We're all in this together

Orlando Area Real Estate Video Update for April 2012

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:47:09 -0700

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: My Goodness! Those numbers sure add up quickly!

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:35:42 -0700

We spent about 3 hours with Tom Ferry yesterday. Have you heard of him? Perhaps not, but I think that his is a name that many people will know. His father is well known as a long-time real estate trainer and Tom has followed in his footsteps with a vengeance.

The Florida region of RE/MAX sponsored a presentation by Tom to area RE/MAX agents. As usual, many of the agents were too busy to come and some were just too tired or depressed or something. There are always people who don't seem to want to get a boost in their career. Perhaps some of the non-attendees think they've already seen it all and know everything they should. I can only speculate on their reasons for not exercising a free opportunity to boost their business.

Anyway, Tom has a great deal of energy and an off-the-wall sense of humor and we really enjoyed his presentation. After 20+ years in real estate, my wife and I have seen many trainers and coaches. We usually learn at least something from every presentation we attend although we don't often purchase the ubiquitous optional "Today Only" special package.

We walked out of the meeting yesterday with an embarrassing wealth of ideas. If we can only implement 10% of the things that we learned, we'll end up with a large production increase. That's what it's all about: increasing your production. When you spend every day working in your business, it's easy to wake up one day and find that your systems and lead generating methods are out-dated.

This is even more likely considering the speed at which technology is increasing in capability. The concept of Moore's Law which basically states that computer technology will double in capacity every 18 months while simultaneously halving in price fits well with the actual track of events. Now, most people don't stop to think what that means, but here's an example of the math involved: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768, 65536, 131072, 262144, 524288, 1048576,...double 10 more times and you get 1,073,741,824. You can see that the curve goes exponential. Just double that last number a few times and you'll exceed our national debt!

That's interesting, but what's it mean? Practically speaking, it means that in the last 18 months while I was working at selling houses, a large number of very usable, real estate related websites and/or apps have been introduced. Have you heard of Klout.com, Turbo Scan, Expensify, Get abstracts, Raven, taskrabbit.com, nimble.com, highlight.com, home snap, dragon, bombbomb.com, sun seeker, dropbox.com, docusign.com, evernote, etc., etc.? Take some time and Google them. You'll probably find some useful applications.

The online competition for leads has intensified and it's reached the point where non-technologically-oriented Realtors are selecting themselves for retirement. Even agents who think they're technically adept may be caught by surprise at the rapid rate of change, both in helpful software and in the way consumers search for houses and agents.

I don't often recommend specific trainers or brands or services, but I'm going to make an exception in this post: If Tom is speaking anywhere near your city, do yourself a favor and go and see him.

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: My Assistant always told me I should write a book!

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Wed, 09 May 2012 06:16:11 -0700

I've been blogging on AR for about 3 years at this point. It's been a journey for me and my posts reflect it. I started out with posts about the mortgage mess as the real estate market started to crumble under our feet. The overall attitude that I had during that period was rather unhappy, since I could see that the problems which had developed were not being addressed in a sensible fashion.

Eventually I got tired of writing those sorts of posts, so I came up with the idea of simply telling a joke every day. That wasn't good enough for me, however, and the idea soon morphed into posts which told a joke and then attempted to relate it to a meaningful message with some take-away wisdom. I tried hard to throw additional value into each post for my fellow agents by dealing with prospecting, sales, personal development, success, the law of attraction, and much more.

I was rewarded by having hundreds of readers and I really appreciated this. It makes you feel really good to see the traffic count move upwards. It was funny that some of the posts that I was least proud of received the most reads. It turned into a good lesson for me.

After writing a joke a day for a year and not missing a day, I slacked off and began a series of posts which I titled "My World." These weren't all involved with jokes and I gave myself permission to be a little more "edgy" with them.

Finally, I conceived the idea that I could accumulate all of the posts, edit and spell check them and then put them together into a book. This is now done and it's published on Amazon in Kindle format. It turned out to be a real job just pulling the darned things together. If printed, the book would be over 570 pages in length at slightly more than a quarter of a million words.

Fortunately, it's an easy read, since each essay is stand-alone and it can be opened anywhere and easily picked up or laid down. In order to get some readers and hopefully some reviews, it is now offered as a free download for today and tomorrow (5/9/12-5/10/12). What I hadn't realized at the onset of the task was that it would feel so great to actually get it accomplished! Now, if I could just get you to please do me the favor of downloading it and giving it a try. Any reviews would be greatly appreciated!

By the way, you don't have to physically own a Kindle. You can set up the Kindle software on any computer and even on your smart phone. I use my Android to read books all of the time and it works really well. Just go to Amazon.com to get the software.

Please do me the favor of downloading it and giving it a try. Any reviews would be greatly appreciated!

Namaste!

　If you enjoy humor, rants, the law of attraction, spiritual and personal development, esoteric information, astral travel, helping people, real estate, and just life in general, check out "The Real Estate Blues." It's a lengthy series of short essays centered around real estate sales and humor with a message incorporated in each essay. There's plenty of entertainment value in this piece written by a Ph.D. in Psychology who's made an excellent living in real estate sales for over 20 years. You're guaranteed never to take a real estate salesperson for granted ever again!

Here's the direct link: The Real Estate Blues

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: On-line Lead Systems

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:29:34 -0700

I'm going to talk about on-line lead generation systems in this post. Regardless of whether you like them or hate them, they do place you in contact with people.

The lower level of inventory we have in our area has created an interesting situation. How is it possible for prices to remain as weak as they are and yet properties sell so quickly?

This poses an interesting problem when working with buyers. We've been getting a lot of leads from various on-line systems lately and the buyers are having a tough time grasping the fact that the house they initially inquired about through the lead system is already sold. I'm sure that some of them think that I'm just placing listings that have sold out there in order to capture leads.

I've tried various ways to explain and apparently my efforts have worked because I often get a response and sometimes that ends up as a sale. So, in general, I'm somewhat in favor of on-line systems. I've also gotten a number of complaints from people who have found their house apparently advertised for sale on the system when they've purchased it years ago and have no intention of placing it on the market. I can usually deflect their ire by explaining that my ad just appears at random and they need to contact the agent who had the house listed when they bought it and ask them to take the listing out of the system.

Generally, systems that are fed directly by the MLS don't pose such a problem. However, sometimes you get a response from someone who has an adjenda other than finding a house. I offer the following email transcript for your entertainment. It has been strategically edited to remove all traces of identity.

I received this lead from RE/MAX.Com:

This email is to inform you that the contact below has been assigned to you. They submitted the "Sign Up" form requesting more information.
Contact Details:
Full Name : ------------ ----------------
Phone :
Email : -------------------@-------------------
City :
Company : Regarding : Sign Up
Notes: SignUp : IDXPhotoRef: 1 ImageThumbNailID: 1 Listing Type: Single Family State: FL City: ------ SpecialFilter:

Time : ----------------

So far, so good. I responded as follows:

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 2:05 PM, Eric Martell wrote:
Hi -----------,
I received your RE/MAX sign-up info below. How can I help?
Regards,
Eric

This usually is as much of a response that I'll give when the inquiry has been so generic. I don't know about you, but I don't have time to create a dissertation for absolutely every email lead. If the lead responds back with specific information, then I'll go to the extra work to look up potential properties and whatever... Anyway, this time the person's response was a little unusual and, I felt, very entertaining:

I'm really interested in the house at
#### xxxxxx St., City Name, FL Zipcode $Price
and i'm working on getting the money to buy it and move into it when i get all the money and i have plenty of ideas to fill the land of about 734 football fields worth of land i'm planning on sports fields, private gym, swimming pool, private theater, all my future company buildings and much more! i'm planning on getting married in July on the 9th 2012! so i'm just getting the money together and trying to get into real estate myself and i have a few companies i'm trying to get to be able to work with and if your hiring when i get down there even though i have no real estate working experience i would probably consider it! and if possible if your company is hiring and like me i would like to work from home because ill have a new wife and son after July 7th! and i dont want to have to leave her alone because she is moving from another country to the USA to be with me!

How could I resist hiring someone like that? Wow! I have no idea what qualifications they have other than an overactive imagination about how to apply for a job and possibly a very positive attitude about their potential. I do admire their enthusiasm and wish them the best of luck in getting "all the money." I hope they'll still consider working with me when they receive it.

I especially like the idea of working in real estate from home. My buyers would really enjoy showing themselves through properties while I relaxed at home. Now, if I could just figure out how to do that myself...

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Yes, it's for sale, but you can't show it!

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:49:04 -0700

I've got my nose out of joint again. I've been trying to set up showings for a buyer who is in town for the weekend. So far, I've run into: 7 agents who won't return calls about showing instructions and 4 MLS records which refer you to the showing instruction button which unhelpfully displays absolutely no information when clicked. Then there was one agent who stated that the property is active, but can't be shown since the tenant is out-of-town for a week. He complained that people keep bothering him about showing instructions. I've got news for him, our MLS has a TOM (temporarily off the Market) status for just this situation. It's showing Active, for Pete's sake, if it's not active, put it TOM. Then there was one agent who had their own brokerage who cunningly thinks that more money can be made by placing a large buyer fee to the listing brokerage in the listing. My buyer decided against even looking at that one. Hmmm. Really helping your seller out there, aren't you?

Finally, there was one short-sale listing which required me to contact the owner. The owner said and I quote, "No, I don't think I'll show it tomorrow (Saturday), but call me back tomorrow, maybe I'll change my mind." If you are the listing agent and you get the idea that a so-called seller only wants it listed to try and delay foreclosure, why would you waste your time and money?

I just have to ask the Realtor community (that's you) in general, "What is wrong with these people?"

We're here to provide service to our clients and this means selling houses. Any barrier that is imposed that negatively impacts the sell-ability of your seller's listing is doing them a dis-service. The equation is relatively simple: If your listing doesn't sell, you don't get paid! At any rate, this used to be the case. Perhaps these people know someway to earn money by not selling houses. I certainly don't.

So, anyway, I ended up going on to other, more easily shown listings. Too bad for the sellers who missed out on showings, but I've got to help my buyer and he certainly isn't going to decide to purchase without looking. If you think that's going to happen, you probably should be thinking about another line of work.

The whole thing is so easy, just make sure your seller understands the multilock system and how necessary it is to make the property view-able. If the seller thinks that showings should be by appointment only, because of some prized possessions or whatever, perhaps they're not really motivated to sell. Life's too short to waste your time trying to make a sale when the sale is essentially blocked by the seller. It kind of helps, if you take the attitude that, while you'd like the listing, you don't have to have it. When you emotionally have to have something, the natural law is that you automatically pay too much or expend too much effort in getting it. Learn to maximize your use of your time. After all, time is the only thing that we have a limited amount of and cannot replace.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: How the Shadow Inventory may Impact the Market

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:11:22 -0800

Well, my blood pressure's boiling because of what I've read about the proposed solution to the government-held shadow inventory. Let me explain:

If you're like me, you're probably aware of an apparently foreclosed home that is sitting vacant in a nearby neighborhood. It may well be that this home is one of the approximately one quarter million properties that are being held as "shadow inventory" by Fannie, Freddie, or FHA. These government organizations have been gradually disposing of these properties through the existing REO system working with the real estate community. You've probably sold one or more such properties to investors or homeowners. I've sold several.

Would you like to list that home? Do you have a buyer who wants it? Would you like to purchase it yourself for an investment or to live in? Well, forget it. It's not going to happen. Sometime during the next few months thousands of properties are going to be "sold" for pennies on the dollar to a few privately held companies which have an inside-track. You won't have a chance to list or purchase one of these homes. At least that's the possibility being worked on by a new government program with the working title of "Enterprise/FHA REO Asset Disposition."

We all know that the banks have recently increased the pace of foreclosures. According to Inman News, FHA and friends are about to be inundated by nearly another three-quarters of a million foreclosure properties. The three agencies will then be holding somewhere around a million homes.

We all have some experience with the level of efficiency that is common in dealing with government-owned properties. It is doubtful that the three agencies will be able to deal with such a huge volume of inventory using their existing systems. It seems that the Feds think that they might have a problem. A report by the Federal Reserve titled, "A government-facilitated REO-to-rental program," is now being circulated.

The possibility is that the existing Management and Marketing Contractor companies that found in a list on HUD's website are going to be the recipients of the government cheese. I've read that these twenty or so firms seem to be in part owned by former high-ranking government officials. They are privately held, so you or I can't even buy stock in them should we wish to get our share of the action.

These Contractor firms are likely to receive the government-held shadow inventory for pennies on the dollar. Then they will throw carpet and paint in many of the houses and place them on the rental market.

Now, I ask you what will that do? If someone gave you a house that was worth, say, $200,000 for $20,000 and told you that all you had to do was to keep it rented and not sell it for a certain period of time, would you be tempted to rent it as expeditiously as possible? Let's say the market rent for such a house was $1,500, but in order to get the thing occupied (and several thousand others occupied at the same time), you decided to sign a lease at $1,000. At $1,000 per month, you get your investment back in about 2 years and that's just fine with you.

What would that do the the local market's rental rate? It would lower the going rental rate, of course. If the rental rate in your market decreased, what would that do to the value of investment properties? It would lower their value on an income-basis. What would that do the the overall market? You might disagree, but I'd speculate that it would force values into another steep step downward.

Let's think about this for a moment. If there are about a million houses which are going to be disposed of in this fashion, that number corresponds roughly with the number of agents in NAR. Has anyone from the government asked you recently if you could handle an additional listing? No?

I think that, if given the chance, the real estate community could easily liquidate these properties within a matter of weeks and they'd sell them for far more money than FHA and friends will probably end up with under the current plan. This would be a big savings for the taxpayers (you and me, included). Wouldn't that make economic sense, even if it required the Feds to change their REO department's structure a little and maybe have a few employees miss a coffee-break or two? (Helpful hint: They can probably arrange to robo-sign the listings and sales contracts pretty easily.)

This is something that the big boys at NAR should get out of their chairs to lobby for. Liquidation of these properties to insiders shouldn't be allowed to happen in my world. How about in yours?

This post is not copyrighted and I hereby expressly give you permission to copy it, pass it around, re-blog it, use it as your own, and generally do whatever you want with it, as long as you spread the information around to try and get people to care about this issue.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Digital reality is what your past record says it is!

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:29:07 -0800

Welcome to the new digital reality. Hint: It is whatever you made it.

As real estate agents, we're used to creating custom searches for our buyers. When a buyer contacts us, we carry on a dialog intended to help us find out how best to assist them. We find out what they want in a house and how much they feel comfortable spending, their time frame, and whether or not they've been prequalified for any necessary financing. Then we sit down at the computer and create a search which we save under their name. We usually set the search up to email them whenever any new properties that meet their requirements come on the market. They appreciate this and it helps them understand what is available that might suit their needs.

What we don't do is to send them houses in areas and price ranges which they don't want and can't afford. "Sure," you say. "That would be a waste of time and only confuse them." It's only common sense to give them what they want, isn't it.

Unfortunately, this concept, when utilized by many of the common search engines on the Internet, can lead to unfortunate and divisive results. I'll explain.

We all tend to read information which either confirms or agrees with the knowledge and opinions we already have. This is nowhere more true than when applied to political opinions. Progressives like to read information written by other progressives. Likewise with conservatives. People may sometimes read an article which espouses diverging views, but they usually stay with material which makes them feel comfortable.

When applied to the real estate community, many people may be excused for only reading articles which are oriented towards how the housing crisis is getting better and how real estate is a good investment. Please note that I'm not arguing with the orientation of the articles, I'm only using this as an example.

When you do a search on Google, the software uses 57 different metrics to identify you. It retains a record of your prior searches and it custom tailors the results of any particular search based on what it already knows about your interests. This information is also used to place advertisements. After you've built up a little bit of history browsing the Internet, you might be surprised to consistently see ads based on things you've looked up or clicked on in the past. The same thing goes with search results. This is a nice touch and conveniently allows us to interact with only information which we find interesting.

Now, here's the problem. When we run searches, the information is tailored to our interests and we never even see conflicting information. In a non-digital environment, we may screen out conflicting materials, but at least we are given that conscious choice. We aren't even informed that there might be more material available, when a search engine pre-screens its results for us.

My fear is that this will inevitably lead to even greater divides in society than we already have. If people are only given information which confirms their opinions, then they will have an extremely difficult time believing that anyone could have a different set of facts and opinions. This makes the people on the other side of the spectrum appear to be totally irrational. After all, your information is complete (as far as you know) and, yet, they have somehow drawn an opposing conclusion. It's only natural to think that they are "nuts."

This sort of thing could actually be dangerous. I saw the results of a search on Egypt that was requested by two different people. One person got information on the soccer riot deaths and political unrest and the other person only received information about how great Egypt was to visit on vacation with not one result pointing towards possible violence and danger.

I submit to you that we, as a society, are being unwittingly divided by unintended consequences of software which is supposed to be helpful.

The next time you run into someone from the "other" side of the political spectrum, perhaps it would be helpful to keep this possible bias in mind and be a little more polite. They're not totally wrong and you're not totally correct. The truth always lies somewhere in between both ends.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: What the robosigning settlement might mean to the market.

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:26:41 -0800

The recent settlement of the robosigning case brought against a number of major U.S. banks by attorneys general of the states will most likely result in increased levels of foreclosure seizures. The involved banks have greatly slowed their foreclosure process during the negotiations, allowing some homeowners in default to remain in their properties without paying for months or even years. Now that the case has been settled with what amounts to a slap on the wrist for the banks for engaging in practices which resulted in allegations of fraudulent paperwork, the banks are likely to move quickly to help their bottom lines.

The $25 billion settlement will be parceled out in chunks. About $17 billion will go to help about a million owners who are facing foreclosure. The settlement includes $5 billion to pay for foreclosure prevention programs and $3 billion to lower homeowners' interest rates with a small residual of $1.5 billion left over to compensate homeowners who suffered from poorly handled foreclosures.

It seems that about 750,000 people are supposed to receive direct payments of around $2,000 to partially compensate them for servicing errors. Regardless of how the money will be handed out, it must filter it's way through the existing or new bureaucratic structures to actually reach the homeowners' hands. This has proved to be a slow and not too effective process in the past with other government assistance programs. It remains to be seen how quickly it will happen and how much this settlement will actually help.

The end effect, however, will most likely be an increase in the rates of home seizures and an increase in the REO inventory levels. If this is not dealt with carefully by the banks, it will result in a further decline of the market as these properties are placed for sale and increase inventory levels.

A reasonable speculation is that investors are likely to purchase many of the REO properties and convert them to rentals. The central Florida market has seen quite a large amount of this sort of sales action in the past few months. As a result, our inventory levels here are lower than they have been for some time and there has been enough competition to actually bring prices up a few percentage points during the past year. This situation may very well change as a result of the settlement and resultant actions by the banks.

There is an old Chinese curse which goes something like, "May you live in interesting times." The real estate market is poised to get a lot more interesting shortly if the above speculations are correct.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Together we can change the world! (Yeah. I know it sounds like a song from the '60s.)

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:04:52 -0800

Did you ever stop to think that Realtors might have a duty to their fellow man beyond simply selling houses and ensuring that the transactions proceed smoothly? Well, there's nothing in the Code of Ethics which states that we do and we certainly don't learn about it in any classes, but I'd argue that we have an affirmative duty to set good examples for our fellow humans.

Here's why: We jointly make our living by strategically positioning ourselves at the intersection between supply and demand. We are able to retain this position because we repeatedly demonstrate that we are able to add value to the transactions we facilitate. This added value has to do with our expertise and reliability and we're usually well compensated for these traits.

What if we weren't reliable? What if we didn't demonstrate any expertise and almost always did a shoddy, haphazard job as a group? People wouldn't hire us and our profession would disappear. You see, we have a financial interest in providing expertise and reliability. This self-interest actually goes much farther than the real estate transaction. It extends into our personal and public lives. The more people respect us, individually and jointly, the more likely they are to use our services. The better our character, the more people respect us.

It's simply good business and life practice. It somehow reminds me of something I read in an old book somewhere. I think it went something like, "...treat others the way you'd like to be treated..." This principle extends farther than simply dealing with others, it also implies that if you demonstrate good character, you will be able to view yourself in a positive light and this will lead to greater personal happiness.

The reason I'm expounding on this idea is that I was recently reminded of a series of psychological studies which had to do with people's response to "authority." In these experiments, volunteers were told to give an electric shock to a person in another room. They couldn't actually see the other person and, in fact, the other person was never actually shocked. When the volunteer would push the button, though, the person in the other room would exclaim out loud and the volunteer could hear them. The study showed that, if the authority figure told the volunteer to set the electricity at a dangerous or even obviously fatal level, the majority of the volunteers would unquestioningly "shock" the subject, even when he screamed loudly. An obvious parallel can be found in the documented behavior of prison camp guards in past wars.

Most of us would agree with the war crimes tribunals that have tried such individuals. Following orders is no excuse. Sadistic brutality is just that, regardless of orders or not. As humans, we always have a choice. We can stand up against orders and situations we know are wrong, or we can allow ourselves to be intimidated and just go along. Sometimes it's a difficult choice that can lead to personal inconvenience. This is where people who are moral relativists almost always knuckle under.

The power of this choice has been demonstrated experimentally. When volunteers see just one person refusing to mistreat a subject, about 90% of them will also refuse, even though the act is sanctioned by authority figures. As a group, most of us really do understand the difference between right and wrong!

Now, pair this finding with the fact that studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have demonstrated that when just 10 percent of of a population holds a strong belief, that belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. This 10% point is the tipping point where a society can move from bad to good or, unfortunately, from good to bad.

An early study showed that local crime rates soared about 10 years after television came to small, isolated towns in northern Canada. This is rather chilling when you think about how many acts of violence are portrayed during the average TV program. Information published by the University of Michigan indicates that the average child will see 200,000 violent acts and 16,000 murders on TV and it's been repeatedly shown in a large number of studies that children model their behavior to a certain extent on what they see on TV.

Likewise, people model their behavior to a certain extent on what they see other people doing. Most of us have probably seen the recent commercials on TV which portray an individual seeing another doing a good deed. That person does a good deed for another person and eventually the chain circles around to the original individual. That's how it actually works in reality. It doesn't happen instantaneously and there are a lot of breaks in the chain, but given enough time, society will actually change for the better.

The population of Realtors is large enough that we can jointly have a very positive effect on society, if we think about our behavior and act in such a way that we provide positive role models for others. If we'd each take that attitude, we might find that our career of selling houses could change the world for the better.

I want to ask you to do me a favor: Don't reject the concept out-of-hand. Take a few hours or days to think it over. We can make a difference!

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Why can't you refinance your high interest rate loan?

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:39:41 -0800

Got a high interest rate mortgage and want to refinance? Too bad! Fannie and Freddie stand to profit if you can't.

Based on some dynamite investigative reporting by Propublica and NPR, it now is public knowledge that many people who are locked in with higher than market interest rate mortgages are being told they can't refinance by publicly owned companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The really ironic part of this commonplace event is that both agencies have effectively bet against the homeowners by purchasing investment instruments which pay off when homeowners remain locked into high interest rate mortgages.

While not illegal, the investments are easy to categorize as counter to the mission of both publicly owned companies. Freddie Mac and cousin Fannie Mae were bailed out in 2008 and are now owned by the taxpayers (that's you and me). The companies insure most home loans with the intent of making it more likely that banks will lend money to house purchasers. Freddie's charter calls for the company to make home loans more accessible and yet, recent investment actions seem to give the lie to this public-service oriented goal.

Mortgages are commonly accumulated in so-called "tranches." These tranches can contain a large number of mortgages which are then used as the basis for securities which are sold as investments. The securities are divided into two separate types. Type one is backed by the principal of the underlying mortgages and is fairly safe, but pays a low return to investors. Type two is backed by the interest payments on the mortgages and is risky. To compensate for this risk, this security pays far higher rates than type one.

The problem is that the high risk securities benefit most when the home owners who are paying the high interest rates on their mortgages continue to pay the high rates. In short, there's more profit in keeping the home owners on a high rate loan then there would be if they were allowed to refinance.

Now here's the point: Who controls at least part of the rules which permit or prohibit home owners from refinancing? If you said, "Fannie and Freddie," you get a gold star and go to the head of the class.

If you're prone to high blood pressure, take some medication prior to reading the next part.

Guess what investment instruments seem to be in vogue at Fannie and Freddie? In the last two years, Freddie purchased a few billion worth of so-called inverse floater securities based on high interest rate mortgages. If people pay off their loans early, this stops their interest payments which are the basis of inverse floater securities and Fannie and Freddie loose. Their interest is best served if John Q. Public can't refinance.

Based on that potential for loss, any rational individual or business would try to minimize the number of people refinancing and it seems as if both companies are working to make it harder for borrowers to get loans. This has been accomplished in several ways ranging from tightening lending criteria to raising settlement charges.

One is tempted to ask, "Why is this happening?" The individual in charge of Freddie's investment portfolio made $2.5 million in 2010. His bonus is tied to "supporting and providing liquidity and stability in the mortgage market," if you believe the annual SEC filing for Freddie. It doesn't really seem as if locking people in to high rates furthers this goal. My natural instinct is to follow the money and when I don't quite understand something, I just naturally assume that there is some kind of financial benefit for the companies and individuals involved. In this case, it doesn't seem in the public's best interest.

For more on this topic, visit

http://www.propublica.org

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Change your mind and you'll change your world!

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:45:06 -0800

In my last post, I tried to make the point that we are responsible for the events and people that come into our life. In some mysterious way, we summon them at precisely the correct time for us to learn some critical lesson. Many of us refuse to take responsibility for this and are stuck in an arrested state of development which commonly takes the form of victim-hood. Nevertheless, whatever we focus on is drawn into our life.

When you're getting results you don't want and you're convinced that your attention is on results you desire, you might be tempted to think that the law of attraction is a myth. The problem is that you have conflicting beliefs. You are harbouring beliefs which get in the way of your stated desire. If, for example, you want more money, but you believe that you don't deserve it (and most of us believe that, since we've more or less unconsciously been indoctrinated from childhood to believe that we're not worthy), then that belief of not-deserving will get in the way of our conscious belief and interfere with our desired results.

What we have to do is to learn to release our interfering beliefs and develop a pure intent. Then the summoning process works well.

Let's digress for a moment. Modern quantum physics implies that everything is interconnected. We live in a universe full of energy waves. The quantum principle of entanglement states that particles which were once in touch will remain so, no matter how far apart in distance they become. Take two electrons which are in close proximity and separate them by millions of miles. Each seems to mystically "know" the state of the other. This has been experimentally demonstrated. Humans sometimes seem to show examples of this. In order to cut this short, since I don't want to go on too long, I'm simply going to assert that we are all in touch with each other. Humans are interconnected energetically in some way which modern science does not understand as yet.

When we don't have a scientific explanation for things, we call them mystical or psychic and tend to disparage the people who believe in them. Nevertheless, I'm of the opinion that if you are in sales, you've most likely had experiences which lead you to know that sometimes there is some esoteric force which conspires to make things work. I could go on and give a quasi-scientific explanation or I could give an explanation which is based on religion. I'll leave those discussions for another time. Instead I'm simply going to assert that if you accept responsibility for your life, then you MUST accept responsibility for the people who appear in your life.

If you're summoning people who are difficult and who cause you problems, then your own subconscious beliefs are getting in the way. If you are working in real estate, you know that people are the sole cause of all of the problems that you encounter. A couple of years ago, I ran into an agent who stated that she just wanted to work with nice people. A few months later, she told me that she had made a mistake, not only did she want nice people, but after dealing with a series of difficult clients, she also now wanted to specify that they must be sane.

What if you could work on yourself and clear and clean the energetic connection you have with anyone? When you have a relationship with someone, there is an energetic connection between the two of you. If you are holding a particular opinion of the other person, they will, to a certain extent, be limited and forced to appear to you as consistent with your view of them. If you could clear that view and free them from your expectations, they will be able to behave differently. If your expectations are positive after your cleaning exercises, you'll find that they will tend to live up to them.

If I've made myself clear, you may be saying, "Well, that would be wonderful, but how do I accomplish this so-called clearing?" It's actually very easy. You can use four statements which you say to yourself while thinking about how the person makes you feel. You can even use these four statements before you meet the person, say, for example, when you're going into a listing appointment.

Here's what you say and you can say this in any order: "I love you." "I'm sorry." "Please forgive me." "Thank you." These phrases have an amazing power to change your thinking and thus to change your relationship with another person. You should use them to work on your relationship with anyone who ever caused you a problem; with any guilt feelings you have for problems you've caused others; even with feelings you have about such material things as money and health and so on. The secret to remember is that you're not just speaking to yourself, even if you're simply thinking the phrases. You're actually speaking to the energetic universe, to, if you'll allow me to suggest it, Divine Source.

We've used these words successfully to change relationships and I know they work. Imagine if every human on the planet thought or spoke these words to everyone else! Do you think that the overall energy of the world would change for the better? Even if you simply think them about another person, they will somehow sense the different attitude in you.

Now, from me to each of you: I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you!

Have a great day!

Namaste!

If you'd like to see and feel this in action, here's a short video to watch: http://youtu.be/mqiCa3wpHC8

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: I was dead... or just about as close to it as you can get.

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:30:01 -0800

I was dead. My brainwaves were flat-lined and my heart was stopped for nearly seven hours. During this time, a skilled surgeon restructured the delicate leaves of two of the valves in my heart. Please excuse the dramatic way I started this post, but I've got something important to say to you and I wanted to get your attention.

For several years, my heart had been trying to tell me that it didn't approve of some aspects of how I was living my life, but I'd ignored its attempts. It wasn't beating regularly. I had atrial fibrillation due to erratic electrical signals in my left atrium. This is a common problem. About 25% of 80 year olds suffer from it. At my then-age of 60, it was quickly becoming life-threatening.

A-fib causes your heart to pump less blood than it should and your heart gradually expands to try and compensate. This expansion stretches out the valves and I'd reached the point where mine weren't closing completely and my heart action was severely compromised. All I knew was that I got tired quickly and I had a fluttering feeling in my chest much of the time. My heart was only pumping about 25% of what it should actually pump.

In case you're wondering, there's nothing that can happen to a heart which can't be fixed with modern medicine. I'm now better than I have been in years and my heart is pumping as well or better than it did twenty years ago.

In retrospect, I realize that I was being given a huge opportunity to learn some lessons which I'd ignored. I'm so hard-headed that it took something major to get my attention. I believe that the lesson is something that we all should learn, although the vast majority of people fail to learn it or ignore it.

All of us start life with a victim mentality. Being in real estate, we see people every day who have financial problems related to housing issues and many of them refuse to take responsibility for their problems. They find some other entity to blame. Perhaps it's their boss; perhaps they just got laid-off; perhaps it's their ex-spouse; perhaps it's their health; or perhaps it's just that the world fails to recognize their value and they just can't find a job which pays enough. There's an infinite number of possibilities.

The thing is, being a victim means that you're full of self-pity and consequently you can't see your way clear to taking responsibility for the situation. Taking personal responsibility is absolutely the only way that the situation will begin to clear up.

If you've studied the law of attraction, you probably already realize that we summon situations into our life. Generally, these situations are ones which carry a lesson for us. We have an option of learning the lesson or ignoring it. When we ignore it, it comes up again and again until we finally get the point. Then we're ready for the next lesson.

That's what life is all about: Learning; and there is an infinite number of lessons to learn. If you feel like a victim (we all do at one point or another), realize that you have a choice. You can choose to either remain a victim and search for external sources to blame or you can choose to begin the healing process by taking responsibility for your predicament.

I've met many people who have heart problems and who simply place the whole mess into their doctor's hands and refuse to take any responsibility for their situation. By so doing, they are pretty much ensuring that the problem will re-occur or become worse. You've got to take personal responsibility and make changes in your life in order to heal.

The same can be said with relationship problems and financial problems. They won't get better as long as you're blaming other people. Only when you accept responsibility and search for the lesson embedded in the situation will you begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This post is running a little long, so I'm going to complete it tomorrow. In that section, I will state a fact which will probably stretch your mental paradigm. I will also show you how to quickly rectify almost any situation by placing yourself into a mode where you can begin to heal. This technique can even be used to ease your relationships in real estate. You might even find that it can make it easier to find clients and establish a good relationship.

Hope to speak to you tomorrow.
Namaste!

BTW if you're faced with A-Fib and want some encouragement, contact me.

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Prediction for the real estate market in 2012

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 10:24:29 -0800

I've been researching on the Internet, looking for a credible set of predictions for the real estate market in 2012. There are plenty of prognosticators willing to promulgate their purview regarding the upcoming days. Unfortunately, a close read of their predictions reveals that almost all of them are biased towards their view of normalcy.

A brief description of the general features of the articles would include the generic statement that the market has reached the bottom and that things are getting better. This would seem to be justified based on the general behavior of the regional markets. Studies such as those published by Case-Shiller give a complete overall view of the statistics in the past months.

Where I get indigestion is when the prediction turns all rosy with assumptions that we'll be back to the glory days in just a few months or maybe a year or so. This statement is usually paired with some politically oriented hogwash that assumes that all we need for the recovery to become a reality is for our government to spend more money or for the right politician(s) to be (re)elected. This kind of statement is obviously self-serving and its validity should be questioned by any reader who is even mildly aware that the economy is unwell.

Our estimable NAR economist usually comes out with cheerful statements, but as far as I'm concerned, he's being paid to pump the consumer's confidence and that consideration moves his predictions from the realm of reliable to some spot in the "hopeful" spectrum. You can also look at nationally known economists who write columns, for example. Some of them may even have Nobel Prizes. Of course, a brief observation of the Nobel Prize awards in recent years might lead you to accidentally come to the conclusion that some of the more politically driven awards are relatively worthless as predictors of real-world (as opposed to academic) knowledge.

The main thing that I try to keep in mind is that the country is simply and obviously deeply in debt. The numbers may change from month to month, the fact remains that our government has grossly overspent and we, as a nation, have promised to continue overspending. Now, I'm a relatively simple guy, so I just like to think of it as similar to a family where the two parents work and bring in $100,000 jointly every year. The family doesn't like to budget, but likes to spend and they have 20 credit cards, all maxed-out. In my imagination, I can see them sitting around the dinner table discussing the situation. The father is saying that all he needs is to qualify for another credit card so he can use that to pay the interest payments on the 20 maxed-out cards. Then the mother interjects that if they can't get that additional card, they might have to do something radical like cancel their Netflix account or perhaps forego their daily latte at Starbucks. Needless to say, this dangerous statement brings a huge outcry from the non-producers in the family. None of the kids wants to miss the latest movies and dad just adores his morning latte.

This is obviously an unsustainable situation and, whether or not the adults or children want to take serious action, reality is just about to smack them in the face. I believe that our nation is in much the same situation. We can only temporize so long before the reality of the situation will force us to take action. Unfortunately, history seems to indicate that this sort of situation will lead to extremely unpleasant events.

Some people argue that it doesn't make any difference if we're in debt, because we can simply print as much money as we need. Once again, I like to look at this in a simple fashion. Despite the commonplace idea that you can, indeed, get something for nothing, the basic fact behind money is that it's supposed to represent work. Let's explore this in this fashion: I've got a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I could have simply purchased the belt and worn it around. If I'd have gotten in a fight, the belt wouldn't have helped much. I actually practiced for 10 years and that practice and work would mean something in a conflict situation. The same can be said for money. Print as much as you want and pass it out to your cronies, Mr. Government. You'll find that there is a certain cushioning effect as it filters down to the general populace and it retains some of its value, but eventually, the idea of it being free will cause a gross failure of confidence in the population and it will become worthless in the real world. History says that this is true.

What does this mean for real estate? Traditionally, in times of economic turmoil, real property has served as a cushion and a store of wealth. This implies that the right property or properties can help you through a tough time. Of course, the lack of liquidity can be a hinderance, but rental property or agricultural property that can generate cash flow is going to be good.

The main thing that occurs to me is that I fully expect to see the real estate market come to an almost complete standstill as we get closer to the upcoming election. This is based on my memory of the last election and the one before that. People became so focused on the results and fearful about what the election portended that they were reluctant to commit their funds. Sure there were still some sales, but things slowed down to a certain extent.

My conclusion is that the first two quarters this year will represent the best time to work and will be a good time to sell property. If you're thinking about investing, you could hardly ask for a better time to get into the market. If you're a Realtor, remember that real estate is like farming; you've got to make hay while the sun shines.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Life is Difficult! (But, there's a reason for that...)

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:40:02 -0800

Life is Difficult! Note that I capitalized Difficult. There's a reason for that and it's generally because the problems you face can be quite recalcitrant. If you've read many of my previous posts, you might remember that I seem to be pretty stuck on personal responsibility. I'd like to explore some of the reasons for that in this post.

I've noticed in my time here that events seemingly conspire to continually stretch your comfort level. Whether it's the constant pressure to succeed or to be liked, to convince people to work with you or to negotiate a difficult sale, there's almost always an element of surprise--something that you haven't faced before. That little something poses a challenge and whether you meet it successfully or fail at overcoming it, it provides an opportunity for personal growth. That is, you'll grow as long as you take responsibility for the success or failure.

Failing to accept responsibility is one path that will ensure that your personal abilities don't expand. After all, why should you change if the results you're getting are the fault of someone else? If you view yourself as already perfect (and everyone's ego has exactly that tendency, you'll just develop better ways of blaming others for your failures and you won't learn from them as you should.

The road to success is rocky and it's necessary to use personal discipline in order to make the journey. There are several aspects to discipline which are all elements of what I'll call "adult behavior." These include sacrificing present comfort for future gains, acceptance of responsibility, a strong dedication to honesty in your language, your outlook, and your actions, and the ability to prioritize miscellaneous, conflicting requirements. Developing these tools is critical and as we go through this world, we're quite likely to realize that suffering through problems is the primary way that we develop.

There are people who fail to learn one or more aspects of discipline. Being in real estate is one great way to ensure that you have the opportunity to meet and interact with this type of person. Of course, you'll also inevitably meet and interact with them if you're not in real estate, but you can often just distance yourself from them. A Realtor who is set on making a living cannot afford this luxury. If you're dedicated to helping people in your real estate career, you're more apt to recognize that the person who has failed to learn has some problem which makes the transaction difficult or impossible.

I'm not saying that you can't help such a person. We do it all of the time, but most experienced agents I'm familiar with have developed a fine sense that allows them to recognize that some people will be more of a problem to assist than others. This type of person seems to me to be mostly self-absorbed and driven by something that you might call self-pity. What I mean is that they are consistently self-deceiving so that they can maintain their self image. They will not hesitate to lie to others in order to maintain their ego's image of self-perfection. They may engage in egregious behavior towards others, since, in their mind, they are the only ones who actually count as as "person." They believe that other people are simply objects to manipulate. Love is something that they reserve for themselves.

On the other hand, love as demonstrated by those people who don't focus on themselves is an investment in another person's well-being and development which leads to personal and spiritual growth. It begins with physical attraction and matures into a deep caring for the other person's well-being. The development of the ability to feel this way is part of the lesson of life. It's part of the reason why we're here on this Earth at this moment.

My hope for you is that you prosper and develop in the year that is ahead of us. It's certain that we're going to meet many difficult problems and the only way to make sure that we overcome them is to accept self-responsibility. The more people who do, the better our community, country and world will be.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Notice that Santa has been replaced in the South

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:01:08 -0800

I've been reading that the US Post Office isn't doing too well (an understatement) and now even worse news has come down from the North Pole. Santa's contract has been re-negotiated.

We regret to inform you that Santa will no longer be able to serve the Southern United States. Due to the growing population, his contract was re-negotiated by North American Elves Local 243. He now only serves certain areas of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. He also gets longer breaks for milk and cookies, paid vacation time, retirement benefits, health insurance, and workmen's comp.

However, we are certain that your children will be in good hands with whatever local replacement happens to be in your region of the USA. For example, Santa's third cousin, Bubba Claus will be covering the southeastern part of the country. Bubba Claus has signed the corporate goal statement and has fully bought into the goal of delivering toys to all good boys and girls; however, there are a few differences that you might notice, so don't be surprised:

1. There is no danger of anyone stealing your presents from Bubba. His sleigh has a bumper sticker that reads "This sleigh insured by Colt!"

2. Instead of milk and cookies, Bubba Claus prefers children to leave RC cola and pork rinds on the fireplace. And Bubba don't smoke a pipe. He dips snuff, so please have an empty spit can by the side of the fireplace if you don't want a mess on the carpet.

3. Bubba's sleigh is pulled by coon dogs instead of reindeer. The issue of Blitzen going missing after Bubba visited the North Pole has been solved with the discovery of Blitzen's head hanging over Bubba's fireplace.

4. You won't hear the traditional reindeer names when Bubba Claus arrives. Instead you will hear "On Earnhardt, on Wallace, on Martin and Labonte. On Rudd, on Jarrett, on Elliot and Petty."

5. "Ho, Ho, Ho!" has been replaced by "Yee Haw!" Bubba has also been heard hollering, "Hey, Y'all! Watch this!" when taking off from a particularly steep roof. He's also been known to steal Christmas lights and wear them around his neck after imbibing in too much eggnog, so don't leave any out for him.

6. Bubba Claus' sleigh has Yosemite Sam mud flaps with the words "Back Off". His sleigh has other decorations as well. He has a Ford logo with lights that race through the letters and a caricature of Santa Claus going wee-wee on the Tooth Fairy. Featured prominently on the upper back of the sleigh are both the Browning Buck logo and a large-mouth bass leaping.

7. The usual Christmas movie classics such as "Miracle on 34th Street" and "It's a Wonderful Life" will not be shown in your viewing area. Instead you will see "Ernest Saves Christmas" and "Smoky and the Bandit IV" featuring Burt Reynolds as Bubba Claus.

8. Bubba don't wear a belt on his work jeans. Please ensure that the wife and the kids turn the other way when he bends over to put the presents under the tree. They might not be able to go to sleep after that.

9. Stocking stuffers have been changed. Instead of chocolates, candy canes and such like, children in his service area can expect to get hot-peppered jerky, Vienna sausages, and a fishing lure. Adults may find a can of beer or a sample of Bubba's best moonshine (don't drink this unless you want to miss Christmas with a hang-over.)

10. All toys delivered in the South have been painstakingly assembled by Bubba Claus's elves in his Freedom Homes doublewide workshop.

11. Christmas songs such as Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" will be replaced in his service area. "Bubba Shot the Jukebox" and "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" will now be the rule.

Living in Florida makes me qualified, I believe, to poke fun at some of our southern stereotypes. I particularly like the reference to Earnest Saves Christmas, since both my children can be seen for about seven seconds in the library scene. It was their one and only movie performance. The scene was supposed to be during the afternoon and we'd dutifully arrived at about noon. When the crew finally got around to shooting it, it was 3:00 AM and the kids were just wiped out, not to mention the parents. They got $45 each and we missed a lot of sleep. It wasn't an experience that I'd want to repeat.

Anyway, have a Merry Christmas to those of you who appreciate that idea. Happy Holidays to those who do not. And, just have a nice day to everyone else. Take your pick.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: More wisdom from Uncle Joe

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:04:02 -0800

Here's another post in my series of quotes from Uncle Joe. If you haven't read the previous ones, I'll need to explain. Almost all of us have an "Uncle Joe," although he may have another name in your family. He's the family member who has carefully studied life and has enough experience to codify it into a series of pithy nuggets of wisdom.

I asked Uncle Joe why every picture taken of him shows him waving his right hand. He responded that he was waving to himself, so that when he saw the picture, he'd be happy knowing that he was still here to see the wave. After thinking about that for awhile, I came to the conclusion that he really isn't egotistical, he's just got a weird idea of how time works. But, on the other hand, perhaps he knows more about it than I thought. He certainly always has plenty of time to relax.

Here's what he has to say on a variety of topics which relate to having a good life:

It's said that money can't buy happiness or love, but the average man can impress women more in a Bentley than on a bicycle.
If you help someone who has a really bad problem, not only will they remember you the next time they have a bad problem, but they'll tell their friends and they'll come to you with their problems too.
Trying to drink your cares away with booze doesn't work, but it's a lot more fun than trying to drink them away with milk.
If it were legal to shoot rude people, life would be a lot more pleasant and polite.
They say keep your friends close and your enemies closer, but why give them a chance to stick a knife in your back?
If I were able to exchange all of the money I've wasted in my life by giving back all of the wisdom I'd gained by wasting it, I'd just blow the money again.
Some people wish they could start all over. I just want a younger body, but I'd like to keep my knowledge.
People who inherited their money are sometimes referred to as someone who was born with a silver spoon in their mouth. That's nice, but those people will never have the satisfaction of putting a silver spoon in their own mouth for the first time and knowing that it's entirely due to their own efforts.
If you depend on the good will of others to survive, then you'd be better off practicing making yourself agreeable and pleasant.
If you depend on the government's force to take money from others to give to you, then you'd better work at making those others feel guilty. It keeps them busy and then they don't resent having their funds taken from them so much.
Retirement is horrible! I've seen what happens to retired people. They usually waste away and die within a few, short years. I think it's the contrast between working every day and then doing nothing. To avoid this fate, I've made it my policy to be semi-retired my whole life.

Perhaps it would be a good thing if we'd all take some time to think about life in some of these ways. Uncle Joe is usually pretty happy and my observation of people leads me to believe that happiness isn't very common. People are usually over-worked and over-stressed and cranky. Within certain limits more possessions don't help us. Maybe it would be a good idea to go fishing and relax rather than working on that project of dubious value.

That's our problem. Most of us don't work at things that we love to do. If you can find a job that you really love, the stress that comes with it is seen as just a little spice to add interest.

My wish for you is that you enjoy real estate. It has its challenges, but it is certainly interesting and rewarding if you enjoy helping people.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: A Quick-Start Operation Manual for the Human Condition - Part 2

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 09:01:49 -0800

Yesterday, I talked about the fact that the human brain is far more complex than the fastest of today's computers. Today, I'm going to talk about what might be called the Operating System's functions if the brain were actually a computer. To do this, we're going to use common terms about which everyone has some general knowledge.

The first thing which is apparent to us as we turn our vision inward to the workings of our mind is the conscious part. This is the part that thinks and reasons. You might say that your free will lies here. It is very limited in processing power and can only deal with about 4096 bits of information per second. That's actually pretty slow in terms of computer speed.

The important thing about our conscious mind is that it can accept or reject any idea. No person or circumstance can cause you to think about ideas or thoughts if you do not choose to do so. This is important since the thoughts you choose eventually determine the results in your life.

All pleasure, pain, and limitation is either originated in the conscious mind OR accepted uncritically from an outside source.

As a child, you lack the ability to reject thoughts which are inserted into this part of your mind. Careless remarks that a child overhears may later be incorporated into his life as beliefs. Parenting becomes very important. Day-care, poor quality education, music and TV can easily create beliefs in a child which may lead to self-limiting behavior.

The mind has more than just this conscious part. There is also a part of us which has historically been called the sub-conscious. I'd prefer to think of it as that part of your mind which is normally not focused upon. You can be aware of it, if you want to, however.

This part is the power center of your existence, since it expresses itself through your physical body in feelings and action. The critical aspect of this part of your mind is that it has no ability to evaluate ideas. Every thought that your conscious mind chooses to accept, this part MUST accept. It has no power to reject and it does not understand the word: "Not." It can easily incorporate negative beliefs into it's structure, since it ignores the conscious thought that, "I do not want that." It only hears, "I want that."

Have you ever told a child not to do something and then watched them immediately try to do exactly what you told them not to try? This cycle in a child is often more easily visible than in an adult, since a lot of their behavior is dictated by the sub-conscious alone.

If you choose to repeatedly think a thought, it will become fixed in this part of your mind. Such fixed ideas will continue to express themselves without any conscious assistence until they are replaced. You could call these ideas, "Habits." It requires a considerable amount of repetition in order to firmly implant such an idea. It's commonly thought that it takes 21 days to establish a habit, but there are other factors which make some habits easier to establish and some more difficult.

This part of our existence doesn't like change. People believe that it's difficult to re-write this part of your mind. In fact, it’s no more difficult than changing an error in a document in your computer. You open the document, make the change and then store it away again. It’s just that we often let other problems interfere with this operation. When we go back to focusing on unwanted results, it undoes the change.

This part of your mind is also concerned with survival and processes about a million times more information than your conscious mind. This is we can know more about a new person in a few seconds than we often realize. The information is absorbed below the level of consciousness and is often referred to as, "Intuition."

Let's finish our simplistic view of the human organism with the observation that we also have a body. Your body is, of course, the most obvious part of you. The fact is that there’s no part of a human body that isn’t in a dog or a pig. The critical difference is that your body is the instrument of your mind. Your body is the vehicle that our mind normally travels in during our life in the material world.

Here's the important part of all of this: The beliefs that are caused by the thoughts that your conscious mind fixes upon are impressed upon your sub-conscious which then forces your body to live out those beliefs.

This cycle may be expressed as: "Focus on your goal -> conscious thought of achieving -> subconscious accepts -> body works toward result -> get the results you want."

It may also be expressed as: "Focus on avoiding an unwanted result -> conscious thought of not having that result -> subconscious ignores the "Not" -> body works toward result -> get the results you dreaded."

This is the law: When you devote your attention to something and it becomes part of your belief system, you will eventually receive it in some form. If you're thinking that you've heard this before and it was called the law of attraction, you're correct.

Here are some general implications of this concept: If you don't think that you're getting the results you want, first start by looking around to see where the results are – they’re there, but they may not be in the form you expected. It's been said that when you pray, the results are given to you instantly, you just have to get your mind into a state where it recognizes them. Don't focus on your pre-thought out solution, instead allow your mind to think of alternative solutions and to recognize them when they pop up.

The problem everyone has is that we have the most dedicated focus on the unwanted results which we get and this insures that we just get more of the same via the same process. It takes a lot of work to develop the habit of always focusing on a worthy goal. The negative results do pop up in our lives, seemingly by accident, and they're so compelling that we are easily seduced into focusing on them. Just remember, everything is energy, everything vibrates. You attract the same vibrations that you emit.

Applying this to real estate, the rule is to set a goal and only focus on that goal. Don't focus on how far you missed it this month. That's a "Not." Realize that there is a lag time between your focus and when you receive the goal. If we received what we wanted instantly, the world would be a mess, because we don't control our thoughts that consistently.

With that in mind, remember positive people attract positive results. Negative ones attract negative results. (Hint: It's a lot easier to be positive if you only hang out with the positive people.) As you sow, so shall you reap. By focusing on our poor results, we learn not to trust our ability to attract the good results we want and this leads us to hold onto old ideas and old things because we lack faith in our ability to obtain new ideas and new things. We thus limit ourselves.

Remember that our primary problem is that we are so full of our ideas about how the world works that we haven’t created mental space for the beautiful image that we were born to create.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: A Quick-Start Operation Manual for the Human Condition

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:35:05 -0800

What's the difference between your brain and a computer? We know that the advanced computers of today are pretty amazing in their ability to calculate. They can usually out-perform humans in tasks which require logic, such as playing chess or finding the square root of some huge number. They can even figuratively have one hand tied behind them and still whup the best players of Jeopardy. However there are some tasks they are not wired to accomplish; tasks at which the human brain excels.

We know that computers deal with ones and zeros and use logic gates to manipulate them. These logic gates are the function of transistors and the number of transistors on a computer chip is subject to Moore's Law. This law states that the ability of a computer will double every 18 months and the increased computing power will cost about the same amount. We've seen the truth of this idea in the development of microcomputers from the desktop to the laptop to the tablet and smart phone. Forty years ago the most complex chip could hold slightly more than 2,000 transistors. The chips of today hold over 2 billion transistors.

You might think that our brains are far inferior, but that is incorrect. It's not that we're inferior, it's just that we're programmed to accomplish different tasks. For example, we have the ability to look at a field of tall, brown grass and instantly recognize that the tiny patch of yellow fur which showed for a second means that there is a lion stalking us. We inherited that bit of programming from our ancestors. Likewise, we can instantly recognize a friend even if they've had plastic surgery.

No one knows how many neurons are in the average brain, but estimates range around 100 billion, far outstripping the computer chip. This number becomes even more astounding when you realize that each nerve cell has somewhere around 12,000 interconnections with other nerve cells. These connections are both electrical and chemical and they can transmit information in fractions of milliseconds from one neuron to the next. Add an additional level of complexity in that the neurons can modify themselves and move. That would be like a computer rewiring itself. Then to make the human system even more complex there are approximately as many additional neurons outside the brain ranging throughout our bodies. Additionally, there are things called microtubules inside each nerve cell and these actually perform their own sort of processing. The sum total of calculations that the human system can perform per second far outstrips the world's fastest supercomputers (at this time.)

It's been predicted that computers will have the same capabilities of the brain in about another 12 to 20 years from today. That may or may not happen. We're so far from understanding exactly how the human organism acts, though, that it will probably be far longer before a computer could double as a human. It might be able to instantly analyze and mimic our reactions, but it is another thing to think that it would have the same reactions without having a human to analyze.

Why am I spending all of this time writing about this topic? Here's the point I'm working towards. We have this incredible ability within us and yet most of us haven't the slightest idea of how to use it to effectively better ourselves. In the worst case, we simply go from day to day, reacting to the world. This is a terrible waste, since we have the ability to manipulate our world in ways that are effective and which will lead to far better results than simply reacting to external stimuli.

I've run on a little too long for today. My next post will be part two of this concept and in it we'll examine how our internal software works. I'll give a simple explanation of how our mind functions and show that there are some basic principles which lead us along the pathway to success in our lives.

Meanwhile, to give you a feel for how amazing and complex we are, here's a great video on the development that goes on from conception to birth. It takes about 9 minutes and I believe that you'll find yourself watching it again, referring it to your friends and especially your children, it's that amazing.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Has the Real Estate Market Bottomed?

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:05:19 -0800

The news during the last week has been pretty grim. Every headline seems to be about either some really stupid government action which will adversely impact the economy or about some really stupid government action which adversely impacts the personal freedom of the populace. Yesterday just about topped the charts when I read that NAR had admitted that the home sales statistics for resales had been roughly doubled due to miscounting and also counting new home sales.

I don't know about you, but I've been suspicious of home sales statistics for a long time. When the NAR economist makes some rosy statement about how the market is better, I just shake my head in wonder, laugh and say, "It must be in some other market than mine." We've each got a great view of our local market and every agent out there knows what their personal production looks like. We get paid on the basis of how well we do and the condition of the local market impacts that to a great extent.

I know many of my fellow agents pretty well and I also know that most of them will always say they're having a great year regardless of how well they're actually doing. This is partly due to reluctance to tell another agent that you personally aren't doing so well and also due to the notion that the public doesn't appreciate an agent who has bad news. There is some truth to this concept also. People don't like to hang around with someone who always has negative statements to make. However, always saying things are just GREAT!!! when they're obviously not so good, won't make you very popular either. You loose credibility, if nothing else.

Now, markets are markets and I study both the housing market and the stock market. Years ago, I realized that the housing market was just a fraction of our economy and that the stock market moves far more quickly and often gives a more timely indication of where the economy is going. It's easy to get confused, of course, otherwise everyone who put money into stocks would always make more money. That isn't what happens (at least not to me.)

Before I continue, here is a brief list of rather cynical, but funny statements about the stock market and brokers:

A long term investment is a short term investment that failed.
A stockbroker is someone who invests your money till it's all gone!
It was so cold today I saw a stockbroker with his hands in his own pockets.
A market analyst is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today!
Momentum Investing is the fine art of buying high and selling low and Value Investing is tth art of buying low and selling lower.
Apparently God created stock analysts solely in order to make weather forecasters look good.
My stock broker and I are working on a retirement plan. Unfortunately, it's his!

Anyway, I woke up in the middle of the night with a rather simple insight. It's things like this that make me feel really smart and also completely stupid at the same time. When can you definitely tell that a market has bottomed? The answer is based on the fact that people are heavily influenced by other people and tend to act in a group. Individuals may make mistakes, but there is a certain amount of safety in going along with the group.

You can tell that a market has bottomed when everyone hates the investment. When it's common knowledge that the market is no good, it's a pretty safe bet that it's at the bottom or near that point. Now, if you pair that observation with the elementary philosophy that, in order to get rich, you have to buy low and sell high, you'll quickly come to the conclusion that you should buy at the market's bottom.

Well, my friends, we're pretty near that point! Many years ago before I started selling real estate, I had a man tell me that in order to become rich, you should buy a house a year for twenty years. Unfortunately, I didn't follow his advice very closely and my results show it. On the other hand, at last count he owned close to a hundred properties and is doing just fine, despite the poor market. The reason is that he bought his properties well. He either bought when the market was down, or he bought distressed properties at a great discount. That's the secret. Make your profit on the buy side of the transaction.

There are a lot of investors out there today buying distressed houses and this is because they recognize that you can often pick up a property for less than replacement cost. You have to be careful, of course, since it's easy to get in too deep. I always laugh at the TV shows about flipping property, since their calculations go somewhat like: Buy it for $80,000. Put in $20,000 for repairs. Sell for $125,000. You make $25,000. These shows always leave me wondering if the producers live in another universe. Don't they have taxes, HOA fees, insurance and closing costs where they live? Despite this sort of oversight, they've kind of got the right idea. Buy low, sell high.

If you are a professional real estate agent, now is the time to start looking for great buys. If you're not in a position to pick up properties and hold them, you can probably find some investors who will appreciate your knowledge of the market. Make enough sales to investors and you'll earn enough to buy a property or two for yourself. And, don't tell me that you don't believe that real estate is a good investment, because the market crashed. All markets crash and they inevitably rebound also. Now is the time to buy at the bottom.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Prison vs. Real Estate

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:12:58 -0800

Several times recently, I've had people tell me that working in Real Estate must be wonderful. Perhaps they see something that I don't. I don't know. They usually come up with some platitude about the freedom to set your own schedule or to drive around looking at expensive real estate. Sometimes they say, "I just really like to look at houses" in an envious tone of voice.

Despite their enthusiasm for what they imagine real estate work to be like, the reality is that it has its drawbacks also. Here's a brief comparison of ---

Prison Vs. Working in Real Estate Sales

IN PRISON...you spend the majority of your time in an 8X10 cell reading or playing cards or sleeping.
AT WORK ... you spend the majority of your time in a 6X8 cubicle calling FSBOs who don't want to be called.

IN PRISON...you get three meals a day.
AT WORK...you only get a break for one meal and you pay for it and it's likely to be some nauseating fast food.

IN PRISON...you get time off for good behavior
AT WORK...you get more work for good behavior - and you really hope for this result!

IN PRISON...the guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK...you must carry around a multilock key and open all the doors for yourself.

IN PRISON...you can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK...when you watch TV or play games you don't eat.

IN PRISON...you get your own toilet.
AT WORK...you have to share the nearest filling station restroom with some idiot who most likely has left a mess on the seat.

IN PRISON...they allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK...you can't even take time speak to your family unless you don't care if you locate that next prospect.

IN PRISON...the taxpayers pay all expenses with no work required.
AT WORK...you get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners.

IN PRISON...you spend most of your life inside bars wanting to get out.
AT WORK...you spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.

IN PRISON...you must deal with sadistic wardens.
AT WORK...they are called office managers!　

So, you can see that the similarities are rather striking, but don't get me wrong. I'm too addicted to being able to pay my bills. Of course, my business expenses might be lower, if I quit, but I just don't think that would work out well.

The real point is, regardless of whether you work for yourself or someone else, you must take the responsibility to do the job and that means do whatever it takes. If you find that whatever it takes is too tough for you, either get tougher or find another job. People think that their security lies in the job they have or in the government being willing to give them assistance. It doesn't. The only security that can never be taken away from you lies within your knowledge of your abilities. If you've never taken the responsibility to develop your ability to accomplish things, then I guess you'd better hope that there is some kind of free money out there.

I ran onto a quote by Thucydides which applies. He was a Greek who lived about 400 BC and who is, perhaps, best known for writing about war. He said, in part, "Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave...." The way I read this is that if you think you're going to get away with being happy without being brave enough to take responsibility for yourself, you're in line for a wake-up call.

I'm pretty happy with real estate. When things are tight and there isn't much income, I can only blame myself. When things are easy and our bank account is ahead, well, I'm happy to take responsibility for that too. It's for sure that no one is going to give us anything. We have to work for everything we get and I've noticed that there is an unfortunate correlation between how hard and smart you work and how much you make. It's all up to you.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: What to do with your cash?

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 14:39:31 -0800

I've been reading ZeroHedge again. It's not a good website if you want to maintain your innocent enthusiasm for life in today's world. The posts come from various sources and are relatively sophisticated in financial terms and very depressing in the overall negative view of the economy which is usually displayed.

After having read the most recent news, I was motivated to locate the following definition of various forms of economies:

Today's economy defined:

Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

Communism: You have two cows. You must take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

Wall Street's version of Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt-equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred through an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.However, all of the funds placed in the care of the company by ranchers to hedge against rises and declines in beef prices are now missing.

We spend our time worrying about the housing market. Will it come back? Will prices rebound and when will that happen? The fact is that the housing market is one element of the national economy. It's a large piece of the puzzle, but it's not going to change without a significant structural revision of the way our government does business at the present time. If we think that simply bailing out failed banks is going to be enough to make times good again, we've got another thought coming.

At the present time, banks can borrow money from the government at a low interest rate and then turn around and invest it in government bonds and receive a higher interest rate back. They are making plenty of money on the split and the federal bank examiners seem to be more in favor of that approach. It's for sure that the banks will be less likely to get in trouble with the Feds, if they don't make any dubious loans to anyone other than the government.

The problem seems to be a systemic one. With recent events, the commodities market is no longer trustworthy as the rules have been repeatedly been bent and broken with no repercussion. Contracts are easily ignored, witness the GM takeover by the government. The bondholders - holding a bond is essentially the same as holding a note - were simply told that they would not be repaid, while a considerable amount of the company was simply gifted to the unions as a reward for political support. This isn't the way capitalism works. It's the way fascist states behave.

I believe that real estate ownership is one place to put your money which is more likely to protect your value against inflation. I realize that the official inflation rates are currently low, but I've read that the current inflation rate is somewhere around 3.5% and it might even be higher, if all segments of the consumer's purchasing were included in the calculation.

A brief review of bankrate.com shows that generally, banks are paying less than 2% on CDs. This means that you're loosing at least 1.5% on your money when it's parked in a CD or savings account. If you manage to purchase an investment property at the right price, you can probably generate some positive cash flow from renting it. Even if property values drop farther, such an investment might make sense. It gets you out of the inflationary loss scenario and into something which will spin off money. This may be even more important if the rumors of the Feds tapping the savings and 401K accounts of the citizens become reality. This sort of event would be less likely to impact you, if your money were safely tied up in real estate, rather than sitting in your retirement account.

Most people think that their personal house is an asset and that money in the bank is an asset. This may or may not be true. The true meaning of an asset is something that puts money in your pocket at the end of the year. A liability takes money out. Using this definition, your low interest savings account is a liability since it is loosing value to inflation. You might as well take the money out and put it in investment property. At least you will have a monthly rent check to show for your effort. Just be careful to arrange things so that the property will spin off cash. It's no fun to have to contribute money to cover a negative cash-flow. Today it's far easier to end up with positive cash flows from investment property than it has been for many years.

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: On the importance of being nice!

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:54:21 -0800

As professional sales people, Realtors have their differences of opinion. However, we all would probably admit to having a similar dream that involves listing expensive property and impressing important buyers who subsequently purchase said property. I ran onto the following joke which combines the impressing an important client aspect with something which every Windows user would probably thoroughly enjoy. Here it is:

I was in the airport VIP lounge en route to Seattle a couple of weeks ago. While in there, I noticed Bill Gates sitting comfortably in the corner, enjoying a drink.

I was meeting a very important client who was also flying to Seattle, but she was running a little bit late.

Well, being a straightforward kind of guy, I approached the Microsoft chairman, introduced myself, and said, "Mr. Gates, I wonder if you would do me a favor."

"Yes?"

"I'm sitting right over there," pointing to my seat at the bar, "and I'm waiting on a very important client. Would you be so kind when she arrives as to come walk by and just say, 'Hi Ray'?"

"Sure."

I shook his hand and thanked him and went back to my seat.

About ten minutes later my client showed up. We ordered a drink and started to talk business.

A couple of minutes later I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Bill Gates.

"Hi Ray," he said.

I replied, "Screw off Gates, I'm in a meeting."

I'm not really the sort of person who would actually do something like that and I suspect that most of us are too considerate of other people's feelings to actually be that rude, but it's fun to think about anyway.

I think that it's important to take care and not offend anyone. You never know who might need to sell or purchase a house and it might just be the person you offended. That's both the problem and the opportunity of working in real estate sales. Literally everyone is a potential client. You just can't afford to offend people randomly.

There was an agent I sort of knew who drove around in a car with her name all over the outside. There are still people who do that. I even saw one agent who had carefully glued small plastic boxes to her car doors and then filled them with business cards, in case someone at the shopping center had an irresistible urge to buy or sell. (If you saw that, would you think that, "Here, at last, is a true professional!" and take one of the cards?) Frankly, I never knew of anyone who was so desperate that they chased down a passing car which had the word "Realtor" on the door or license plate holder in order to list their house, but I suppose that the car signs do sort of increase the agent's share of the public mind.

Anyway, the agent I was speaking of, actually was a very aggressive driver. I heard from quite a number of people who had been cut-off by her or who had observed her speeding through their neighborhood. If you're going to be a bad driver, perhaps it wouldn't be so smart to place your name and company in three inch high letters on the sides of your car. The truth is that when you irritate someone, they're far more likely to tell people about your actions, then if you made them happy by doing a good job for them. It's just human nature.

The true fact is that basis of your success is not only what you accomplish, it's also based on who you are. With that in mind, it's always a good strategy to be nice to everyone, regardless of their attitude towards you. I think that most people have a hard enough time in life without me going out of my way to make it even more difficult. The truth is (and I'm confident that it holds true for you also) that I feel far better about myself when I've helped someone. That's the bonus we get when we've pushed away from the closing table with the commission check in our hand.

It is a good feeling when our clients come up to us and thank us for helping them! I'd like to enjoy it even more often than I do...

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Vacation into the Past

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:04:03 -0800

Things used to be different in this country. I know that I'm dating myself by referring to the past in this way and at least some readers will think that I'm just not realistic. Nevertheless, things were different in the not-so-remote past.

Take for example, the following list:

If a man cuts his finger off while slicing salami at work, he blames the restaurant.
If you smoke three packs a day for 40 years and die of lung cancer, your family blames the tobacco company.
If your neighbor crashes into a tree while driving home drunk, he blames the bartender.
If your grandchildren are brats without manners, you blame television.
If your friendly congresswoman is shot by a deranged madman, you blame the gun manufacturers.
If you weigh 200 lbs. more than the recommended weight for your height, you blame the fast-food restaurants that you continue to frequent.
If a crazed terrorist breaks into the cockpit and tries to kill the pilot at 35,000 feet, and the passengers kill him instead, the mother of the deceased blames the airline and the government then proceeds to forever punish all citizens who want to travel on an airplane.

None of this stuff would have happened in the past. I'm not saying that things were better back then. We had Beta video tapes for our curved TV screens, Sony Walkman tape recorders for portable music (before that there were eight-track tapes which always got tangled and before that we had to use reel-to-reel tapes or vinyl records). We had to depend on the post office for the mail and on the newspaper and the three broadcast TV channels for the news.

There is a lot about today which is really great. I've just returned from visiting my mother over the holiday and she has no provision for using the Internet. It's so primitive there that I had to park outside the city library to get wi-fi and I was reduced to checking my email on my phone. The environment is one which does not encourage writing posts, that's for sure.

When I was a child, I heard about a pipeline worker who decided to check the grease in a working machine by sticking his finger in a hole where a shaft was rotating. It cut off his right index finger. When he returned from getting the stub attended to, his boss asked him what happened. He demonstrated by sticking his left index finger in the same hole. Same result. Back then no one blamed the machine manufacturer. They just said the worker was stupid. That was true, he was. No one worried about hurting his feelings either. Even he would admit that he was just plain dumb.

Drunks were held responsible for their excesses. Grandchildren just got a swift whack on the seat of the pants and then they behaved better. Children aren't really rational and a little pain sometimes works wonders when speaking to them rationally doesn't

Few people got shot unintentionally, although accidents did sometimes happen. Generally, people were familiar enough with firearms that the idea of "Gun Control" only meant "hitting your target." Few people were obese. They generally worked too hard to get too fat. It was also unusual to see obese children. They were playing outside until after dark and all that running around seemed to keep them fairly slim.

As for the terrorist issue, well, let's just say that the "security theater" antics put on by the government union workers at the airports and now on some of our highways have nothing to do with keeping us safe. A pilot friend told me that there are many back-door ways to get weapons on board an airliner and the security people seem to be clueless about most of them. This leads me to believe that our "security" isn't the real motive for the increasingly intrusive screenings imposed on airline travelers.

But, I digress. That's another symptom of being older. You loose your train of thought and wander around not making any particular point. People think that taking a vacation to visit your relatives is supposed to be relaxing. I imagine that most people find it very stressful. The thing is, your relatives think they know you, no matter how long it's been since you've seen them. They have expectations of you and are upset when your actual behavior and personality isn't as simple as it was when you were growing up. It makes for a stressful encounter and leaves both parties wondering.

They undoubtedly think that the location where you're living has changed you for the worse and you're left wondering exactly how they manage to survive without the amenities on which you depend. In the past, people didn't move far from their families and this sort of disconnect was a little more unusual. Today you're probably better off just phoning occasionally and skipping the actual visit. A side benefit is that the airport security fanatics won't get a chance to show you how diligent they are.

The only benefit to taking a vacation that I can actually think of is that it makes going back to work appealing!

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Computers + People may actually = Intellegence!

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 09:02:20 -0800

I was reading a financial newsletter the other day and I happened on a column by one of the editorial staff which was based on the idea that the internet has started to impact the financial market in a long-anticipated manner. There are over 361 million users worldwide

and the United States is home to less than 13% of them. The combination of all of the computing power and knowledge held by the human users is capable of coming to conclusions on very difficult problems by consensus.

For example, the announcement of each new so-called solution to the European financial problems has been initially greeted with a stock rally, but shortly thereafter, the crowd-sourced knowledge engine, operating via the internet has found the solution lacking and stocks fall again.

As we move into the future, better software will be developed and internet speeds will increase, barring any geo-political crisis which places the internet under governmental control and, thus, stymies the investment-driven development. As that happens, the giant computing engine which is composed of the internet, millions of individual computers, and millions of humans, will reach for the ability to solve global problems in a way that humans couldn't even consider in the near past.

Of course, if the evolving computational system shows evidence of changing the status quo, those who have carefully arranged the current system so that they're winning will fight back. We can expect to see politicians and perhaps large banks lobby against the changes. However, good ideas can never be suppressed for long. Just as the massive power of the Church failed to suppress the ideas of Copernicus, the development of the global computing engine will gradually progress to a point where currently insoluble financial and governmental problems will be easily solved.

Recent research has shown the validity of this assumption. One study demonstrated that online game players (game players, for Pete's Sake!) over a period of a few days and given the right software to facilitate the work, would interactively generate state-of-the-art solutions to complex problems such as viral structure. This is truely remarkable and certainly highlights the truth of the old saying that, "The Whole is More than the Sum of the Parts."

Let's speculate for a moment. If there was someway to harness the mass of real estate knowledge held by all of the members of NAR, I imagine that the housing crisis which we're currently suffering from could be solved relatively easily. Of course, the software would have to provide some way of resolving the conflicting ideas that would inevitably arise. Most agents I know are highly opinionated about the market and the necessary steps to solve our current problems. It would be interesting to take an informal opinion survey about this issue.

We've come a long, long way down the path of technology. It wasn't very long ago when statements like these were common:

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." Published in Popular Mechanics in 1949.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

Now we have to suffer with products like Windows, created by Bill Gates who is said to have said, "I just want a little bit of money from everybody...forever."

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com

My World: Viewing property in the Astral zone...

Eric Martell, Ph.D. (RE/MAX Properties SW, Inc.) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 11:16:56 -0800

You'd think with all of the practice people get, they'd be better at sleeping. When you consider that most of us sleep between 6-8 hours every day, that adds up to a lot of years of practice, especially when you get to be my age. Children don't seem to have any difficulty with sleeping, although the phrase "sleeping like a baby" is somewhat misleading. It's usually supposed to mean that one is sleeping peacefully, but in fact, sleeping like a baby would mean that you woke up every couple of hours in a bad mood with wet pajamas.

I think that the problem people have with sleeping sets in about the time that they figure out that everything in their life depends on their personal effort and, for some reason, it doesn't seem to be enough. A person's job can carry over into his or her sleep-life. Right after we were first married, my wife took a job at the reference desk in the university library. This seemed to me to be a good idea, since I could go and see her instead of studying, but the first couple of days, she kept kicking her feet in bed. When I finally tired of this and woke her to ask why she was kicking so much, it developed that she was dreaming about kicking her swivel chair back to reach a filing cabinet where she had to file cards. I guess the problem could be worse, for example:

An accountant went to the doctor complaining that he hadn't been able to sleep well recently.

The doctor suggested that the accountant count sheep until he drifted off.

The accountant responded, "That's the problem, Doc! I keep making mistakes and then I have to spend several hours auditing my work in order to find the error."

This sort of thing happens to everybody at some point. The actual fact is that we can consolidate our memories of tasks while we sleep and often find that our performance improves overnight. You might think that is simply due to being rested and some of the increase probably is, but there is certainly some improvement due to mentally rehearsing the tasks while we sleep. Mental rehearsal is well known as a good way to practice. There was an American imprisoned in Vietnam for several years during the Vietnam war. He survived by mentally playing golf on all of the courses he'd ever played. When he was released and played his first game after arriving back home, he found that he'd improved his performance from many strokes over par to par or below.

This phenomenon also can occur when we go to sleep with a problem in our mind and then, rather miraculously, wake at about 3AM with the solution. This is why I keep a notepad and a pen by the bed. I've found that when I get the solution, it's a good idea to write it down. It may not be so easy to remember it in the stresses of the morning.

Have you ever had a dream where you were flying? Not flying in an airplane or helicopter, but flying like Superman? I'd guess that at least half of my readers will answer in the affirmative. This is relatively common although most of us don't dream that sort of thing every night.

Back in the '50s, a radio executive named Robert Monroe, had that sort of problem. He actually became afraid to go to sleep, since his flying dreams were so realistic. He'd fly into other people's houses and all sorts of strange places. There was no help for him as most of the medical professionals of the day would have simply assumed that he needed to be committed. Eventually he decided to make the best of the experiences and started to study them. He finally realized that he was experiencing out-of-body events and the upshot was that he wrote 3 books and started a foundation to study the phenomenon. Today, you can purchase audio CDs which utilize binaural-beat technology to assist you in developing the ability to adjust your brainwaves into a Theta state, which is the 4 cycle per second state that you naturally move into when you are on the verge of sleep and in which virtually all out-of-body experiences occur.

One of the aspects of such out-of-body travel is that it can sometimes be verified. The problem is that you are operating in a non-normal state of reality and your perceptions are odd. We found out about out-of-body travel when my wife had a vivid dream which enabled her to locate a colleague of ours who had killed himself in one of his vacant listings. She apparently flew to the scene and observed it from a vantage point near the ceiling. She was able to describe the relevant features of the room almost exactly to the police. (For the full story, read one of my previous posts: Suicide in a vacant listing.)

This led me to study out-of-body events for many years. I've found that sometimes a person will come to a sort-of conscious state while asleep and realize that they want to move their body, but cannot. When that happens, everyone I've spoken to has admitted to feeling panic. The solution in that event is to simply concentrate on moving your big toe. For some reason, that action will cause you to 'click' back into full alignment with your body. If you've ever experienced this situation, you'll instantly know what I'm talking about, the rest of you are welcome to think that I'm crazy, if you like.

There is a spiritual component to this sort of thing, but I'm simply going to close by stating that it'd sure be handy if both you and your clients could travel out-of-body at will. You could show houses every night and not burn any gas! Wouldn't that be the ultimate in "Green" real estate services?

Namaste!

Eric Martell, I.R.E.S.

Orlando-Properties.com InternationalEstateMarket.com