You need a place to live so you turn to Craigslist.com.  There you find the perfect house.  And the rental price is great!  In fact, it sounds like a steal.  Well yes, by the time you are done with it, theft could be involved.

Overseas individuals scour the internet looking for homes for sale.  They then duplicate the home listing except that they offer the home for rent at a very attractive price. There is no phone number, but the owners email address is right there.  Being a diligent consumer, you do some research and the owners name matches the email.

Ultimately, you will need to email back a rental application and wire the first month's rent plus a deposit.  The owner promises to send the keys, but you never hear from them again.

Here is the actual email that you get in response to your inquiry.

Hello,  Sorry for the late reply.

Thank you very much for making enquiry about my house, well I am happy to tell you that the house is available for now and you can move-in immediately or at your will after we have both reach an agreement on the rent.

I am a military man and currently not around in the states, I am in Africa with my family now where I'm receiving medical treatment due to the explosion of a Bomb that affected my legs and would not be back until July 2011.

Here is my phone# (number removed) I would be online thought out to attend to your enquiry.

House Address: (address removed),Clarksville, TN 37040  Type: Residential   Style: 1 1/2 Story, Contemporary, Site Built   Bedrooms: 3   Bathrooms: 2   Garage: Double, Attached "Attached - FRONT"  

So you view the inside and out of the house and you may also the drive by the house on your convince time.

House Information:

Bedrooms                        3

Bathrooms                       2

Parking                             Allow Pet Policy                        Cats,Dogs Deposit                            $500

Utilities Included:

Gas & water, Good condition,Air Conditioning, Dishwasher, Handicap Accessible,kitchen,Outside Smoking OK,refrigerator, washer, dryer, dishwasher, microwave, Chair rail, crown molding, underground,Perfect location for office away from everyone for peace and quiet, garage,Laundry room, so much more, Convenient to Ft Campbell & shopping. Pets Allowed.

What is your time frame for moving? you can and drive-by and mail me back if you like the property and its environments.

The security Deposit is $500 and the monthly fee is the $700 which is a month payment.

Get back as soon as possible,so i could forward the rent application form to you.

Thanks and regards,

So how can you protect yourself?

Like your mother told you.  If it is it too good to be true, it probably isn't!  Trust your gut instinct.

Watch out for "free" email addresses like Yahoo, AOL, Gmail.  In this case the scammer also found the owners name and obtained an email address that matched.

The owner is out of the country.  Only deal with local people or people that you can independently verify.  Craigslist is designed for buying ands selling locally.

Notice the poor grammar in the email.  It is obviously not written by someone whose native language is English.   Misspellings and errors are common in their correspondence.

They will want you to wire the money by Western Union.  Never wire money to someone you don't know!

They will try to pressure you to act quickly.

Oh, you know that rental application you filled out with your driver's license number, social security number, and bank account.....you may now be a victim of identity theft.   Never ever send personal information to someone that you don't know.

The bottom line is use your common sense.

Montgomery County (Clarksville, TN) saw a strong rebound in residential sales of 28.7% over 2008 with 3,567 homes sold.  New Construction lagged slightly with an increase of 26.2% year over year for 990 sales.

The average home value for the year was $150,801; up 1.3% over last year.

Higher priced homes did well with a record high of 231 closings for homes in the $250,000 + price range. 

For 2010, sales in this area could remain relatively flat compared to 2009.  There will be a small surge in May, and June as buyers work to cash in on the extended homebuyers tax credit.  This includes trade-up buyers this year that may qualify for the $6,500 tax credit.  The tax credit accelerates buying so we will probably see a comparatively weak July.  A beneficiary of this last November's deadline were homebuilders as new construction sales peaked. 

More troops are deploying which increases listing inventory but slows homebuyers.  Increased inventory puts downward pressure on prices.

As credit tightened up we saw an increase in FHA loans.  However, it appears that FHA may tighten their criteria also.

There will be a small lift from people moving into the area to service HSC construction.  However, many will enter the market as renters. This is good as quite a few sellers have not seen enough appreciation to sell so they will rent their homes instead.

Interest rates are expected to creep higher in 2010 which will have an impact.

Demand will remain strong enough that an attractive home that is priced appropriately will sell in a reasonable time frame.  While historic home values are a standard for determining a homes price, sellers will also have to look at how they are priced compared to their competition.  

Clarksville Has Voted!

Once again, the Best Of Clarksville voted Keller Williams as the BEST Real Estate Agency.  Now in its 12^th year, the best of Clarksville saw the best turnout ever and raised $40,000 - $5,000 more than last year.  All proceeds from tickets and donations go to the Middle Tennessee March of Dimes.  Keller Williams has been voted the BEST Real Estate Agency for five years in a row.

Here are the rest of the companies that were winners.  Be sure to give them a try when you come to town.

I'm looking to put together a list of songs about houses and homes.  Frankly, I would like to find some songs to play during sales meetings, agent open houses and such that may evoke a reaction from real estate agents.

Now these have to be songs with homes or real estate as a main theme.  

A great example would be Our House by Crosby, Stills, & Nash.  I also like This Ole House by Stewart Hamblen or Two Story House by George Jones & Tammy Wynette.

The house may or may not be in the title. Don't Let the Rain Come Down by the Serendipity Singers comes to mind with its great line:  "My roof's got a hole in it and I might drown."

While it is one of my favorite songs, House of the Rising Sun by The Animals would not qualify.  Neither would the Animal House Theme or Brick House by The Commodores.  

So help me out and tell me about your favorite "House" song.

Who's Selling Montgomery County and Clarksville TN Real Estate?

The pie chart explains itself.  It's Keller Williams Realty!  #1 in sales volume in the city and the county.  Keller Williams is painting the town red with its signs. 

The chart depicts the larger companies.  All others are represented by the purple at 7%. Contact me if you would like additional backup information.

I had previously rambled about poor pictures on home listings.  But this time, I thought that I would show everyone what I was talking about.  Click below to see some of the really bad photos that I have collected. 

Bad Real Estate Photo Tour

A hot button for me is not immediately putting pictures on the listing.  I checked my MLS and 12.4% of the listings had NO picture.  Buyers who were emailed these listings more than likely passed them up.

Another one of my hot buttons are real estate agents that show only one picture when they have ten available to them in our MLS.  Then we have agents like the one below that found a way to fill them.  I found it interesting also that the agent took the picture on one of the two days that it snowed this winter.

Randy Worcester
Clarksville, Tennessee
Home of Fort Campbell and the 101st Airborne
Clarksville TN Real Estate
http://ClarksvilleHomePros.com

With a high level of anticipation, my sons place a stack of gifts at my feet.  Oh what could they have thought of to give the man who already has what he wants: a wonderful wife and loving sons. 

The first present was a wide angle lens for my camera.  This will allow me to take better pictures of homes.  They know that I am really picky about the pictures on a listing since so many buyers look at the internet first.

Next I was given a copy of The PMZ Way: Strategies of Highly Successful Real Estate Agents by Michael P. Zagaris.  Hmmmmm.  Looks interesting. Although I will not give up my copy of The Milliionaire Real Estate Agent until my body is cold.  

Lastly, my wife bought out the NAR REALTOR store.  Loads of stuff in brilliant blue including a coffee travel mug.

So my conclusion is that my wife and sons want me to sell alot more homes in 2007. 

And what did you get for Christmas?

Maybe I'm dedicated.  Maybe I'm hungry.  Maybe I'm stupid. 

On Saturday the 23rd, I worked all day.  I was showing new construction with a flashlight after dark.  On Sunday, the 24th, my wife and I negotiated a counteroffer.  On Christmas Day, I worked on my goals and income spreadsheet for the new year.  On Tuesday the 26th, I worked a full day and met with customers, etc.

I had a phone call on Tuesday.  The lady was in Georgia and looking for an agent in a more rural part of Tennessee.  I explained that I was 5 hours from that area.  She said that she could not find and agent there ands really wanted to talk to someone today.  So I went to the ePRO and CRS directories and they did not have and agent in the area.  So i went into supersearch mode on the internet.  After viewing some generic websites that told nothing about hte agents qualifications, I found an office which looked promising.  The office had an answering machine.  They were closed. 

After more searching, I found another office.  Here was the conversation.

Good morning, XXX realty.  (Aha!  Jackpot....a person answered even though she sounded like she might have sold land to the cavemen.)

Good morning, This is Randy with Keller Willimas in Clarksville, TN.  To whom am I speaking?

This is the Secretary.

Great!  Can I speak to an agent?

Well.....  They might be in this afternoon.  

Oh?  I've got a potential customer.  Can we get ahold of someone?

I'm just the Secretary.  They might be in this afternoon.

I'm sorry.  I'll just have to call another agency.

Okay. 

Thank you.  Good bye.  (Arghhhh!)

So I searched some more.  The next call was answered by someone that obviously was a morning person. She was working that day and was excited about a potential new customer.  She was delightful to talk to.  If she is not a success, then I'm sure that she soon will be.  Thank you to Sonya DeForge with Riverside Realty in Tennessee for answering the phone.

Randy Worcester
Keller Williams
http://fortcampbellhomepros.com/
http://clarksvillehomepros.com/

There is a company that has been approaching agents in the South about becoming mortgage brokers in addition to being a real estate agent.  Yesterday, our agent leadership council (ALC) voted that this will not be allowed at our offices.  Kudos!

This may sound atttractive to a marginal agent looking for an additional source of income.  But I simply see it as a lawsuit waiting to happen. 

But maybe that is not the case.  Recently, I asked why we don't recruit from XYZ realty.  I was told that many of the agents there were also mortgage brokers so that they could be covered by health insurance. 

While I could use some good health insurance, my goal is to become the best real estate agent that I can be.  Becoming a Mortgage Broker would simply get in the way of that. 

Frankly, I am surprised that in this highly regulated industry that the State allows an agent to serve these two roles. 

Okay.......I admit that I am excited.  My bride of 25 years and I will be attending the Keller Williams Family Reunion in Las Vegas in February. AND we were able to get reservations in the main hotel!

I've been to plenty of conventions in Las Vegas over the years in my previous life (what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas), but this will the be the first in real estate and the first with my wife. I'm looking forward to the education, sharing of ideas, and meeting about 12,000 of my fellow KW associates.

Plus since the day that we were married and went to Disney World for our honeymoon, I've enjoyed showing my better half (Peggy) what the rest of the world is like. Now I get to show her Las Vegas.  Whoopee. 

http://ClarksvilleHomePros.com

http://FortCampbellHomePros.com