Ok, so the dog that I found at my recent REO listing (read story in previous blog) was never claimed at Washoe County Regional Animal Services.  They have to make sure the owner has time to claim her.....why though I ask as there is no reason since she didn't have any food or water when I found her. 

I asked the director of the Nevada Humane Society (which is a no-kill shelter) to take the dog after she comes out of her redemption period. She agreed and will be brought over. 

Now I ask, who has room for this girl in their home? 

This dog might need a home, please contact me if you can adopt her!

Ok, so last Friday I get a new REO listing.  I asked my wife if should would come with me, and in exchange I will buy her lunch.  So after a nice lunch, we are off to investigate the occupancy status of my new REO. 

It amazes me on how to find your REO on any given street, just look for the dead grass with junk, that is usally a dead give away!  And, sure enough, when we pull up, it has dead grass and junk.  We go to the front door, looks vacant and viola there is a power termination notice on the front door and a fedex package from a bank, dated in August.  Front door is locked.  Hmmm, let's try the garage, and yes it is open.  So I go in.......into the kitchen, stuff on the counter, nothing in the fridge, a dog bed in family room, and then I look out the back door........and here is this......

 This dog is in the back yard!!!!!  Now I am thinking that someone lives here and getting a little scared.....there is dog food bag by the back door?  So I go up stairs and it is left in a mess but no signs of life other than this dog. 

I open the slider in the back (we do labrador rescue) to see if this one is friendly, and sure enough, she is super friendly!  No water though for her......no shelter......and no food!!!!  So we filled her four bowls and fed her. 

This is a mystery.....she isnt skinny????  Is someone coming by to feed her?

We decide to ask the neighbors......the next door ones....they have been gone for two months, once in a while a truck comes up.  Did you know there is a dog in the backyard?  Um yea when they first left it barked a lot....then got quieter......go across street, ask that neighbor....he knows nothing other than they left two months ago.....one more neighbor.....yea dont know.....we told them all to come get the dog otherwise I will have to get animal control out.  (This is a neighborhood I want to move to!!!!).

 In the morning I call the bank and see if it is ok to get animal control over to get the dog.  They got back to me and said yes.  I drove up hoping that these people came and got their dog.....I went to the side yard...looked....whistled.....nothing.....Fhew......then her head pops out of the hole!  Crap!!!!!

I call animal control and they sent over a unit.  We went and got her and placed her in the truck.   Our shelter here works with the humane society, and the humane society takes all the strays (they are a no kill shelter) but if the humane society is full, and there is no room at the county shelter, they kill em.  So I am not too happy, but I have 5 rescue dogs myself.....but I know it is better than being in this backyard with no food and water and with rain/snow blowing in.  The AC officer put a notice on the garage to call the shelter and I put a note for the mysterious random dog caregiver on where to get the dog. 

If no one claims this dog by October 22, then she can out for adoption.  She is a sweetheart, rolls over on her back to be pet, nudges your hand to be pet, and just wants some loving.  She is probably about 4-5 yrs old.  If you have a spot in your home for this girl please let me know!!!!!

Here are some new articles on Reno, one from the Economist and the other from Esquire:

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9867764

http://www.esquire.com/features/esquire-100/reno1007

This is from an email from my friend BJ Perez of Monarch Mortgage:

ok, you know its getting slow when the DirtyBird & Guapo are in the clients chairs pretending to be clients, and keep me company so I dont go nuts!   thought you'd get a kick out of this.  Dirtyman says he's fully trained now and can do loans... he's even going to contact Wells Fargo for his FHA approval :)

WELLS!

had a well test done on a piece of vacant land last week that has no electricity to the property.  The well company asked me certain questions such as is there a pump and box.  Well, I knew the answers to his questions, and I even requested a piece of equipment to do the test.  Can you imagine if this was an agent that didn't know anything about wells?  The well company would have then had to made two trips and they bill at $110/hr including drive time.  Their office is 35 mins away so that would have cost an extra $110! 

I

This is Larry the Water Guy coming to let me know what is up with the well!

Anyway, the well was really good, and Larry gave me all the details of the well, and being that I have knowledge of wells, I was able to explain it all to my customer! 

Well, the well quality test came back with an item that has failed.  Does that mean the end of the deal?  NO, I can explain it to the buyer so that the deal stays together!

If you are ever shopping for a horse property in Reno, NV or anywhere else where there is a well or septic, make sure that the agent has extensive experience in dealing with these properties or you could end up with a poor systems or all could be blown out of proportion over something minor....not to mention the money you will save!

The sign smasher has written a note:

Hi, Ken,

To answer your question; No, I wasn't going to call and tell you that I had smashed your sign.  I was planning on straightening it, and replacing it in it's proper place, along with the post, that I also targeted.

If I had noticed the sign was missing, I would have automatically assumed that some demented collector of mangled real estate signs had absconded with it. 

I have since made mental preparations to not run over that spot again, thus missing the real estate sign, and the post that I have replaced, but it seems that you weren't taking any chances that I might have a relapse, by moving the sign location to the other side of the driveway.  Ha, that won't help. Though I will attempt to avoid it in the future, I can't promise anything.

Sorry about that.

Sincerely,

The sign smasher

WARNING - If we can not raise enough money for the Adopt-A-Sign Program the Sign Smasher will be notified and will kill your expired sign!

PS-Sign Smasher - Please don't let the demented collector of mangled real estate signs see this pile at my house!

RIP In Memory of Signy the Sign killed by a steam roller 08/13/06

Yesterday I announced the Adopt-A-Sign-Program.  My wife on her way from home noticed one of my signs mangled in front of one of my listings.  I told her to bring it home.  I thought it was those teens again.  When the sign got home, I took it out for an investigation with the help of my neighbor Randy.  We both were practicing our forensic abilities, pretending we were on CSI Reno.  Upon further study we noticed the sign had been hit with a paintball as well.  Poor thing.  Our final conclusion was it was crumpled by a random teen. 

I decided to break the news to the Seller's, that their sign had been killed.  I call, Ms Seller answers. 

 "Ms. Seller, I have your sign, it has been killed....I am sorry"

She says, "Oh Mr. Seller ran over it with the big horse trailer, he took the corner too tight.  I guess he took out the fence post too!  He did this the other day!", she says laughingly. 

I think to myself, "when were you going to tell me?"

Instead, I reply "It's ok, accidents happen"  and they do, but it still the thought of there is another $30 expense!  Oh well, they are really great people, and the sign frame is now out in my bent frame pile, joining the 6 other casulties. 

 Stay Tuned for more Wild West Stories!

I work in a rural property setting on the outskirts of Reno, NV.  I mostly sell horse property, country property and vacant land.  Our distance to the metro area is 30-45 minute drive, and most homes are on 10 acre parcels. 

We often get "city" agents out here listing property at overpriced values.  They generally take on a 6 month listing and generally fill their brochure tube once.  The remainder of the time the tube sits empty, the wind knocks the sign over, or if they actually hammered the sign in, the sign will remain there, like a fossil engrained into the area that says, "I am Joe "City" Agent, I once listed a property out here that never sold."  On a side note it is funny how these same agents call me to show their buyers my listings or even how not one of them EVER shows up for inspections.  Guess 3% of the sales price just isn't enough for the 30 minute drive!

I watch these signs sit for months after the property has expired.  I take buyers around and the reaction I always get is, "Why is everything for sale out here?"  I then have to explain that the listing agents property has expired and there is no reason for them to get their sign.

There is no reason to get their sign, my guess is because, their broker paid for it, it is too far for them to drive 30 mins to get it and lastly, they are just plain LAZY! My agents have to buy their own signs for this very reason. 

Out of my efforts to preserve these areas where we have wild mustangs roam, I am starting a program, where other agents from around the country can "Adopt-An-Expired-Sign Program"  That's right folks, for only $50 a year, I will take your business card and attach it to an expired sign and you can sponsor this sign to help raise enough money to send the agent and/or broker enough gas money and motivation to come get their sign!  If no one sponsors a sign, I will be foreced to instruct teenage kids to take the sign to use as target practice out in the desert, obviously killing the sign. 

The morale of the story here is, if you aren't prepared to fully service a listing because it is too far, then do everyone a favor and refer the listing to someone who will, because it effects all of our reputation as professionals. 

THESE ARE BUYERS SWARMING OVER A NEW LISTING!

No not really.

So I was sitting on my porch last night (Sunday night) and watching my hummingbirds at the feeder on my front porch, felt more like a hornet's nest, and it reminded me of how the real estate market used to be.  Do you remember when you put a sign out on a house and got it on the MLS and there were 10 offers on the table in 24 hours?  Well, I do, and thanks to that swarming is why we are where we are now.  Not much action this weekend from any buyers. 

Some neat facts about these hummingbirds.  I am trying to identify them, either Rufus or Allen's.  Apparently they spend the Summer here in Northern Nevada and then hightail it south to Mexico for the Winter (not a bad idea?).  They need to eat every ten minutes, their heart beats 1200 times a minute.  They also remember every year where certain feeders are.  I guess this is why we are getting double the amount of visitors than last year?

Went to the big Reno, Hot August Nights, on Saturday evening.  This event is all about cars and culture of the 50's and 60's.  The youngest car you can enter is 1972.  I think they should up it to 1980 and mix it up more!  Anyway, they have show n' shines, cruising, and entertainment. 

BUYING A REO (Bank Real Estate Owned) PROPERTY CAN MAKE AN AGENT GO GREY! PART 2

So we go ahead and write the new offer for a couple grand less than what Big Bank countered, figured it would be fun to mess with them.  This time they responded within 24 hours.....they must have liked that I was getting close to their magical number?.....Of course with the same counter offer as the last one.  What I really like is how they do ttheir counter offers......the listing agent sends you a screen print of the Big Bank web portal.  We wouldn't want the big bank to have to actually come up with an actual written counter offer would we? 

Just a diversion here....but the big bank makes you take a class to be a good REO agent if you want to be a listing agent with them...COST $495......Getting Counter Offers on a web portal.....Priceless!

 Now looking at this blurry screen print of the counter (my buyer is now livid) the only thing that I can tell they agreed to was their magical sales price and of course AGAIN moved the COE another week past what we had asked for........must be corporate policy or there are chimps on the other side of the web portal working at the big bank?.....no one addressed the time for inspections (I need more time for well and septic) and who the heck is to pay the county transfer tax although it is in a window on the web portal that says those items need to be addressed.....

I feel bad for this other agent, she said this all they ever give her.  Wouldn't it be nice to get a counter offer in writing and not screenprints?  So she ends up emailing the big bank to ask them about the two things that we are still hung up on.......and I came up with the bright idea to have the buyers sign a counter offer as if it were really from big bank and submit it with just their magical price on it.  The other agent submitted it.  The big bank must have been on a bank holiday, because it took 48 hours to respond.

The response - Stay tuned to Part III