Local pundits want you to believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel for Atlanta real estate.  They cite statistics showing that the number of closings year over year has stopped declining for the first time in 18 months.

What's the real story?  Read about it here in my other blog about Alpharetta Real Estate:  Spin Doctors Give Atlanta Real Estate Data a Good Yank

PS:  pls let me know if you like my charts and graphs...i think they are pretty cool with flash technology.

Here is a crazy situation.  I was curious is anyone else has run across this and how they handled it.

Location:  Cumming , GA (suburb of atlanta)

My client the buyer purchases a house a year ago.  House had a finished basement.  Seller's disclosure says that any required permits have been obtained.

Last week, the doorbell rang.  It was the building inspector, who had been called by a nosy (and I'll add asinine) neighbor who had seen painters at the house.

Inspector explaines that they have to respond to all calls.  My client shows him the basement, which has clearly been finished for a while and is being very lived in.  Inspector then says he has to check to see if the proper permits were filed to finish the basement and if they were not that my client, the current owner, would be responsible for paying for the permit and that the inspectors would have to "open the walls and ceilings" to inspect the plumbing and electrical.  My client would then have the cost of repairing the walls, etc.

First of all:  Can the County do this after the fact?  Secondly, what sort of recourse does my client have against the previous owner if indeed the county does come in and do the "destruction inspection."

I like to play around with different widgets and recently stumbled on peel away ads...you may have seen them lurking in the corners of websites. They are a less annoying way of appealing to visitors.

I added one to my personal website, which is really just a sandbox to try things in, to see how they work and how easy they are to use. Check it out at http://www.kevinwarmath.com/. The idea is to drive traffic to my blog, which is on my main real estate website.

Reply back to this post and tell me what you think...is this appealing to you. If you want to try it yourself, goto http://www.easypeelads.com/ and buy and download. I can help with the install if you need it. The software is $37 and my humble opinion is that it would cost you 3x that or more to figure out how to do all this on your own...money well spent.

I subscribed recently to FSBO Trac.  That was a mistake.  I signed up for the 3 month subscription for about $100.  The software to manage the contacts looked pretty good and i was looking for a service to supply me with fsbo data. 

The software and the data turned out to be pretty lousy...I'm being polite.  I contacted the company a couple of days later after I'd really given the product a try to see if they would refund my money, but of course, they wouldn't.  What a terrible customer service policy.

Beside the fact that the software is pretty marginal, the data is the real problem.  You must select the data by area code, which is just way too broad of a selection criteria in a place like metro atlanta.  You'd maybe get one or two leads that were anywhere near you and the rest would be all over tarnation.

Anyway, it was only a $100; I just wanted to save the rest of you the expense.  Try other products; only try ones that offer a free trial period.  DO NOT use FSBO Trac.  I'm not just bitter here.  I know a thing or two about software and this stuff was junk.  They couldn't even get all the typos out of it.

Happy prospecting.

k.

I see posts regularly asking if blogging has resulted in leads or closed business.  Well, i had an interesting blog related experience three days ago that i feel compelled to share so that others see the value in blogging.

I showed a house to a client; it wasn't a planned showing.  We just happened to be in the neighborhood looking at another house and saw this one, so we went in.  It turned out my client didn't like the house...no big deal.

Later that night I got a call from the listing agent asking for feedback.  I told her that it wasn't the house for my client and she explained that the seller was motivated and moving "out west" and had called her that day and said "move my house."   The listing agent encouraged me to bring another buyer.  I robotically said "I'll do my best." because she seemed like a nice lady.

Then i got to thinking.  I had blogged another listing i had see a couple of weeks ago; why not blog this listing and see what happens.  I'm still wondering about the value of blogging specific listings and would be interested in other agents' experience with that sort of thing.

Anyway, i posted a short entry on my blog (you can take a look here).  Two pictures and four short paragraphs.  That was about 9PM the other night.

At 10AM the next day, my phone rings and a young woman on the other end says: "My girlfriend who knows I'm looking for a house just emailed me a link to a house on your blog and said i needed to call you."

I laughed OUT LOUD and explained to the caller that (1) i can't believe that people actually read my posts, (2) that they are actually useful and (3) that she actually called.

I showed her the house that afternoon.  She may or may not make an offer on that one, but I have a new client for my blogging trouble.

Lisa Dunn wrote earlier this week in AR that things were different on "her planet".  She was closing a lot of businees and was a little chagrined at all the negativity in the general media.

I appreciated this little pep talk from Lisa.  All the "woe is me" water cooler talk can take its toll.  Pragmatism and fundamental business practices are the call of the day...my business is ticking right along. 

I still maintain that good houses, priced right in this market can and do sell.  To prove this, my most recent listing went under contract in 9 days.  Now I do have a couple that aren't selling as fast, but then I didn't go to such lengths to price them exactly right.

One of my clients in one of the homes that has not sold yet would really like to move and, out of the blue, she called a moving company the other day.  Perhaps wishful thinking, but what she reported to me is that the moving company says they are busier than thay have been for a while.

This isn't something that you read in the paper, but it does tell me the sky is not falling - at least in Atlanta.

k.

Stumbled upon mybloglog.com while reading the most recent Carnival of Real Estate.  I signed up, but notice that it is only a three day trial and then $25/year.  Three days isn't that long to evaluate, so i thought that I'd bounce it off the AR community and see what the experience of others has been and if there are competing services that might rival or be better than mybloglog.  I have to say, that the first impression i got from mybloglog was positive.

thx, k.

There are a few realtors in town who run these "guaranteed home sales" campaigns.  I'm confident that i'll sell a client's house, but don't necessarily want to buy it if it doesn't sell for some reason ;->

What is the catch with this program?  I know that the fine print reads "at and acceptable price."  This sort of program has to be more than a gimmick, right? 

Anyone familiar with the program, I'd appreciate any insights.  The marketing proposition is very attractive to prospective sellers, as you can imagine.

thx, k.

Tenants are getting kicked out of houses in the Atlanta market not because they aren't paying their rent, but because the landlords are not paying the mortgage.  I've seen it over and over again in the last 5-6 months.

With interest rates going up many landlords are being squeezed on their payments and ultimately losing the house.  Some landlords/investors are losing multiple houses.

Not only are the landlords getting squeezed by higher mortgage payments but also by shrinking rents, particularly for Section 8 rents.  In the last year, the local housing authorities have actually REDUCED what they will pay for rent.  The fair market rents have also decreased; a year or two ago, i used to be pretty easy to rent a 3-4 bedroom house in Decatur, GA for $1000-$1200.  Today, the vast majority of propsective tenants i talk to say they are willing to pay $800-$900.

I'm curious to know what other people are seeing in their markets.   

I take all my own photos when listing a house.  I have a 28mm-50mm zoom lens on my digital camera, but it is still hard to get decent shots of smaller rooms with the 28mm lens.  I recently compared photos i'd taken of a house with those of another agent and hers were better because i think she was using an 18mm lens. 

What equipment/lens are you all using?  I've always thought that an 18mm lens would fisheye and distort, but maybe that is what i need to be using.

thx, k.

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