Keep It Cool When Selling Your Home. An Ice Cold Beer is Also Good.

Here's a seller's dilemma, especially with a vacant home.  Do I save on energy and lower my carbon footprint and not run the AC very much  or do I keep it extra cool in order to impress potential buyers?

I've been showing a lot of homes recently, many of them have been vacant.  In the middle of summer, a home without air conditioning is really tough to stay in for more than a few minutes. What a relief it is to then step into a home that has the AC all the way down to 72 degrees.

Sometimes people go half way and keep it around 80 degrees.  Many buyers will think the worst case scenario and just assume the the AC is old and not working well.  Right away they begin thinking about how much it's going to cost to replace. 

If I'm selling a home in the summer, the first thing I would do is get my HVAC guy out there to make sure my AC is working really well.  You don't want an inspector to put any doubts into the buyer's head about the possibility that the AC unit is on it's last legs.  Get it in tip top shape and then keep it noticiably cold.  Make sure people notice how well it's working.

You also might want to keep some cold water in ther refrigerator with a note on the outside telling people to help themselves.  Shoot, while you're at it, welcome them to take an ice cold beer while they are there.  This will keep them in the house longer and make them feel at home.  They might then remember your home as the "beer home".  How cool is that?  Hopefully then when they are home and they crack open a beer while they are deciding on which home they might want to pursue, it will trigger the memories of your home.

Home Prices. Why I Think Atlanta is a Safe Bet

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  When I get asked about Atlanta real estate prices, I pull out this graph and let it speak for me.

Click on the image to see a large image.  It shows home prices in 20 metro areas from 2000-2008. 

Atlanta is the fourth line from the bottom.  It's one of the very flat lines.  What didn't go up much, probably won't fall much.

I used to envy the people I met from Miami. Their homes had appreciated so much.  Now I count my blessings that Atlanta got bypassed by the real estate bubble that is now being deflated in many areas across the US.

The $1000 Gamble to Turn on Utilities for a Foreclosure Home Inspection

I've been experiencing the joys of helping people try to buy foreclosure deals.  Having utilities on for inspections has never been a big deal.  I've never really had to bother too much about it.  The sellers just took care of it and I never really got involved.

This week I learned that when the power is turned off for an extended length of time, it can be complicated and costly to get the power back on in order to do an inspection. 

I'm seeing more and more bank foreclosures state upfront in their special addendum that they will not be responsible for getting utilities turned on in order for the buyer to do their inspections.  This week I had one where they also only allowed a 7 day inspection period along with not having the utilities on.  Of course, they will not allow any changes to their sacred special addendum.  You either find a way to deal with it or you move on.

Before moving forward with this deal, I tried to figure out if it was possible to get the utilities turned on and get the inspections done within a seven day time period. It was a real learning experience.

Electric companies will actually remove the electric meter at the house after a certain period after termination of service. 

• Before they will put it back and turn on the power, they need to have a county inspector give them the OK. 
• Before the county inspector will go inspect the meter post and give the utility the OK, someone has to pay a permit fee. 
• If you are not the owner of the property, you need to have a licensed electrician go to the county and pull a permit for you. 
• Since the electrician will be liable if the house burns down due to an electrical malfunction, the electrician will insist on doing a full electrical inspection.  
• In order to do an electrical inspection, they will need to bring a portable generator out to the house in order to test the wiring system.  Sounds expensive, doesn't it?

Of course, the electric company will charge a connection fee because they have to send someone out to install a new meter.  They also will need to run a credit check  on you to determine how much of a deposit they will require from you.  With bad credit, you might have to give then a $300 deposit in the form of a certified check.

All these costs add up very quickly.  It might cost $300 for the electrical inspection, $200 for the electrician to pull the permit, $75 for the actual permit fee, $40 for the electric company hook up fee.

All this just for the opportunity to do a regular inspection. There's a good chance that there will be a deal breaker of a problem that the bank will not even deal with.

The water isn't that complicated but there's a high probability that before the water will be turned on, any unpaid water bill will have to be paid by someone.  The home I checked this week had a unpaid water bill of $590.32.  This home happened to have some water stains in the ceiling below a bathroom.  Without the water being turned on, there's no way of telling whether the stains  were from active leaks or from some past accident that has been corrected. 

After spending the afternoon doing this detective work, my buyer decided to pass on the opportunity.  It's a shame because it looked like a great deal. It was a $280,000 home selling for $225,000.

When I Flip It Out, Clients Say Nice Things

I have a little tool that I have started to flip out when the occasion arises. 

Usually at the end of a closing, most people are very happy. They always say nice things to me.  Many times they say that they will definitely tell their friends about my services. I'm sure they mean well, but you know as well as I do that it's usually "out of sight, out of mind". 

Now when I get to that moment, I thank them for their kind words and then I ask them for a favor.  I ask them if they would be open to saying those nice words about me on a video that I can post on my website.  This way, instead of them telling only the people they know about me, they can actually be telling  the thousands of people who visit my website.  How can they say no?

While the time is right and everyone is in a happy mood, I just pull out my little Flip Camcorder and we're ready to roll.

The Flip Camcorder is the size of a pack of cigarettes so I can carry it in my pocket. It's like an instamatic camera.  You just point and shoot.  No focusing or fussing.  It records directly to the digital memory in the camera and then it's really easy to transfer it to a computer and get it uploaded it to YouTube.

It's probably not the best quality but it's good enough. It's perfect for testimonials.  I think spontaneous is better than a staged production.

I'm taking my Flip Cam to all of my closings from now on.  I have had two recent closings and both clients agreed to help me.  When I get about 5, I will put them in a prominent position on my website. 

I might start adding a special stip to my Buyer Agency Agreements stating that if they are happy with the transaction that they agree to do a video testimonial.  That might be an easy way to plant the seed early on.  It also will motivate me to do things that they will hopefully rave about on video.

With this little Flip Cam, you can capture compliments and expose them to the world.  A video testimonial is a gift that keeps giving. 

Peter Schiff Was Exactly Right With His Prediction a Year Ago

I always get a chuckle watching news shows and listening to these panels of "experts" predict what's going to happen in various markets in the future.

It's interesting once in a while to look back to see who was right and who was wrong.

I stumbled upon this video from about a year ago where they had a panel of pundits predicting what was going to happen to the housing market in 2007.

Peter Schiff, son of tax protester Irwin Schiff, predicted exactly what we are seeing today.  It was like he was able to go into the future and then go back in time to warn everyone of what he saw. 

I'm going to pay attention to this guy when I see him again.  The other guys were laughing at him like he was nuts. 

Countrywide's Latest Numbers Are Pretty Scary

At the beginning of the year, the big scare was the subprime mortgage meltdown.  But many people downplayed that and said it was just a small piece of the market.  But Countrywide just came out with their most recent numbers and the numbers are looking pretty bad.  Delinquencies for prime home-equity loans shot up dramatically from 1.77% to 4.56%. 

The reason isn't because of interest rate increases either.  They attribute it to people losing their jobs.  This seems strange since the stock market is making new highs.  If business is really as good as the stock market might indicate, I would think that they would be hiring, not firing. 

I pasted the main parts below that I thought were the most interesting.  I haven't seen these problems in my small part of the world yet.  I hope this is just a small blip and nothing that continues to get worse.

Countrywide said 4.56 percent of its prime home-equity loanswere delinquent at the end of the quarter, up from 1.77 percent in the year-ago period. Some 23.71 percent of its subprime loans were delinquent, up from 15.33 percent.

The company said the delinquencies were not due to borrowers struggling with mortgage interest rate resets, as many had expected.

Instead, the delinquencies have been largely due to people losing their jobs or similar factors, the company said. Those homeowners have been unable to refinance because the value on their home has fallen and the credit crunch has cut off other borrowing options.

"We are experiencing home price depreciation almost like never before, with the exception of the Great Depression."

Count to Ten Before You Respond to a "Spam" Email

I found this email exchange to be pretty funny this morning.  It reminded me of the old Saturday Night Live with Gilda Radner doing the  Emily Litella bit where she rants and raves about something and then finds out that it is a bogus issue and then quietly says "Never mind".

I'm part of a Ron Paul Meet Up group and we're all on an email group.  There are about a hundred emails that go back and forth throughout the day. 

This is the message that made me laugh this morning.

Nevermind, sorry.  This account belongs to my friend who apparently was using my computer and didn't log out.  I thought this was my email account since it's my computer.

I apologize.

Joel

On 7/20/07, John <j******@gmail.com> wrote:

Take me the f**k off this list.  I never subscribed and therefore can't unsubscribe on the link below.

To whoever is running this, I will take legal action for invasion of privacy if you don't discontinue this spamming sh*t immediately.

........................

Even if he got on this list by mistake, firing back with that kind of language and showing such a temper is pretty stupid.  There's probably over 100 people who got his email this morning.  They are all thinking that Joel is a real hot head.   Wouldn't it be funny if Joel was a minister or judge or something.  Mild mannered on the outside but ready to fight at the drop of an unsolicited email.

I tell my eight year old son that before he hits his sister, he should stop and count to ten.  Before you hit send, count to ten.

Instead of Repeating a Keyword Over and Over, Use Google Identified Synomyms

Do you want to know what Google considers a synonym for, real estate, homes, MLS, and other terms?  If you knew what Google thought were similar terms, you'd be able to write more natural copywhile being certain that Google knew what your site was about.  There are only so many times you can stuff real estate and homes into your copy before it really sounds awkward.

The simple technique is to use the tilde sign (~) before the word that you are searching.  Do a Google search for "~real estate" or you might also do "~real~estate".  I'm not certain if the tilde needs to be before each word for a phrase.  Just try out both and look at the results.

Notice all the terms that Google has in boldfaced type.  These are words and phases that Google thinks are highly related to the specific term that you searched for.  I don't know for certain, but I would think that it would be good to use as many of these terms as possible if you want your article to be considered relevant for that word.  It also might be good to create specific pages that focus on some of these terms.

Here are the things I found as Google synonyms for the following terms:

Real estate

• homes for sale
• homes
• property
• MLS
• apartments
• realtor
• land for sale
• MLS#

Homes

• real estate
• rentals
• houses
• construction
• properties
• builders

MLS

• homes
• real estate
• multiple listing service
• major league soccer
• microwave limb sounder
• realtors
• homes for sale
• board of realtors
• master of library sciences
• marketing library services
• mass layoff statistics

Sell

• for sale
• auction
• used
• seller

buy

• purchase
• store
• shop
• price
• for sale

agent

• agency

realtor

• realty

real estate agent

• realtor
• land for sale
• property
• home
• MLS
• apartments

house

• floor
• home
• housing

Atlanta

• Atlantic

Most of the terms are obvious but using "land for sale" and "apartments"  in an article abour real estate agents might not be obvious.

The synonyms for MLS are kind of funny.  Does anyone know what a microwave limb sounder is?  I'm not sure if working that into your copy would be of any benefit.

Estate Home in Easthampton, Great East Cobb Schools, $570,000

Tim Maitski | RE/MAX Greater Atlanta | 404-216-0472 4672 Bishop Lake Road, Roswell, GA Estate home in Easthampton 4 Bdrm Single Family House offered at $570,000 Year Built 1995 Sq Footage Unspecified Bedrooms 4 Bathrooms 3 full, 2 partial Floors 2 Parking 3 Car garage Lot Size .5 acres HOA/Maint $0 per month DESCRIPTION Really nice home. Lots of room. Kids will have a blast playing down by the creek. see additional photos below PROPERTY FEATURES Central A/C Central heat Fireplace Walk-in closet Hardwood floor Tile floor Family room Living room Dining room Dishwasher Refrigerator Stove/Oven Microwave Stainless steel appliances Basement Laundry area - inside Balcony, Deck, or Patio Yard Jacuzzi/Whirlpool COMMUNITY FEATURES Clubhouse Swimming pool(s) Tennis court(s) Lake Playground OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES Three sided brick Three car garage Sun room Creek ADDITIONAL PHOTOS Seller contact info: Tim Maitski RE/MAX Greater Atlanta 404-216-0472 For sale by agent/broker Equal Opportunity Housing Posted: Jul 13, 2007, 10:49am PDT

I Try to be as Good as My Little Giant Ladder

I bought my Little Giant Ladder over 10 years ago and it brings joy to my life every time I use it.  After thinking about it, this ladder has a lot of qualities that I admire.  Some day I hope to be as good as my ladder.

• It's solid as a rock.  Even when it's extended to it's limits, it's very steady and allows me to reach things that I never thought possible. 
• It looks deceptively simple but can be used for a variety of tasks.
• Tough as nails.  After 10 years of stress and abuse, it hasn't broken down.
• It creates raving fans.  It is so awesome that people can't stop talking about it.
• It travels well.  It fits into most people's cars.
• It costs a little more than a generic ladder, but you have less chance of getting hurt.
• I trust it with my wife and kids.

Try staying steady at  the top step of an ordinary step ladder.  With my pole pruner, I'm cutting branches that are around 20 feet up.

If I put the ladder in a more vertical position, I can get to the top of two stories.

It condenses down to less than six feet tall.  It's easy to lend to others.

I use this as an example that some things are really as good "As seen on TV".   Click on that link and you'll see some amazing video demonstrations.  The ladder is every bit as good as they say it is. 

I'm thinking of giving these out as closing gifts.  Maybe I'll but a sticker on there with something like,"I'll be there when you are ready to make your next step up" or maybe "Take your next step up with the solid support of your REALTOR"