The Power of Rain Referrals - 06/26/08 10:45 PM
OK, folks.  Pay attention and see how being connected helps and, thanks to Active Rain, helps a lot.....
Diane Olsen, a good Realtoy buddy of mine and a somewhat dormant Active Rainer, referred me to a great client who wanted to sell his house in MD and move into a condo in DC. Normally, this would have been a double fantastic referral but I'm not licensed in DC (which I will expand upon in another post).
Since I've been reading Active Rain posts, I knew that Pat Kennedy was a DC Realtor Extraordinarie.  So I get Pat on the phone and … (25 comments)

Is the Mainstream Media Talking UP the Housing Market? - 06/24/08 06:36 AM
Every now and then I goof off a little and tune into CNBC to watch a little bt of what's going on in the world of money...or, at least, the financial markets.  For the longest time. Diane Olick of CNBC has been talking down the housing market. If you wanted to get depressed in a hurry she was the one to turn to.
NOW....she is actually on the air "putting things in perspective".  Can you imagine?  She's not the only one.  I've seen little tid bits here and there where the mainstream media is asking their hired guns (i.e., the experts … (3 comments)

Sentrilock vs the Old Computer - 06/23/08 07:40 PM
In a previous post, I wrote about how I bought the new Sentrilock card and card reader so I could easily access the new fangled lockboxes in the surronding Counties/Associations.  You see, everyone around us has already made the switch from Supra to Sentrilock and we're not due to complete the change until December.
Unfortunately, my computer - a real geezer in computer years - would not install the utility properly so my poor computer would not read the card in order to update it from time to time as required. Sentrilock tech support, while helpful, was unsuccessful in helping me … (3 comments)

And you thought the SafeMLS was a pain - 06/22/08 08:58 PM
OK. I admit it!  I have an older computer.  Can you believe it only has a 30GB hard drive -- in a day and age when 200+++ hard drives are the norm.  About 1 GB of RAM wehn 3GB is the minimum to run Vista and Office together?
So anyway, my local Association is getting ready to mutate, er, I mean migrate over to Sentriolock from Supra.  A lot of other Associations in the neighborhood have already done this but mine is waiting for the Supra contract to expire.
Long story short, I went and bought the new Sentrilock card and … (7 comments)

Is a Million the new $200,000 - 06/18/08 04:25 PM
Let me know if I'm missing something here....
I have this nice listing in a great location in Bethesda (OK, not perfect, but still very nice) that's selling for a tad over a million bucks.  Ther's a sign in the yard as there are on other million plus homes in the area. It's listed in the MLS.
I get a call today from someone riding through the neighborhood asking me about the house.  The caller comes right to the point:  " How much?"  I'm not one to try to "convert" every call I get especially if the caller doesn't really sound … (12 comments)

Why I Love My Showing Service - 06/17/08 05:49 AM
In this post by my DC area colleague, James Dwoning, he laments having to call Listing Agents to make appointments to show homes to his buyer clients.  In a nutshell, his biggest beef is that if or when a Listing Agent  calls him back it's so much later that it's, well, too late.
I use a showing service myself and I love it!  It relieves me of a lot of the hassle and it creates a huge benefit for both me and the Seller. And it's a pretty nice thing for the Buyer's Agent, too.
From the Buyer Agent side:
I … (7 comments)

Don't Suffer Through the "Short Sale" Process...These Homes Are Ready For YOU! - 06/14/08 07:08 PM
It's a little bit of a slow market and lots of buyers are looking at "short sales" as a way to buy a home cheaply. The challenge with that approach is that it takes the patience of Job to wade through the extremely long and convoluted process of getting the "third party approval" from the bank. These homes are "normal" sales with real people who can respond to your offer right away. If you're looking for a home and you don't want to wait until Thanksgiving or Christmas to get an answer from the bank....here are some to consider. … (1 comments)

From One End of the Spectrum to the Other - 06/14/08 06:49 PM
A month or so ago I was referred to a client from a Realtor colleague in Houston to sell the childhood home in College Park, MD.  I visited the house, spoke with the Persoal Rep. for the Estate and got the Listing Agreement with the house priced to sell.  Long story short, the offers came in, the Personal Rep picked one, we worked through to settlement and everyone -- Sellers, Buyers, Realtors -- were all happy campers.
Here's why, in retrospect, I think it happened like it did: the Seller had been messing around with the house for a year.  They … (2 comments)

Shhhhhh!.....Can you hear it? - 06/12/08 10:55 AM
I'm always surprised at some of the things people will provide in their feedback about a house they've visited. Some of the things are absolutely valid and even "fixable" by the Seller - things like paint or clutter or rooms that need more light.  Some things are absolutely beyond the control of the Seller and are still valid from the Buyer's point of view.  However, I wonder if people pick out and "intangible" so they don't have to like the house.
I have a great listing in a great location for a reasonable price and it's in good condition.  In fact, … (6 comments)

Relocation Blues - 06/11/08 10:20 AM
Relocation is not my primary focus but when I get a referral from a great past client for someone moving into this area from elsewhere, I'm always glad to help.
However, the fun really starts when the buyer or "re-locater" is moving from a part of the country where prices are a tad bit lower than the beautiful MD Suburbs of DC. Even if the re-locater has done a little bit of research on the Web via Realtor.com or elsewhere they really don't know the area well enough to be fully prepared.
Of course, I always get at the top of … (2 comments)

Mixed Messages on Mortgages - 06/09/08 08:09 PM
Besides being appealingly alliterative the mixed mortgage messages coming out from loan officers and the Washington Post set my head to spinning and wondering what type of time warp we are in.
I recently received two e-mails from two separte loan officers working for two separate mortgage companies.  One of the e-mails, from Sean Agnew of National City Mortgage, informing me:
Effective June 1, 2008 Maryland Senate Bill 363 went into effect, basically eliminating all lenders from closing any Alt Doc loans (NINA, NO RATIO, STATED Loans) where income has not been documented to show the borrowers can afford the monthly … (3 comments)

Why is there an "Earnest Money" Deposit? - 06/09/08 07:38 PM
Although the "earnest money deposit" comes from the Buyer's funds it has important implications for both the Buyer and the Seller.
Typically, when an offer to purchase is prepared by a Buyer and his or her Realtor,  the Buyer will submit a check for an amount of money to be used as a deposit toward the purchase of the home. This "earnest money" does a couple of things. It shows the Seller that the Buyer is serious about their intention to buy the home - that they are "earnest" - and it acts as "consideration" - something of value - in … (0 comments)

Sorry, Mr. Buyer (or Realtor), you can't see the house in 5 minutes! - 06/08/08 04:14 PM
I have this nice listing in Bethesda, MD that, for some reason, has been getting a lot of activity even though it's not cheap and it's not a "short sale" or foreclosure.  It's a normal, plain vanilla home sale. The reson it is a little surprosing that it is getting so much activity is because the list on it is over a million bucks.
I realize that's everyday stuff for some people but it's also in a neighborhood where, how do I put this delicately, people respect other people's privacy. They don't go barging in or calling at all hours.  They … (9 comments)

Showing Our Own Listings - 06/08/08 02:15 PM
In this post by Pat Kennedy, she expounds on why it's important to sit down with Buyers prior to showing homes and generally running around.  Her reasons are sound and thoughtful and, best of all, they make sense.
Here's my question, though.  What about you're own listings?
Let's say you have a nice listing or ten and you're doing you're marketing and have the yard sign up and the house all over the Internet. Some potential buyer calls up and, after a few questions about the house, asks you to show it to him/her/them.  Of course, the first words out of … (12 comments)

Whatever Happened to Good Faith? Part 2 - 06/04/08 09:03 PM
In the previous episode, my Seller client has ratified a contract with a Buyer after one counter offer and we were on our way to the inspection phase when the Buyer's Agent called to say that the Buyer wanted to change the financial terms of the Contract.  Agreed upon terms -- $316,000 with $15,800 in closing help to the Buyer (modified from the original list of $299,900).  New terms: $300,000 with $7,200 in closing help to the Buyer.
All of this is verbal, of course.  The Buyer's Agent didn't bother to send over any paper at all.  Nonetheless, I knew that … (5 comments)

Whatever Happened to Good Faith? - 06/04/08 06:10 AM
Every now and then I actually get a little surprised at a new "tactic" or some new wrinkle in the real estate buying/selling process. Recently, I came across a a different way to "negotiate" terms to the benefit on the buyer client.
Here's the generally accepted method: The Buyer finds a house they like and can visualize themselves living in for the next several years. He consults with his Realtor about the structure of the offer: price, any Buyer closing costs they want the Seller to pay, a settlement date, any contingencies (such as a home inspection contingency) and so on.
… (8 comments)

Showing Temp. Off Market Homes....Pretty Please with a Cherry on top?? - 06/02/08 06:35 PM
In my previous post I was writing about how this new listing of mine seemed to be running into all kinds of problems before it started to get any showings. So, I put the listing into TempOff Status in MRIS because it was only going to be a couple of days before everything was right again and I could throw the switch to put into Active status.
Still, an industrious agent with an out-of-town client called me up to beg to see the house.  I could just see her, on bended knee, pleading "It's really important.  My client is only in … (6 comments)

It's a Go...No, Wait, Not Yet - 06/01/08 09:06 PM
I recently took a listing for a nice house.  I helped the Sellers buy the place five years ago and now they're on the move. 
We talked about what to do to prepare the house and I set up the virtual tour guy and an appraiser (the house is in an area with very little sale activity so I wanted to get it right).  So far. So good.
In fact, I was going to have both the appraiser and the virtual tour guy come out at the saem time. Kill two birds with one stone type of thing.  Then Murphy's Law … (3 comments)