| |
real estate: If You're Walking Through Hell, Don't Stop. - 02/24/08 04:46 AM
From a distance of only ten feet, entrance to the courtyard beyond seemed a formidable task. Impossible.A fools errand, this. The high sunwashed adobe wall and the great iron throw-bolt seemed to say "go away."
I almost did just that. No one, after all, was expecting me, and see? The gate is barred, padlocked. I nearly turned away.
The journey had been long, the day hot, and I was tired. Now I was discouraged as well. Yet I took another step forward, toward the locked gate, and saw that it was not locked at all. With ease, I slid the bolt and entered my intended destination, thankful … (38 comments)
|
real estate: Inside NAR Political Contributions: A Major Shift From Right to Left? - 02/18/08 12:08 AM
The 3rd largest contributor to political campaigns (per http://www.opensecrets.org/) is the National Association of REALTORS®. Since the 1996 election cycle, NAR contributions to Democrat candidates have increased in every cycle. This cycle, it's exponential. For the first time in a long time, giving to Dems will surpass 50%.
Here are the numbers.
Granted, we are still relatively early in this cycle, and the numbers could even out, but I'll bet they don't.
I wonder if it has something to do with the real estate bust?
I don't have an answer, but contributions/NAR support seems to be on hold until we have a clear choice of candidates. … (31 comments)
|
real estate: "Daddy, Make Him Stop!" Why Uncle Sam Isn't the Answer in a Free Market - 02/15/08 12:55 PM
Where is uncle Sam? Why isn't he watching this [short sales] and have control on it? Why allow the lending institution to do whatever they feel like giving crazy mortgages or short sales why is it up to them?
This question was posted by a young woman (a real estate agent) bemoaning the effect of short sales on property values in her neck of the woods. Since liberty is a lot higher on my flagpole than property values, I'd like to answer her question.
Uncle Sam doesn't have control because we don't want him to be our Daddy. He's not any smarter than Uncle Kim in North Korea, … (85 comments)
|
real estate: Late Night Rain: Who's Minding the Store? - 01/30/08 04:28 AM
2:30 a.m. on Wednesday, January 30, 2008: While 68,657 of you are asleep in your beds, 25 of us are cruising your blogs, looking for inspiration, encouragement, insight, and laughs. 12 are insane enough to have clicked the little button that lets others see when we're online. (For Newbies, it's under Settings on your home page.)
Here's what I found: (and if you can't read a post from my list, it's Members Only. Active Rain is free. Just join up!)
Inspiration: Judi Barrett, (OK) wrote The Way That We Treat People Has Nothing … (32 comments)
|
real estate: For My Newbie Friend, Kevin Wood, Listing Agent and Active Rain Member - 01/21/08 11:15 PM
This is for Kevin Wood, (Active Rain Newbie,) and Jeff Turner, two people who need to do business together. The listing in the Real Estate Show I've created below is Kevin's; I lifted his photos off MLS and created it for him, with his permission.
IMHO, Real Estate Shows is just fantastic. Active Rain's Jeff Turner (respres) is the genius behind it. Jeff gives Active Rain members a $25. discount. I'm trying to get Kevin to do two things:
Get serious about Active Rain blogging, (since I'm the guy who invited him, LOL) andSign up for Real Estate Shows. Central Tucson w / … (22 comments)
|
real estate: Broken Priority: When "Free and Clear" Isn't Good Enough for the Bank - 01/20/08 06:55 AM
The retired couple sitting in my office were incredulous. They had:
photos, architect drawn plans, and a loan denial letter from a local bank. "We own the property free and clear," said the husband. "We bought it as is, and we also bought the rights to the plans."
He was a builder from out of state who knew a good deal when he saw one. The couple had paid $95,000 for one acre of property with a partially built home.
The work that had been completed to date was sound. (My photo illustrates the situation; this is not their home.)
"I don't understand … (33 comments)
|
real estate: Sign of the Times: Plead My Case for Fraud - 01/19/08 06:34 AM
High visibility, low cost per view. Intersections are a great place to advertise.
The usual fare is a cardboard box advertising a yard sale. This wasn't your usual sign. This one got my attention.
Target market: A good lawyer. Incentive to call? Up to half a million dollars if you win the case.
What will you bet that the lawsuit advertised in this busy Tucson, AZ intersection involves real estate? I didn't call, so I don't know.
But if it does, the list of defendentants likely includes a realty company, a real estate agent, a mortgage company, and a loan officer. More than ever, the real estate … (37 comments)
|
real estate: Rent! You Can Always Buy Later for Less! - 01/14/08 10:19 AM
I'm going out on a limb here. I was just watching NBC's Today show, and the talking head was being interviewed about the wisdom of renting versus buying.
"Much better to rent right now than to buy," he said. "The price of housing is still going down. It will cost you less to rent the same house than to buy it, and you'll be able to buy it in the future for less than today's price." He's dead wrong!
As a buyer, please know that there are problems with the talking head's assessment.
You can't rent from month to month, waiting for just … (39 comments)
|
real estate: "Rise in Pending Home Sales at Odds with Local Closings" - 01/08/08 07:25 PM
That was the headline in the business section of Tucson's Arizona Daily Star. A bar chart shows the MLS data. It supports the headline.
The National Association of Realtors sees pending sales as a leading indicator of housing market activity. Christie Smythe (not a REALTOR®) quotes an NAR spokesperson, Walter Molony, as saying that the "discrepancy might be due to a higher proportion of new home sales."
What she's talking about is fallout from buyers who cannot perform.
I have a different take on the reason sales are falling through. See if this resonates with you.
The lenders whose money we broker are running scared, as values flatten and diminish … (15 comments)
|
real estate: Rotting Apples: The Psychology of Foreclosure on your Community - 12/31/07 09:11 PM
"Thank God that's not MY problem," is often one's reaction upon hearing that someone in the neighborhood has been foreclosed.
Please take this to heart: as a homeowner, it really IS your problem. Foreclosures are an equal opportunity occurance. They don't just happen in middle and lower middle class neighborhoods. Driving home from church yesterday, I passed through a Tucson neighborhood where older homes on two acres list for as much as $750,000. The graffiti stopped me cold. I pulled over and took the picture you see below.
Being foreclosed--betting the farm and losing the … (17 comments)
|
real estate: Adam Waldman Has The Best Perspective for 2008 - 12/29/07 09:26 AM
So you had a bad day? That's what I read this morning when I checked in on Adam Waldmans blog. (Real all the way to the end. This has a good ending!)
You bet I had a bad day yesterday! My client, after months of looking, found the perfect home for herself, her dog and her horse. The listing agent sent back the contract signed with no changes whatsoever.
I referred her to a favorite lender friend of mine for an FHA mortgage, because that's what she needed. (I'm a lender, but also have a real estate license, so I can't do … (46 comments)
|
real estate: There's a Floor Under the Tucson Real Estate Market. How's By You? - 12/27/07 10:36 PM
Two UP arrows. Five DOWN arrows. That's the Tucson Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service sales snapshot for the month of November, 2007.
Quick glance? "Boo! Hiss! See? I told you the sky was falling!" But that's not the real picture at all.
First: Look at the UP arrows.
The average sales price is up again. Pending contracts are up as well.
Second: Look at the good DOWN arrows.
The median sales price is down. This is good for buyers coming into the market. What's good for buyers is good for real estate agents and lenders.Active listings are flat. Existing inventory is beginning … (15 comments)
|
real estate: Differing Google Strategies for Active Rain: Tucson's Top Three 'Rainers - 12/01/07 08:40 PM
I'm addicted to statistics in the pursuit of "What Works?"
For Active Rainers, "what works" is visibility to Google. It's what makes the phone ring. The top three Rainers in Tucson, AZ have achieved this visibility on Active Rain in very different ways.
Tens of thousands in the Active Rain ranks never get a call. They're the ones who joined, created a profile, uploaded a photo (maybe) and never posted a single sentence to their blog.
I say "they" because few of them can be addressed in the first person. They came, they joined, and they faded away. You--not they--are here reading my blog.
You persevered. … (115 comments)
|
real estate: Real Estate Correction: I Don't Want Help From My Government - 11/26/07 01:00 AM
Today's Active Rain front page Featured Posts included this title, by Lenn Harley: MASSIVE FORECLOSURES COMING? THE MARKET IS SPEAKING LOUD AND CLEAR. You might want to read it, and the commentary it's attracted, before continuing.
By the time I read Lenn's post, almost eighty people had commented. One comment, by my AR friend, associate and blog subscriber Kate Bourland, (also a lender with a focus on eliminating debt and creating wealth) prompted this exchange:
Kate: "I think that what you are saying is that the free market system is broken. The free market brought on the current real estate crisis. Leaving it … (69 comments)
|
real estate: Networking Heritage? Her Mom Was a Realtor - 11/20/07 06:58 AM
Lori Riegel is, hands down, the most effective networker I've met in Tucson. My phone rings because Lori met with someone in her capacity as Marketing Consultant with Tucson's Arizona Jewish Post. She's a machine!
Lori has a simple (and simply the most effective) two-book system for tracking her business contaces. I'll share that with you in another post later this week.
Today, I want you to meet my friend and BNI (Business Networking International) associate.
Lori's parents were both Real Estate Agents in Chicago. In 1980, they moved to Tucson, Arizona. Lori was in 3rd grade. While Mom, Freddi Pakier, set about conquering the real … (23 comments)
|
real estate: Inspired by Light - 11/06/07 10:15 PM
In a market where one house competes with ten thousand others for the attention of a single buyer, you--the listing agent--have a most powerful ally in presenting your house to the world.
Allow me to present that ally. Meet the setting sun. Its rich, deep yellow rays have a unique power over the imagination. They can transform an image of your listing from dull, flat and ordinary to rich, deep, warm and inviting.
This ordinary Wal-mart geranium illustrates my point perfectly. There's something magical about the image I've created there to your left. You want it.
Your attention is drawn to its complexity and texture. … (48 comments)
|
real estate: Life Before Real Estate? You Bet! - 11/04/07 02:25 PM
All of us had a previous life. This was mine. What was yours?
I was a high end real estate developer on Long Beach Island, a barrier reef off the coast of New Jersey, six miles at sea. This oceanside condo complex, the Breakers, exceeded the height limitation for the town of Beach Haven, on the south end of the island. But Beach Haven's first homes were built in the 1870s by principals of the Baldwin Locomotive Company. Those homes were Victorian mansions, with towers and complex rooflines. The town fathers loved the design of the Breakers, and issued the variance.
I'm … (26 comments)
|
real estate: Messed-up Lives and Listing Opportunities - 11/03/07 11:56 AM
They (yup, those guys) tell us that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But human emotions sometimes go over the edge. You see the results in this photo.
When a marital disagreement has gone this far, the house often ends up in foreclosure because the owners are so far down the well of anger, despair and depression that neither person is thinking clearly about the consequences of their actions.
While the "we buy ugly houses" crowd often steps in here, it's the REALTOR® who has a relationship who can often salvage more value for the seller than anyone else.
We don't do it. … (46 comments)
|
real estate: Loonie Rules! Canadian Buying Power Up 6% for Tucson Home! - 11/01/07 07:02 AM
Goooood morning, Canada! While you're having your cuppa tea this morning, consider this: the cost of owning your winter home in warm, sunny Tucson, Arizona went down by more than six percent yesterday. The Canadian Dollar is worth $1.06 US since our Federal Reserve dropped the Fed Funds rate yesterday.
How long has it been since the loonie had this kind of buying power in the US? Never in your lifetime! You have to go back 130 years to find a south-of-the-border real estate shopping opportunity like this.
That would be the year 1877. The main man in the Santa Cruz valley where Tucson is … (8 comments)
|
real estate: Late Night AR--The Few, The Awake! - 10/31/07 06:48 AM
Out of 55,526 members, 53 are currently logged in. It makes me wonder who the other 52 are, and why they can't sleep through the night like normal people.
We're not your normal Active Rainers.
That's Cheryl Johnson in the first position, top-left, with the big glasses. What you can't see from her AR Member picture (can't call it a photo, can I?) is that she really does have a full head of hair, and her eyes are half-shut, probably because of the late hour. Photoshop reveals such details when you adjust the image with Shadow/Highlights. Voila!
Next to her is … (27 comments)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mike Jones
Tucson,
AZ
More about me…
SUNSTREET MORTGAGE, LLC
Address: 2840 E Skyline Dr, Suite #230, Tucson, AZ, 85718
Office Phone: (520) 344-6943
Cell Phone: (520) 349-9090
Email Me
 Listings
Links
Archives
|
;)
;)
;)
