, reduce the salary of many of the executives at most corportate companies, and layoffs would not be necesary in that type of abundance.  Execs typically make such gross numbers, it's disgusting.  Share the wealth!
 
(1 comments)

loan approval: Texas Schools Unacceptable - 08/01/06 11:56 AM
This is ridiculous!!  Last year, there were 264 schools that were ranked as unacceptable and this year, that number jumped up to 321!  How does this happen?  What's funny (not really) is all the schools that cheated on their TAKS Tests (standardized tests) didn't help much as most of those are still unacceptable.
Granted, we had a huge jump in enrollment due to Hurricane Katrina and those students were probably on different levels which made it hard for many of them to catch up.
On the good side is that the number of exemplary schools were on the rise too... but just like … (0 comments)

loan approval: Dallas County in Heat Emergency? - 08/01/06 01:15 AM
The Dallas County officaials are thinking about declaring a heat emergency. There are now 8 heat related deaths across the county as even the night time temperatures are staying above 80 degrees.
The news keeps reflecting back to the summer of 1980 as the hottest summer with 69 days over 100 degrees, but I keep reflecting back to the summer of 1998 when there were over 50 days over 100 degrees, and I had juts graduated college and I was having to go on interviews in a full suit and pantyhose and boy was it hot.  I didn't live here in 1980, … (1 comments)

loan approval: FBI Investigates Dallas Independent School District - 07/31/06 11:26 AM
Like it's not enough that Texas is getting a bad rap about all the cheating on the standardized tests, but now the FBI has come to town to investigate DISD and their credit card use.  About a month ago, DISD found out that some of their employees were using the district credit cards for personal use.  We're not just talking about a lunch here or a dinner there.  We're talking about big purchases!  $6Million in big purchases that were in violation of the use!!  That's $6M in just one year!!
Look at the tax dollars at work.  All I can say in … (3 comments)

loan approval: Texas Registration Tags Change - 07/31/06 11:17 AM
This past year, many people griped and moaned about the new registration tags for our cars.  They're were much bigger than the previous years and they had this awful, cloudy, almost clear boarder with the Texas Flag in the middle...  It was huge and it obstructs some view out the front window.
So, with enough people saying how ugly it was and the cloudy boarder looking bad, they changed it.  You would think that was a good thing, BUT, they changed it so the border is now blue instead of cloudy and there's no flagged background, it;s white.  There is a tiny … (0 comments)

loan approval: Dallas Real Estate- CSS bought eHomeshowings.com - 07/28/06 06:37 AM
It was announced yesterday that eHomeshowings.com has been bought by CSS, Centralized Showing Services.  It was inevitable.  EHS was never as big as CSS.  I used CSS when I was with a previous broker, so when I had to sign up with EHS, a much smaller company, I was disappointed.  I love being able to call one number to schedule all my appointments, and I get a little irritated when I have to call multiple numbers.  Well, to be signed up myself with EHS, I was making sure all other agents always had to call at least 2 numbers if scheduling … (5 comments)

 
Donna Harris, Realtor,Mediator,Ombudsman,Property Tax Arbitrator (Donna Homes, powered by JPAR - TexasRealEstateMediationServices.com)

Donna Harris

Realtor,Mediator,Ombudsman,Property Tax Arbitrator

Austin, TX

More about me…

Donna Homes, powered by JPAR - TexasRealEstateMediationServices.com

Address: 5113 Southwest Pkwy #140, Austin, TX, 78735

Office: (512) 592-7127



This blog is to help educate Buyers, Sellers and even other Realtors across the country.  Each market is different and the way Real Estate is done is different.  Austin Real Estate is completely different than Dallas, California and Florida and everywhere else in between.  Some times there will be other things besides real estate as I like to rant and rave as much as the next!!  Come back often!


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