Looking forward to a Complete Collapse of the Housing Market? Are you serious? - 01/24/08 09:30 PM
I almost hit the center median while driving home on I-75 tonight.  It's a couple of hours later and I am still in disbelief at what I heard.  As Sophia on the Golden Girls would begin, "Picture it.  Dallas.  2008.  A skilled REALTOR who blogs frequently and has a lot of opinions is driving home at the end of the day listening to local public radio station.  On the nationally aired show Marketplace he hears a real estate story...
The story I heard was about people trying to decide whether to list their homes for sale in a market with lots of inventory … (13 comments)

Dallas area Foreclosure Postings on the Rise - 01/23/08 11:29 AM
I try to look for and emphasize the good news in the real estate market... and there is a lot of good news out there.  Interest rates are low, buyers seem to be interested in buying again after what seemed to be a slow 4th quarter of 2007.  Well priced and well updated homes are in high demand in several areas of town, and inventory is still high enough that buyers have some good choices. 
But some numbers just are difficult to ignore!  Case in point, I was reading the newspaper last week and sadly was not entirely shocked to see a story … (0 comments)

Romance in the Rain - 01/22/08 12:46 PM
Sometimes all my blogging and commenting gets jumbled up in my mind and it leads to interesting thoughts... 
Most recently this occurred when I wrote a blog entry where I humorously suggested the possibility of adding personal physical statistics like you would find on a dating website to my business website since people looking for my help seem to be using the search term "Short Realtor" (http://activerain.com/blogsview/344614/How-tall-is-your) and then I later commented on Mario Zarantenello's blog posting on being a single REALTOR (http://activerain.com/blogsview/342911/SINGLE).  This got me thinking... has anyone on AR ever met someone through either their blog or blog responses and ended … (2 comments)

List your home with a REALTOR - the non-financial reasons. - 01/19/08 11:07 PM
I've been calling on For Sale By Owner's lately.  Not a very methodical effort on my part, but as I find them I call.  And I often get the same response that agents have heard a million times... "I am selling the house myself to save the commission."
So, I could pull out a bunch of statistics from NAR about how homes listed by REALTORS bring higher prices and even net higher returns AFTER the commission is subtracted from the purchase price, and that homes listed by REALTORS sell in significantly shorter periods of time on average, but what I believe is … (16 comments)

How tall is your REALTOR? - 01/19/08 11:53 AM
There are some days that I manage to find humor in silly things...
I should begin by specifying that my website has a web statistics feature that allows me to see how people found my website, and if they used a search engine, which keywords or search terms they used to find me.
One of the interesting search trends that I have seen lately is people finding my website using the term "Short Realtor".  Now I will admit, I am a Short Sale Specialist, so this is not so far fetched, but I remember thinking when I started seeing this in my … (20 comments)

Debt Forgiveness means Relief - 01/17/08 07:25 PM
On December 20, 2007, President Bush signed legislation that created a three-year window during which home owners will not be taxed on debt forgiven during refinancing or the sale of their home.  This is very significant for those homeowners considering a Short Sale.
Until the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief act of 2007 was signed into law, homeowners utilizing a Short Sale solution to sell their home for less than they owed on it received a 1099 Form from their lender in the amount of the debt forgiven by the lender as part of the Short Sale.  This often times created additional … (5 comments)

What goes up must come down - 01/16/08 09:57 PM
An article in today's newspaper confirms what many local Realtors have long been preaching... that Dallas area home prices are least likely of any nationally to see a decrease in home value.  Why is this?  Simple actually, because Dallas never saw the double digit home value increases that many other large cities saw in the first part of the decade, we are now not seeing the decreases that many other areas are experiencing.
For several years I was quite jealous of my Dad.  He's a Broker in South Florida and has been for nearly 30 years.  I have heard him talk about … (4 comments)

Creating Business Drama… where none exists. - 01/16/08 05:12 PM
I recently attended a talk by a university professor on how to avoid miscommunications and misunderstandings.  He went through many suggestions and examples on how to accomplish this, but one suggestion he made stood out among the rest to me: "Focus on what people say, not how they say it."
There have been times that I have been certain, based on how a message was delivered or on a poor choice of words, that someone's intent was malicious, rude, insulting or unprofessional, only to find out that it was none of those things, but just a perceived "tone of voice" or aggressive … (5 comments)

The need... for SPEED! - 01/14/08 11:56 PM
I will typically start my days with a few moments of reflection and introspection.  It helps focus me and gives me perspective for the day ahead.  Sometimes a part of this routine is searching for a quote on a topic I feel fits that day's agenda.  Today that theme was "speed" and I have been stuck on this quote all day long, so I thought that I would share it here:
"If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough."  (Mario Andretti, 1940 - )
I think that Mario may be onto something here, and not just because he's a great auto … (4 comments)

80 Days - Not bad! - 01/12/08 03:36 PM
I recently heard on the news that the average time it takes to sell a house in Dallas is 80 days and that the median price of homes has actually risen (very very slightly).  Compared to many other markets in the report, Dallas was near the low end of the DOM scale, only Denver was lower.  These are positive signs of the strength of the Dallas real estate market!  I hope that buyers and sellers take this news to heart the same way that they seem to take the doom and gloom national news so seriously.  Based on the market activity I have seen since the holidays I … (4 comments)

 
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Steve Shatsky - Dallas Real Estate & Short Sale Specialist (214)213-0340

Dallas, TX

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Prudential Texas Properties

Address: 8115 Preston Road, Suite 110, Dallas, TX, 75225

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