Steve's Austin Realty Blog

What if Realtors were Ranked from White Belt to Black Belt?

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:25:26 -0500

Imagine your grandmother needed to be escorted through a dangerous part of town, and you had to select from available bodyguards. One is a White Belt, a part timer with very little experience, but he returned your call in less than 10 minutes.

Another is a Black Belt with 20 years experience and hundreds of successful missions. Who would you pick for this important assignment? You’d go with the experienced veteran with the proven track record of success, right?

What if your child needed a special surgery, and you wanted to interview surgeons? What sort of criteria would you look for? What sort of questions would you ask? You’d probably ask “how many of these procedures have you completed, how long have you been doing it and what is your success rate?”, right?

Make up your own scenarios – you need an attorney to defend you against a frivolous lawsuit, or an accountant to assist with an IRS audit, or a tree person to work on your 300+ year old trophy oaks. Would you hire newbies with no track record of success? Probably not.

Buying or selling a home is an extremely important financial event, with many variables and 100’s of different ways that things can go wrong, yet the real estate industry, for whatever reason, is not one in which the customer typically uses a strong selection process when looking for professional help. Why is that?

In a real estate seminar I attended recently it was stated to us Realtors, “if you’re not returning your phone message and emails in less than 10 minutes, you’re losing business. 70% of buyers and sellers go with the first agent to respond, so you need to make sure you’re that agent”.

Crap. I’m still “old school” and think that it’s ok to return a non-urgent call within one business day, though I’m usually much faster. But I don’t go for the 10 minute rule. I don’t live my life in permanent hyper-response mode. I’d go insane.

So what would be better selection criteria that would be easy for consumers to understand and relate to? What if Realtors had a ranking system, such as in martial arts, where one earns progressively higher belt color rankings as their experience and competence grows?

And what if we had to wear these belts to listing appointments. Might that change things a bit for agents and the customer as well?

Brand new Realtors, fresh out of real estate school and passing their test, would have to wear a White Belt, signifying to all that they’ve never closed a real estate transaction and they’re brand new. After one or two completed deals, they could be promoted to Yellow Belt, and so on. Of course Realtors like me and Sylvia, with 20 years experience and hundreds of successful transactions would be Black Belts, as would our peers who have paid the same dues and gained the same level of experience.

In the martial arts world, it takes about 6 years to achieve Black Belt status, depending on the discipline being studied. To become a Master Plumber in Texas takes about 7 years. I’m not sure about Electricians, or HVAC specialists, but there are many examples in life of individuals having to work long and hard before achieving a status that is recognized as being a “master” level.

Yet in real estate, if you can pass the test and return your phone calls and/or emails in less than 5 minutes, that will be the main selection criteria used by the majority of consumers who are looking for help. That’s it! Be the first one to call back and you might have your first listing. Is that stupid or what?

What’s really unfair about this is that when one of these White Belts Realtors screws up a deal big time, the entire industry gets a bad rap but nobody ever asks the person telling everyone about his lousy Realtor what sort of questions were asked before hiring that Realtor. They never scrutinize the hiring process that resulted in the hiring of the deficient Realtor.

We run into agents regularly who have no business being in the real estate business. They don’t know what they’re doing. Yet someone hired them anyway, using criteria and rationale that would never be used to hire equally important advisors or councilors in other industries. I guess real estate is just weird that way.

So, next time you’re interviewing Realtors, talk to more than one. Not just the one who you reached first. And ask them what belt they are. Make them tell you, if their real estate experience were equated with martial arts, what “belt” they’d be. Why pay the same fees to a White Belt Realtor that you would for a Black Belt Realtor?

Better yet, here are some sample questions:

1) How many homes have you sold in the past 12 months?

2) How long have you been selling homes?

3) What is your success rate? (Percentage of listings that actually sell)

I could write a longer list, but these three questions alone would provide enough insight to help most customers get started with a proper selection process.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Steve and Sylvia Leave Keller Williams – Go Independent Again

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:13:23 -0500

Sylvia and I are excited to announce that, as of today, we have reverted back to the business structure under which we operated from 1993 through 2004 as Crossland Real Estate. Sylvia is Broker and Head Honcho and I just do what she tells me. We are no longer with the Southwest Market Center of Keller Williams Austin. We are once again an independent, home grown Austin real estate company.

It’s been a great 4 years at Keller Williams and, as I was telling agents at the office today, I don’t believe that Sylvia and I would be the caliber of Realtors we’ve become had we not done our 4 year stint at Keller Williams.

The Southwest Market Center in Austin is the original, first Keller Williams office started by Gary Keller in the 1980s. It is the #1 real estate office in the world, on many different metrics, including number of sales and number of agents. It’s considered the flagship office of Keller Williams – the mother ship – and is the frequent host of tours for other Keller Williams market center staff from around the country who want to come see how we do it here in Austin.

Sylvia and I have enjoyed being a part of this amazing company and this office, and we especially enjoyed the honor of serving on the ALC (Agent Leadership Council) for the past two years, which is the body of top producing agents that runs the Southwest Market Center. I feel like, even though we both had a lot of experience as Realtors before we joined Keller Williams in 2005, we never would have received the type of training and exposure to ideas that we experienced at Keller Williams had we remained Mom and Pop forever and not ventured out to see what it would be like in a different environment.

So why the move? Why switch?

We’re tired, man. Frankly, it’s hard work operating at the level we’ve been at for the past few years. Non-Realtors may not know the real estate terminology of “Production”, or “Closed Volume”, or “Gross Commission Sales” (GCI), but Sylvia and I had what I think will be our career peak year last year in 2008, during a slow market, with just under $10M in closed transactions. That’s not anywhere close to what some of the elite, high production agents achieve across the U.S., but it’s a lot of sales, roughly 4 closings a month. It takes a lot of effort and energy to do that. We’re tired and want to slow down.

So, the plan is to continue building our investment portfolio of managed properties, and focus more on listings and less on buyers. That doesn’t mean we won’t help buyers – we love working with buyers – but we will scale back on the number of buyers we work with and we’ll be more picky about who we take on and less tolerant of tire kickers. When we’re running full tilt, we can each handle 5 to 10 buyers at a time. We’ll probably scale back to 1 or 2 at a time and refer the overflow leads to other agents.

The buyer side of the real estate business is at least twice as demanding as the listing side, especially the 4 to 6 hour days in the car in 100+ degree heat, in and out of houses. Only about 1 of 5 buyers that engage us end up buying, which is why we have to run so many at a time. And that’s actually a better ratio than most Realtors achieve. We’re pretty picky already, but still, it’s a numbers business and, as all productive Realtors know, you have to work your way through a lot of uncompensated time, effort and expense to get to the next buyer closing. And you unfortunately have to know when to cut people loose and when to remain patient. It’s not always an easy call, but you have to be able to make the call anyway.

So, from a strictly business decision standpoint, the time freed up by working with fewer buyers can be reallocated to handling more property management accounts and seeking more sales listings. We still run a fairly small boutique portfolio of managed properties, about 35 at present. That’s compared to almost 250 I handled in the early 2000s. We won’t grow to 250 “doors” again, but a target portfolio of about 75 is reasonably easy to handle and provides a more predictable and stable return on time invested than does an equal amount of time chasing down buyer leads and showing houses to people who aren’t really sure they even want to buy.

Finally, on a more personal note, we feel like we were getting sucked up into a more expensive lifestyle than we really need or desire. We both come from very frugal, low budget roots. My father was a tightwad Navy Officer who raised our family in a tiny, cheap house even though he could have afforded better. Sylvia’s mother was an artist and college art professor, so she didn’t grow up with lavish things either. As a young newlywed couple, Sylvia and I scraped by as I worked my way through college. I didn’t even own a vehicle less than 10 years old until I was 35 – not because I couldn’t buy one, but because I thought new cars were a waste of money. I still do, but I’ve bought four in a row over the past 11 years, justifying it by saying “I’m a Realtor, I need a nice newer car”. Yeah, I need a clean decent car, but not a new one every few years.

We know how to live cheap, save and build wealth, mostly through investing in rental properties, yet an increasing amount of the fruits our professional effort is going toward supporting a lifestyle that’s out of sync with our basic frugal values or needs. Think of us as “Cheapskates Gone Wild”.

It’s weird too how spending more just creeps up. How the ability to afford stuff creates a desire and an urge to have the stuff. In a reverse logic sort of way, which might not make sense to some, it’s more profitable to earn less in America, at a certain point. There is a cutoff at which, for most people, additional earnings result in a higher proportional increase in consumption and spending. It’s like a law of nature that takes over or something. Anyway, we’ll have more left over money, discretionary income, on half the revenue we’ve been generating. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s just how it works.

Also, I nearly got choked up the other day as I realized we have less than two years remaining living as a family of four. Our oldest daughter will be off to college in two years. My youngest will attend all 4 years of high school with no big sister at home, and there will then be just three of us. Four years later, it will be just me and Sylvia as our youngest heads to college also. Then what? Retire?

We don’t want to look back on these next 6 years and say “well, we finally cracked the $15M threshold in closed sales but hardly ever saw the kids”. No, that’s not what we want to remember as our primary focus or achievement.

So we’re setting aside more time for family and less time and effort toward selling real estate or trying to maintain ourselves as “top” agents in our office. And that’s very doable by simply getting back to basic living and the simple no frills business philosophy that we started with in the early 1990s. And it doesn’t mean your referrals and repeat business will receive anything less with regard to the quality of service we provide. You’ll just be one of fewer clients that we’re juggling.

Finally, I look forward to writing more later, in another blog, about what it looks like to be scaling back a fairly big and costly real estate business setup to something equally as effective but far less difficult to manage. We’ve now operated at both ends of the spectrum, and all points in between, as we’ve started, bought, sold, expanded, downsized and run our real estate business in various forms and setups over the past nearly 20 years.

We’re at present scaling down from spending more than $30K over the past 12 months with KW on commission splits ($18K), office rent ($6K), admin fees, copy fees, phones, etc. to a $30 per month mailbox at a postal shipping store and working again out of a home office and meeting clients at Starbucks, or wherever.

How’s that going to work?

Actually, pretty darn well. None of our listing clients ever even came to our office. Buyers did, often, but that can be worked around fairly easily, thanks to Starbucks, WiFi and something called a Laptop. The “officeless” way of doing business and the amazing tools available today make possible all sorts of things, and I look forward to writing more about the tools and services we use as Realtors that make having an expensive brick and mortar office, for us, now obsolete.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Protecting your online reputation using Google Alerts

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:12:33 -0500

There is an article in the Sept/Oct edition of the Austin Apartment Association magazine "Window on Rental Housing", written by Austin Attorney Bill Warren, which addresses the growing problem in the apartment industry of rouge reviews and rants about apartment complexes and the management.

As a renter moving to Austin, you can go online and find reviews about the various apartment complexes. There isn't a central repository of reviews, or a website that dominates this niche, but there are numerous websites trying to capture this market. These are not generally glowing reviews. The ones that are favorable often don't seem genuine because they're just a bit too gushy, so one wonders if the apartment personnel wrote some of those.

I've found a smattering of reviews about Austin Realtors as well. Not surprisingly, most Realtor reviews are unfavorable. Sylvia and I solicit our own reviews from clients after every deal via a survey we mail out. We post them on our website (though I need to update that page). We've never received a bad review. But because we also manage rentals, we are subject to the rants and anger of tenants.

Just yesterday one of my tenants called to say he needs to break his lease. I explained what the lease agreement says about that, and what needs to happen to remain in integrity with the lease agreement, and of course, as usual, it went down hill from there.

"I knew you were going to be difficult to deal with", the tenant said. To which I replied, "Whoa, hold on there. What are you being asked to do that you didn't already agree to when you signed your lease contract?".

I've been working with tenants for almost 20 years now, and am resigned to the fact that when asked to do waht was agreed, especially when they need to break the lease, tenants often don't like it and lash out against the property manager. I've seen some really rotten reviews written about property managers.

So, what if someone writes up a nasty tirade about Steve Crossland, the "worst landlord in Austin", and excoriates me for "not being reasonable", as was alledged yesterday when I simply remided a tenant of what was written in the lease agreement? That's where Google comes to the rescue.

Using the Google Alerts tool, anyone can monitor any keyword phrase you want and be alerted when that keyword phrase appears on the internet. I have Google Alerts set up for "Steve Crossland" and "Sylvia Crossland" and "Crossland Team" and "Crossland Real Estate", as well as some others, including my kid's names (hint to nosy parents), and terms such as "Austin Real Estate Market" that I just like to follow in news stories and other blogs. I will thus be notified if any of those search terms appear anew anywhere on the internet.

If attorney Bill Warren, referenced at the start of this article, has a Google Alert set up for his name, he'll be receiving a "Google Alert" email probably within an hour of this blog article being posted, and he can click the link and come here to read what was said about him.

These Google Alerts are very important for service providers and business owners in protecting your name and reputation. If you don't have them set up, do it now, today. Don't wait. You don't have to use Gmail to use the alerts. They can be sent to any email address.

Rather than being clueless and unaware about what might be written about you on the internet with regard to your products and services, you really have to be on top of things and guard your reputation. Even if you don't own a business, it's not a bad idea to keep tabs on where your name appears on the internet.

I in fact have not needed to take action about anything that has been written about us. We've had no bad reviews written that I've found, but if one were to be written, I'd find out right away and be able to take appropriate counter measures.

What would appropriate action be if you are slammed by a bad review or tirade?

1) If it's something written in a public forum, I would respond with my side of the story, and some additional facts. I'd try not to attack the disgruntled person, but would instead simply provide more details so readers could make up their own minds. This is the approach I've seen taken by product vendors when their software or product receives a bad public review on technology forums or other websites. I think it's a good approach. It's always better to take the high ground and be nice.

2) If it's a straight out pack of lies, or slander, then I would take more aggressive action, such as a letter to to website owner demanding removal of the content. The problem is, these "public comment" review websites are unregulated, and many take a sinister delight in letting anyone say anything. It might take an attorney to get something done in that case. But it's money I would not hesitate spending.

If the offensive content starts to show up in web searches for you, your company or your product or service name, you better get on it. It can really cause you problems. Worse, if the content is fact based truths about some sort of screwup you committed, you legally can't do anything at all about that.

For example, I wrote a truthful and fact based review of a lender who ripped off one of my buyers a few years ago with outrageously high loan fees. That blog article promptly became the #1 search result in Google for eLendDirect and eLendDirect.com. It's still here on my blog, and it's still number #1 in Google. The CEO, Marc Griffith, refused to rebate the bogus loan fees to my buyer, and threatened me with legal action. Since everything written was in fact true (I simply listed the fees charged), he had no leg to stand on, and I held my ground in defense of my buyer, who paid the fees instead of delaying the close and switching lenders as I suggested.

A Realtor friend of mine had an angry buyer, who wasn't even his client, register his {FirstLast.com} name and put up a website calling him the "worst Realtor in Austin", with a photo (stolen from his real website) and everything. My friend called me for advice. We figured out where the guy worked by googling him. My friend contacted his employer. The employer made the guy surrender the domain name and take down the website, as the behavior was not something the company endorsed, to their credit. But the entire episode was very unsettling for my friend and it took 6 months to get it resolved and cost him lost sleep and stress.

How would you like it if a search for your business name, or your personal name turned up unfavorable write-ups or bogus slander? There is not much you can do to stop it from appearing initially (other than conducting your business properly and being nice to people), but you can use Google Alerts to be notified right away and take action faster if and when it does happen. And like most of Google's tools, it's a free service. Go sign up now! Don't wait!

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Why picky buyers pay more for their homes

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 10:34:01 -0600

It's called a "buyer's market" because real estate buyers have a market advantage over sellers. The buyer advantage is a result of high inventory and lower demand. Buyers have a lot of Austin homes to pick from, and there are more homes for sale than there are buyers to buy them. This means Austin buyers should be getting great deals, right? Wrong. Many don't.

Many buyers give away their buyer's market advantage in favor of indulging a highly particular and restrictive set of search criteria. In other words, some buyers are looking for the "perfect" house, and once they find it, they are not willing to walk away even if the seller stubbornly holds out for a higher price than market conditions should bring.

The buyer doesn't have a strong #2 or #3 choice to move on to. Instead of enjoying the benefits of an ample selection of homes, some buyers create their own artificial shortage of homes by ruling out adequate candidate properties, and thus limiting their options, and thus their negotiating leverage. So long buyer's market, for those buyers.

Many sellers might be saying, "yeah, well bring me one of them there picky buyers because we're priced too high and we need to get lucky". Well, some of you will. Not many of you, but enough to keep the others hoping.

Here's the thing if you're a buyer in Austin....

In this type of real estate market - a buyer's market - you ought not be shopping for the perfect home, but the perfect seller. You want a motivated seller ready to be flexible on price, one who actually wants to sell the house versus a seller who is just trying the market on for size. Our buyers who are willing to walk away from two or three deals before they find the really motivated seller are the ones getting the really good deals. To accomplish that, you have to have the pragmatic, low emotion mindset of an investor. Otherwise, in this market, if you pay top dollar for your "perfect" home, you are upside down the day you close because you paid too much.

Our investors consistently obtain much better purchase prices than our owner-occupant buyers. There are exceptions, of course, but over time, this is what we experience. The reason is simple. I can show an investor a set of 15 homes and we'll find 5 or 6 that are suitable candidate properties worthy of an offer. If the first seller isn't willing to be flexible, we'll move on to the second, third or fourth choice. The investor is not emotionally attached to a particular home, but is focused on obtaining a below market purchase price.

Out of the same set of 15 homes, an owner-occupant buyer might find one or two possibilities, but will still want to keep looking. The typical owner-occupant buyer isn't always focused on value, but on emotional satisfaction. This isn't necessarily the wrong approach, and perhaps "picky buyer" could be termed a more forgiving "lifestyle buyer", but either way, it's not a wealth building strategy. It would be like passing up a superior stock pick because you don't like the company's logo.

To pass up better deals in favor of cosmetic design preferences of no financial consequence is an emotional approach, not a financial decision.

So, should buyers throw their personal preferences out the window and just go out an low-ball 6 offers until they find the best deal? Of course not. But what we find is, at the end of the day, the same three criteria of price, location and quality/size are the dominant decision items. Each buyer, whether you consciously think of it this way or not, has a set of Must Have, Should Have, and Could Have preferences.

Where people go astray is in allowing the "should haves" or the "could haves" to rule out otherwise suitable homes.

For example, if a buyer loves almost everything about a particular home but says "I hate these tile floors", we can cure that problem with a dollar amount. It costs about $1.50 per square foot to demo/remove ceramic floor tile, and about $5 to $7 per square foot to install very good quality wood flooring. So if we're talking about 700 square feet of ugly tile, you convert that to $5,250 and factor it into the offer you make, but you don't rule out the home and keep looking just because of the tile, as most buyers are apt to do.

And let's think for a moment about what we do in a home. I'll use myself as an example. First, I wake up in a warm bed next to a wife of 18 years who loves me. I stand up upon carpet, walk into a master bathroom where the plumbing works, take a hot shower and get dressed and ready for my day. The color of the carpet, tile, shower fixtures, etc. don't really impact my life. Yes, I like my house, and find it aesthetically pleasing, but really, does the color of my bathroom counter really matter to my happiness and ability to get up and get dressed?

Next, I go into a kitchen that has food, and I cook a hot breakfast for me, my wife and two beautiful kids. I do this every morning, seven days a week. And I could and would do it, and the food would taste the same, and our breakfast table chatter would be the same, no matter the layout of my kitchen, the color of the granite, whether the floor is wood or tile. None of that really matters, does it? Is life really about the designer aspects of our homes? Or is it something else?

Next I leave the home, driving one or both kids to school, and I often don't return to the home for 8 or 10 hours. And when I do, as in the morning routine, my life and happiness are not determined by the cosmetic features or colors of my home. Sorry, that stuff just doesn't matter that much. And then I spend another 8 hours sleeping, during which time I am unaware of and oblivious to the quality or appearance of anything other than my bed.

But to buyers looking at homes, you'd think the cosmetics and nuances of the layout and floor plan would be life determining factors. That off-shade tile will most certainly rob the buyer of all future happiness, so we better keep looking, right?

When my family moved to San Diego in 1966, I was 4 years old. My mom tells me she and my father bought the one and only home they looked at. I was stunned to hear this a few years ago when I asked her "how many homes did you and Dad look at when you bought the house in San Diego?". She said that one looked like “it would do”, and they already had some Navy friends living in the neighborhood who had recommended they buy there. That was the extent of their house hunting process.

Near the end of my Dad's life a few years ago, as he was fading into Alzheimers, and we talked about life and love, he never did say "I wish we would have looked at more houses before we bought that one in San Diego back in 1966". The one he owned for 26 years, that was 900 square feet, and in which he raised two sons.

Folks, the petty stuff that must of us obsess on in life (and I'm as guilty as the next person sometimes) just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. Honestly, it doesn't.

Any home can be filled with love and happiness. Any home can house smart, happy kids who grow up to be great people. Ay home can be a great place for grand kids to come visit and ride on Grandpa's shoulders. Those outcomes won't be determined by the color of the tile, paint or formica. Nor whether you have gutters or a covered patio or bronze doorknobs. Your life and hapiness will be determined by the quality of your time spent together. You don’t need a McMansion or a show place to live happy lives. Yes, you want a house you like, but keep it in perspective and in the context of your financial and family goals.

Now, go find a perfectly adequate house for a great price!

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Austin Real Estate Market Update - Nov 2008 Sales

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:49:24 -0600

December 22, 2008

The sales volume in Austin fell of a cliff for November, with only 914 sales of single family homes. That represents a 43% decline in the number of homes sold. The number of "Not Solds" (expired or withdrawn) took a big jump also, to 62% of all listings that departed the Austin MLS in November. If you remember last month's market update, I predicted the Not Solds will hit 70% in December 2008. November stats haven't changed my mind.

Let's look at the breakdown of Austin single family home sales for November 2008:

· Number of homes sold is down 43% (was down 28% last month) from 1,594 Nov 2007 to 914 Nov 2008.

· Average list prices in Austin were down 5.29% over the same month last year to $250,609. This means sellers/agent are doing a better job of pricing the home correctly out of the gate.

· Average sold prices in Austin were down 6.17% over the same month last year to $238,072 from $253,718 a year ago. So, list prices are down 5% but sold prices are down 6%, which tells me sellers are still chasing the market down.

· Median sold price was down 1.87% to $185,000. Last year in Nov it was $188,527. Median prices had been holding their own each month this year, so the downturn in this particular metric is something new.

· Average List to Sold price ratio is 95.00%, down from 95.89% the same month last year, again demonstrating that sellers are still chasing the market down.

· Avg sold price per square foot is down 7.41% to $109 compared to $118 a year ago in November. This is a huge drop.

· Avg days on market is up 12 days (18.75%) from 64 last year to 76 this November.

· Median days on market is up 11 days (24%) from 45 days last year to 56 this year.

• Number of "Not Sold" (exp or withdrawn) is up 43% over the same month last year, to 63% of all removed listings compared to 46% for the same month last year.

None of this is favorable if what we want is a normal, rising market, but in the context of elswhere in the country, it's actually pretty good.

The stats outlined above are shown in the chart below.

Austin Real Estate Sales Market Update - Nov 2008 Sales
Homes only (condos, duplexes, etc. not included) compiled from Austin MLS data
	Oct 2008	Nov 2008	Nov 2007	Yr % Change
# Sold	1249	914	1594	-42.66%
Avg List	$258,869	$250,609	$264,601	-5.29%
Med List	$199,900	$192,000	$195,955	-2.02%
Avg Sold	$247,383	$238,072	$253,718	-6.17%
Med Sold	$195,500	$185,000	$188,527	-1.87%
Sold/List %	95.56%	95.00%	95.89%	-0.93%
Avg SQFT	2160	2180	2151	1.35%
Med SQFT	1988	1984	1952	1.64%
Avg $ SQFT	$114.53	$109.21	$117.95	-7.41%
Avg DOM	69	76	64	18.75%
Median DOM	50	56	45	24.44%
# Expired	667	662	558	18.64%
# Withdrawn	1068	833	810	2.84%
Not Sold	1735	1495	1368	9.28%
Not Sold %	58.14%	62.06%	46.19%	34.37%

So, are these grim numbers cause for alarm? Not at all, and here's why.

October 2008, when the offers for Nov 2008 closings were written, was dominated by continued financial spiral and economic uncertainty. It's not suprising that buyers hunkered down. Since Oct 2008 was anything but "normal", it's no surprise that Nov 2008 closings are down. I expect Dec will be just as slow comparatively, though the interest rate drops seem to be bringing some buyers out of the woodwork. And the Median sold price in Austin is still up 3% year to date over last year while the average sold price is down only 1%.

Let's take a look at Austin's Year to date sales stats:

Austin Sales Market YTD Update - Nov 2008
Homes only (no condos, duplexes, etc) - Data from Austin MLS
	Jan-Nov 08	Jan-Nov 07	Yr % Change
# Sold	18375	22985	-20.06%
Avg List	$261,853	$262,302	-0.17%
Med List	$199,490	$189,900	5.05%
Avg Sold	$251,916	$254,671	-1.08%
Med Sold	$192,500	$187,000	2.94%
Sold/List %	96.21%	97.09%	-0.91%
Avg SQFT	2146	2123	1.08%
Med SQFT	1953	1932	1.09%
Avg $ SQFT	$117.39	$119.96	-2.14%
Avg DOM	66	57	15.79%
Median DOM	44	34	29.41%
# Expired	6588	4680	40.77%
# Withdrawn	7987	6154	29.79%
Not Sold	14575	10834	34.53%
Not Sold %	44%	32%	38.08%

So, while Nov looks pretty darned slow, and December will no doubt be the same, the year overall has held up about as good as anyone could hope. There are few cities in the U.S. who would not trade their economic numbers and real estate market for ours here in Austin.

Finally, let's look at the November breakdown by price rance for a better understanding of which homes are selling and which are over-supplied.

Price Range	# Sold	Avg DOM	Active	Months Supply
$149,999 or under	300	57	1653	5.51
$150,000 - $199,999	215	71	1535	7.14
$200,000 - $249,999	129	79	1108	8.59
$250,000 - $299,999	89	81	944	10.61
$300,000 - $349,999	45	124	604	13.42
$350,000 - $399,999	29	75	575	19.83
$400,000 - $449,999	30	121	339	11.30
$450,000 - $499,999	16	112	343	21.44
$500,000 - $549,999	11	124	216	19.64
$550,000 - $599,999	15	91	213	14.20
$600,000 - $699,999	11	81	301	27.36
$700,000 - $799,999	9	125	197	21.89
$800,000 - $899,999	7	111	133	19.00
$900,000 - $999,999	1	96	106	106.00
$1,000,000 or over	8	184	441	55.13

What does this tell us? It tells us the the seller or buyer of a home priced under $200K is living in a completely different real estate market than the buyer or seller of a home priced above $300K. In the "below $150K" range, homes are selling in less than 60 days and we have less than a 6 month supply, even using the dismal Nov sales volume as the denominator instead of the average of the past 12 months (the other way to do it).

In a balanced market (neither buyer or seller have the economic advantage), 6 month's inventory is considered the balance point, and home will sell in about 60-90 days, on average. Of the 914 homes that sold in Austin in November, 56% were sold for less than $200K, and a massive 80% of all homes sold in November in Austin were priced below $300K. Homes priced above $300K simply have an insufficient number of buyers to absorb the current inventory.

The "Month's Supply" column shows the relationship between the number of active listings and the current volume of sales activity in that range. Moving down the price ranges we see the sobering reality that sellers in the higher ranges face. For example, we have a listing priced at $569K. There is a 14 month supply in that price range, with 213 other homes priced between $550K and $600K, and only 15 in that range sold last month. We'll be riding this one out into the Spring with the seller as the showings have essentially grinded to a halt since October. In this case, dropping the price to the lower $500Ks won't even create much of a change in foor traffic, because there simply are not enough buyers out looking for homes over $500K, so patience is the only viable option.

Likewise, a buyer qualified for up to $600K has a lot to choose from and if that buyer is flexible in their requirements, can submit agressive offers on many different homes until they find the most motivated seller. Bargain hunters looking below $250K have experienced more frustration, as it's simply not a buyer's market in that range.

As usual, questions and/or comments are welcome.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Today is Drop Dead Day for Many Austin Realtors

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:36:43 -0600

Today is the deadline for Austin Realtors to pay annual board dues. It cost $347 to remain in business as an Austin Realtor for 2009. That may not sound like much, but many agents don't have the money, and they don't have any listings or active buyers. For some, it's a very depressing decision to make - stick with it or give up. Many of course do give up, which is probably the best decision.

Looking at the dues I've paid into the Austin Board of Realtor and the MLS for 2008, the total is $1,133.50 in ongoing dues and fees. So agents who do pay the $347 due today, will have to cough up another $393.25 in Feb, and that amount again 6 months later.

The thinning out of agents is healthy for our industry. Those who monkey around doing a deal or two a year part time really shouldn't be practicing real estate, in my opinion. I don't see how anyone can maintain an appropriate level of expertise and knowledge if they are not in the mix day in and day out, closing sales, dealing with problems, helping people and learning. And that means that the people they do help are not receiving a level of perspective and knowledge that busy, experienced agents can provide.

So, while I don't wish ill will for anyone, a lot of Austin Realtors won't pay their dues today, and good riddance to them. They need to go find something they can approach with more passion and success. This business isn't for everyone. In fact, given the failure rate of Realtors nationwide, year after year, good markets and bad, it's a business for very few.

Why do so many fail?

For the same reason so many people can't lose weight. There is NO SECRET to succeeding in real estate. The recipe is simple and easy to follow, just like losing weight. But for reasons I can't explain, very few actually do what is required. Instead, they try something different, or focus on inconsequential ancillary issues, such as how their business card should look, or what contact management software to use. Meanwhile, they are doing NOTHING to generate leads. This is an amazing thing to witness, but I see it over and over again.

Then, when failure becomes apparent, the blame game starts. "This market is just too tough right now". Or, "what's wrong with these buyers? They can't make a decision". Or, "I can't get my sellers to price the home reasonably". And on and on.

Sylvia and I feel blessed and lucky, but we work really, really hard. And a lot of the hard work is pure grunt work, making phone calls, staying on top of things, talking to past clients, calling FSBOs and Expired listings, previewing homes, attending training and economic functions, networking, prospecting and planning. None of it is easy, but it's not complicated.

Fairwell fellow agents. Good luck in whatever you do next.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Are you a Functionary Agent or a Fiduciary Realtor?

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 16:04:17 -0600

Every now and then I wander into some online Realtor Forums to share and trade ideas, see how markets are doing in other places, and see if I can answer questions or learn something new. The most disturbing thing I come across regularly is the misguided mindset of so many Realtors about their role as an agent. Most recently, this came up again around the issue of real estate inspections and whether or not we as agents should recommend specific inspectors to our buyers.

One agent posted "I offer them the Yellow Pages or to use a recommendation from a friend" to find an inspector. God help us all.

Why would a professional real estate agent hold this lame position? First, her Broker's attorney may insist upon it. It's a risk avoidance issue. Agents accept greater risk when we put ourselves on the line with specific recommendations for inspectors, lenders, vendors, etc. I understand that viewpoint, but I think it's a copout. What it says is that the agent is more important than the client. That it's more important for the agent to protect herself legally than to provide better than mediocre service. Whose interest is being served by that, and what does it say about the agent who follows this approach? It says that you the client are not very important.

Sylvia and I do recommend specific inspectors to our buyers, and we absolutely DON'T want our buyers randomly picking inspectors from the Yellow Pages. I also attend the inspection and estimate the repair costs of items noted on the inspection report. I then advise and educate the buyer about which items are normal and expected versus items for which we should seek remedy or cost offsets from the seller.

In other words, I'm in it up to my elbows with the buyer during the inspection process. What am I supposed to do - hide out in a coffee shop during the inspection and tell my buyer to call around for some bids if he wants to know how much a new water heater and a roof repair will cost?

Most competent real estate attorneys will tell me I shouldn't be this involved. But I think the risk and liability in mine and Sylvia's transactions is reduced by our greater involvement, not the other way around. So I don't listen to the attorneys because I have no desire to be a "do nothing" Realtor who avoids questions and doesn't provide information for fear of being sued. I instead choose to provide a high level of service to our clients. I choose to be a "Fiduciary" instead of a "Functionary".

This difference between a Fiduciary and a Functionary is spelled out on pages 96 and 97 of The Millionaire Real Estate Agent book.

The chart below outlines the differences.

The Difference Between a Functionary and a Fiduciary
FUNCTIONARY REALTOR	FIDUCIARY REALTOR
Low Level	High Level
Low Relationship	High Relationship
Assumes Little Responsibility	Accepts High Responsibility
Uses Low Skill	Masters High Skill
Records Information	Perceives Information
Responds to Needs	Anticipates Needs
Processes Data	Interprets Data
Narrow Picture Viewpoint	Big Picture Viewpoint
Delivers Information	Advises and Consults
Other-Directed	Self-Directed
Minimum Legal Responsibility	Maximum Legal Responsibility
Employee	Partner
Does the Task	Owns the Result
Tells and Sells	Educates and Guides
Stays out of Decision Making	Involved in Decision-Making
Follows Rules and Procedures	Uses Judgment and Intuition
Replaceable	Irreplaceable
Minimally Paid	Highly Paid

Who would you rather have working for you. A low skill, narrow focused dolt who is so unsure of himself and those he recommends that he won't even provide a reference for an inspector? Or would you prefer an experienced agent who operates on a higher level? Before you hire one, try to determine which they might be.

The book also notes:

"For the very best real estate agents there is a level of service they provide that goes beyond their purpose and value proposition. It is the commitment they make to the buyer and seller to act as a true fiduciary - to place their client's interests ahead of the interests of all others. Even their own. ...

Interestingly enough, a fiduciary can easily do functionary work, but a functionary cannot easily do fiduciary work. Top agents understand this and, as a result, work really hard to provide fiduciary services to all their buyers and sellers".

Every real estate client deserves, and should demand, the highest level of service not only from Realtors but from everyone with whom you do business. We demand this of our vendors, on behalf of our clients, and we're not bashful about what we want and expect. If they don't deliver, they are removed from the list of people we use and recommend. One strike and you're out. If you screw something up for our client, you better fix immediately without any flack or arm twisting, or we'll fix the problem ourselves and you'll receive no further referrals from the Crossland Team.

So, when we tell a buyer that we have some very good inspectors who will do a great job for them, we mean it and we stand behind it. When we send a buyer to a specific lender, that lender better perform, or they are off the Crossland Team vendor list. When our virtual tour guy says the tour will be ready by Friday, and we've told our seller we'll have the listing up on Friday, that virtual tour better be ready, or we'll be looking for another company to use. Same with home stagers, plumbers, carpet cleaners, painters, etc.

Should we demand anything less? Should you demand anything less?

We expect a Fiduciary level of service from everyone we do business with. We can't function at a high level for our clients unless we surround ourselves by other fiduciary-minded people who are willing to be held accountable to a higher standard that the industry norm.

When you hire an accountant, do you want one who just plugs your numbers into Turbo Tax and prints out your tax return a few days later? Or do you want a fiduciary-minded accountant who will ask a lot of questions, dig around in your numbers, and look for ways to reduce your tax liability?

When you visit your doctor, do you want one who comes in to say hello for a few minutes before he leaves you to the nurses and heads to the next patient? Or do you want one who asks a lot of questions about how you're doing, your lifestyle, exercise, eating habits, your kids, etc?

Ladies (and maybe some men), when you get your hair done, do you want your stylist to just go through the motions and give you a standard cut? Or do you want her to really look at your face, your complexion, skin tone and color, ask what you do for a living, and make suggestions about the style and cut that will compliment you most?

And when you ask your Realtor for the name of a good inspector, do you want to be directed to the Yellow Pages and told to ask your friends for a referral? Or do you want the name and number of one or more good inspectors with whom your Realtor has positive past experiences and stands behind 100%?

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Can Twitter help you focus Better on what you're doing?

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:43:10 -0600

I wrote recently about Social Media tools and whether they can aid and assist Realtors in selling homes and acquiring leads. I am skeptical of whether these tools, such as Facebook and Twitter, provide a sufficient return relative to the time invested in using them.

Well, I had enough feedback and counter-points offered to me in the blog comments posted and also in discussing this further with some friends and other agents that I decided to give it a whirl. So, I've been Twittering everything I do all week (within reason). I have some initial observations about the experience.

First, and most unexpected, is that this ridiculously stupid activity has caused me to become more focused in my daily tasks. How's that?

Well, I do what I say I'll do. It's part of my mission to live a life of integrity, and paramount to that mission is that my actions match my words. So, if I Twitter that I'm "clearing my emails to zero inbox", then that's what I'm doing and I'm going to finish that task, because I said I would.

Before I posted my activities on Twitter, I'd simply sit down in front of the computer with the intention of clearing my emails, but would often get distracted or side tracked. Now, having "announced" my task at hand in some odd way focuses my effort in a way that was not anticipated. I'm sure there is a psychological explanation for this. And I doubt it is the mission of Twitter to help the world become more focused, but at present, this is the most notable result of my Twittering thus far. Twitter seems to be functioning for me, to some degree, as a "real time" public to-do list, to which I am able to more strictly adhere than ordinary task lists.

Next, though I have accumulated only 14 "followers" on Twitter, I've had 18 click-throughs on web links that I've posted with my twitter posts. None of these have tuned into leads, but 18 new website visitors is nevertheless a measurable and trackable result, no matter how small. Perhaps a year from now, should I choose to keep it up, I'll have many more "followers", and perhaps some of that traffic will translate into new leads. We'll see.

Finally, my observation about producing the "tweets" is that it requires simply no measurable effort on my part. We're talking about 15 seconds at the most, between tasks. Also, from my iPhone, I can post what I'm doing, which takes perhaps 30 seconds because of the slower typing. It's amazing to become aware of how many 30 second dead zones one has in a day once there there is an activity available that can be accomplished in that short amount of time.

So, as pedantic and narcissistic as I find the entire concept of Twittering, I have to admit that my initial judgments were incomplete, and that, in the time spent thus far, I have not yet determined Twittering to be an activity entirely without merit. Since the effort required is of no consequence, and I haven't ruled out the possibility of future upside, I will continue the experiment.

If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, click here and sign up.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Austin TX Sales Stats for Oct 2008

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 02:01:08 -0600

The number of residential single family home sales in Austin took a 28% dip for Oct 2008 compared to a year ago. The number of "Not Solds" (expired or withdrawn) took a big jump also, to 59% of all listings that departed the Austin MLS in October. These are grim numbers, but the remaining metrics that we track are again holding up pretty well nonetheless. In short, fewer homes are selling, but the ones that do sell are fetching prices near or or above last year's sales. Most sales currently are for homes selling below $200K.

Let's look at the breakdown:

· Number of homes sold is down 28% (was down 14% last month) from 1,717 Oct 2007 to 1,227 Oct 2008. Last month (Sept) saw a decrease in the slowing of sales, but this month (Oct) headed back the other way again. I think the remainder of this year is going to be very slow as well.

· Average list prices in Austin were up 1.16% over the same month last year to $259,128.

· Average sold prices in Austin were down 0.29% over the same month last year to $247,687.

· Median sold price was up 5.46% to $195,000.

· Average List to Sold price ratio is 95.58%, down from 96.42% the same month last year.

· Avg sold price per square foot is down 2.13% to $115 compared to $117 a year ago in October.

· Avg days on market is up 4 days (6.15%) from 65 last year to 69 this October.

· Median days on market is up 7 days (16%) from 43 days last year to 50 this year.

• Number of "Not Sold" (exp or withdrawn) is up 29% over the same month last year, to 59% of all removed listings compared to 46% for the same month last year.

The stats outlined above are shown in the chart below.

Austin Real Estate Sales Market Update October 2008
Homes only (condos, duplexes, etc. not included) compiled from Austin MLS data
	Sep 2008	Oct 2008	Oct 2007	Yr % Change
# Sold	1512	1227	1717	-28.54%
Avg List	$257,761	$259,128	$256,148	1.16%
Med List	$189,900	$199,900	$189,900	5.27%
Avg Sold	$248,026	$247,687	$246,978	0.29%
Med Sold	$185,000	$195,000	$184,900	5.46%
Sold/List %	96.22%	95.58%	96.42%	-0.87%
Avg SQFT	2131	2156	2104	2.47%
Med SQFT	1924	1986	1919	3.49%
Avg $ SQFT	$116.39	$114.88	$117.38	-2.13%
Avg DOM	67	69	65	6.15%
Median DOM	48	50	43	16.28%
# Expired	797	666	628	6.05%
# Withdrawn	891	1070	806	32.75%
Not Sold	1688	1736	1434	21.06%
Not Sold %	52.75%	58.59%	45.51%	28.74%

The Year-to-Date figures through Oct 2008 tell a similar story, though less pronounced than Oct. See the chart below:

Austin Sales Market YTD Update - Oct 2008
Homes only (no condos, duplexes, etc) - Data from Austin MLS
	Jan-Oct 08	Jan-Oct 07	Yr % Change
# Sold	17406	21393	-18.64%
Avg List	$262,500	$262,178	0.12%
Med List	$199,500	$189,900	5.06%
Avg Sold	$252,713	$254,809	-0.82%
Med Sold	$192,971	$187,000	3.19%
Sold/List %	96.27%	97.19%	-0.94%
Avg SQFT	2144	2121	1.08%
Med SQFT	1950	1930	1.04%
Avg $ SQFT	$117.87	$120.14	-1.89%
Avg DOM	65	57	14.04%
Median DOM	43	33	30.30%
# Expired	5922	4122	43.67%
# Withdrawn	7155	5342	33.94%
Not Sold	13077	9464	38.18%
Not Sold %	43%	31%	39.87%

Let's look at the breakdown of sales by price range, and we'll see that 52% of all sales in Austin for October were in the sub $200K price range. Stunningly, there are 503 listings priced at over $1M, yet only 14 in that price range sold in Oct. The $1M price range in Austin is grossley over-supplied at present.

Sales by Price Range - Oct 2008
Price Range	Number Sold	Avg DOM	Current Active
$149,999 or under	350	51	1688
$150,000 - $199,999	289	65	1748
$200,000 - $249,999	179	81	1255
$250,000 - $299,999	120	77	1049
$300,000 - $349,999	85	72	720
$350,000 - $399,999	62	75	632
$400,000 - $449,999	39	85	392
$450,000 - $499,999	19	75	366
$500,000 - $549,999	22	102	248
$550,000 - $599,999	14	87	245
$600,000 - $699,999	17	73	331
$700,000 - $799,999	8	119	233
$800,000 - $899,999	7	166	141
$900,000 - $999,999	2	282	113
$100,000 or over	14	103	503

So what's in store for November and December as we ride out the end of 2008? I suspect that sales activity will come to a grinding halt. Removed listings (expired or withdrawn) may top 70% for December as sellers finally give up and pull listings for the holidays. I haven't researched past stats, but I can't imagine we've ever had a month in which 70% of listings departed the Austin MLS unsold, so it's not a fun prediction to make, but we'll see.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Discount Brokers, Redfin and the Borg

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:05:49 -0600

The discount Broker Redfin, which I follow with interest even though it doesn't serve Austin, looks like it's making yet another move toward traditional real estate services. Rather than facilitating the wholesale disintermediation of the traditional Realtor, Redfin instead continues to adopt more and more of the traditional Realtor approach and offer smaller rebates to its clients, while still bashing the old real estate business model that economic reality is pushing them toward.

What does this mean? If you want to list your house for sale in a Redfin city, the Redfin Agent will actually come view your home first. Pretty cool, I know. Turns out that seeing a house before you list it is helpful after all. But it gets better...if you are a buyer, and want to be shown a house, your Redfin agent will now actually set a time to meet you there and let you in. Are you feeling goose bumps yet? Again, this is nifty stuff, having an agent treat you like you are important.

The Redfin business model at first required buyers to figure out how to get inside homes themselves, either by waiting for an open house, or getting the listing agent to come show it, or more notoriously, duping a dumb unsuspecting agent into thinking they are going to work with them, and using that agent to see homes without disclosing that they are a Redfin client.

When that model ultimately proved less than ideal, the idea of "showing tours" was introduced, which allowed a buyer to purchase "a 3 hour tour, a 3 hour tour" of homes for $250 each. But the weather started getting rough, and that concept failed to vanquish the traditional Realtor as well. So now what?

A couple of days ago, I received the announcement that Redfin now offers "unlimited buyer tours". Uh, that sounds like what we do as traditional Realtors. We show our buyers homes until the right one is located.

From the Redfin blog Nov 6, 2008.

Unlimited Tours, Agent Choice
To hit the mass market, we're upgrading today our home-buying service to offer free unlimited tours, and a choice of agent, and support from that agent all along the way.

Sound familiar? Pick the agent you want, see as many homes as required before making a purchase decision, and have "support" from the agent involved in the process "all along the way".

And do you still get rebated 2/3 of the buyer agent commission? Nope.

50% Commission Refund
And we're raising prices. Tours are now free - we used to charge $250 per tour - but we're changing the commission refund for buyers from 66% to 50% (existing customers relax, you pay the old price). The average refund should drop from $10,000+ to nearly $8,000. If people use Redfin to sell one house and buy another, the total savings should still in most cases be about $20,000.

Then, in true "me thinketh thou doth protest too much" fashion, we are reassured that vast differences remain between the new Redfin Services and the Old Realtor.

Redfin says:

The difference between Redfin and traditional brokers is obvious and simple and huge and it has nothing to do with offering more tours.

So why the change?

In focus group after focus group, customers said they wanted more tours, they wanted to be able to call their agent.

You needed a focus group to know that? Buyers need guidance, and that's hard to provide if you are not there with them viewing homes and providing knowledge, experience and context to the pros and cons of each home. And I agree with the focus group, buyers want to be able to call their agent.

OK, so where am I headed here? Am I trying to say "told you so" to Redfin? No, I'm still intrigued by their setup, especially the great website and search tools, which really should embarrass most of the big traditional real estate brokerages. I admire people and business who make a fuss, challenge the staus quo, and seek out better and more innovative ways to accomplish an end result.

But I could have provided all of the "focus group" information to the Redfin CEO over a 1 hour lunch at Texas Land and Cattle. There are some hard numbers that one runs into if contemplating the upending of the traditional real estate model.

The average successful Realtor keeps 43% of gross commissions earned as net income. This 43% number is a result of mass surveys by Keller Williams, and it's the number we use in our budget forecasting as individual agents. So, that $18,000 commission a seller sees on the closing statement, which becomes $9,000 for the listing agent, eventually shrinks to $3,870 on the Realtor's bottom line. From the remaining bottom line each year must still come self-employment taxes and health insurance costs.

Sylvia and I beat the 43% by a tad, but not by much. If we worked only with buyers, the ratio would be lower, because the success rate with buyers is much lower than with listings. We've sold all of our listings this year (except those still Active, but none have expired or been withdrawn), but not all of our buyers have bought a home. Many got spooked by the economy. Some can't qualify anymore. So with buyers, one must necessarily accept the reality that there will always be a great amount of uncompensated time and effort included in the business model. It's simply part of the real estate business.

So, knowing this, when I see a company that seeks to get buyers over the finish line with a home purchase, and give back 65% of the gross commission at the closing table, it only takes a bit of 8th grade math to determine that this is a money losing business model. It can't work. The numbers simply won't add up. $9,000 minus $6,000 rebate to the buyer, minus - $5,130 in operating costs = a $2,130 loss.

And if you're a reader who scoffs at the math, get your real estate license and prove me wrong. Unless one figures out a new way to get a higher percentage of buyers to make offers and get to the closing table, real estate will remain a business in which the "closers" pay extra for the time and efforts created by the "non-closers".

Consumers can complain about paying real estate commissions that are "too high", but those same consumers, if changing their mind after 4 weekends viewing dozens of homes with an agent, would scream with even louder outrage if they opened their mail and found an invoice from their Realtor for the time and expense of showing homes. They'd scream "I'm not paying this! This is ridiculous!!"

And Redfin has now learned what the rest of us already knew. Realtors do a lot for free. A whole lot. And the massive amount uncompensated time and effort dispensed by our industry is rarely plugged into the conversations or complaints about the commission and structure.

I've written about Discount Broker models here before, and I have nothing against discounters or the consumers who choose them, but I do find it interesting that, despite the relentless negative media sentiment toward the traditional real estate business models, and the "new darling" status that Redfin and others enjoyed via positive press a couple of years ago during the real estate bubble, that these attempts to dispose of the traditional Realtor continue to fail. In Austin, no Discounter has more than 1% of market share. Why is that? It's because consumers by and large want things done the old way, which is that Realtors and our services are absolutely 100% FREE, right up until the deal closes and the transaction funds.

In the case of Redfin, and its brash CEO Glen Kelman, we see a macrocosm of why so many Realtors fail in the real estate business. Companies like Redfin, much like clueless newbie agents, can gain moderate market share and win customers in a sellers market, when market inertia guarantees that a certain volume of homes will sell no matter the skill level of the practitioners involved. But when markets turn tough, consumers flock back toward the old school full service agents with experience and a track record, and the newbie agents as well as the discount companies are left with a business model that inspires not enough consumer confidence to attract sufficient serious buyers and sellers. It takes more than a discount to inspire confidence and trust, and you can't sell three hours of showings for $250 and make a profit.

Maybe someday this will change, but I doubt it. Buyers will always want to see homes for free before buying. They will always want to know whether the price they are offering is right, and they will always need an experienced agent, one who knows the market from a perspective that includes more than viewing stats on a computer, to help guide the process.

It was the Borg in Star Trek who stated bluntly, "resistance is futile, you will be assimilated". Looks to me like the economy and consumer reality are saying that to the Redfin Discount model, and we slowly see them turning into that which they pledged to destroy.

Steve Crossland
Crossland Team
Visit Steve's Austin Real Estate Blog

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

iPhone and Realtor.com

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:07:58 -0500

Realtor.com has a nice iPhone specific url that allows you to view real estate listings from your iPhone. I'm not sure what percentage of U.S. listings are fed into Realtor.com, but I would be suprised if it isn't most of the major metro area MLS listings. And they are all at your finger tips with your iPhone.

Reality Check OK, so what? Big deal. Who cares?

What problem is solved by having access to nearly all of the Realtor listings in the U.S. through an iPhone? Why not just go home and log in from your web browser if you want to surf listings?

Well, I'm with you. I'm not impressed with "gee wiz" technology just for the sake of technology, but I can think of at least two ways in which this technology benefits me personally and professionally.

First, it's not uncommon to be showing houses to buyers, and they ask about homes we drive by that are not on our list. This happens all the time. Normally, if it's not on our showing list, it's because it didn't fit the parameters of the search, or I eliminated it for some other reason. But I don't always know or remember at the moment the question is asked.

If there are flyers, we get one and find out the price and specs, but flyer boxes are usually empty, and sometimes the price isn't printed on the flyer (because the agent wants you to call and ask, so they can convert you to a "buyer lead".

I can also call the agent number on the sign, but what do you think the chances are that the call will be answered? Not good. Realtors hardly ever answer their phones.

So instead, now all I have to do is enter a quick search and pull the listing up, complete with pictures and basic details.

The screen shot above is the home page you'll see if you visit iphone.realtor.com with your iPhone. Let's walk through more screen shots and see if this is cool and useful, or not. Oh, and I'll get to reason number two of why this isn't a complete waste of time eventually, but for now, let's just see what you can do with Realtor.com and an iPhone.

This next screen shot is what you see after tapping the "Find a Home" menu item on the home page.

You can enter a city and state, but if you know the zip code, it's quicker and easier to just use that.

Enter any price requirements, along with bedrooms and baths, and click search. I left the price info blank and simply entered a search for homes with at least 4 bedrooms and at least 3 baths. If you are logged into Realtor.com with a user account (free for anyone to sign up), you can click the "save this search" box and create a library of saved searches. Let's see what we come up wit

h on our search.

This is what you see on the search results page. You can save a listing, click the blue arrow to move to the next group of 10 results, or tap a listing to see the details page. But if browsing for a specific property, this page provides the basics at a quick glance. Let's ch

eck out 9408 San Lucas.

This is the listing details page. The public comments are not included, but instead some generic data pulled from the MLS listing. There are three tabs to choose from - Details, Photos and Contact.
Here is the photos tab. Unlike a lot of mobile MLS feeds, Realtor.com doesn't skimp on the photos. We get all 12 photos, the limit allowed in the Austin MLS, but there is a catch. If the listing agent is not paying the $71/mo. for the "enhanced" service at Realtor.com, then your listing will only display 1 photo. This sample listiing is one of ours, and we do pay the additional fee, though I'm not happy about there being an additional fee, but we want our listings to show all photos to online viewers at Realtor.com.
Here is the larger photo view. On your iPhone, you can arrow through all the photos (if there is more than one), or click the 'x' to return to the details view.
The last tab is the contact tab. This is where you can see the listing agent contact info. If the agent doesn't have the "enhanced Realtor.com package, you only get the name and number. Otherwise, you see a photo of the listing agent, and I suppose we should have a logo there. I'll look into that.

OK, reason number 2.
I hate to admit it, but I'm a real estate junky. Whever I visit another city, whether on business or on vacation, I like to drive around and look at houses. Most recently I did this in Lake of the Ozarks Missouri, where we spent 7 days on vacation.

On our second to last day there, when Sylvia and the girls were off doing girl stuff (spa, manicure, facials - they are so spoiled), I headed out for a half day of tooling around the lake, visiting open houses, pulling flyers, and checking things out. I didn't have an iPhone then, but if I'd had one, I would have been able to use the "Homes Nearby" feature to gather information about the homes I saw while driving around.

The "Homes Nearby" feature at Realtor.com requires that you enter two cross streets, a city and state, and will produce a results list similar to the one shown above for the regular search. You can also limit the search result by entering bedrooms, baths and a high and low price.

So, if you already have an iPhone, this is another benefit and feature available to you. I wouldn't run out and buy one just to see listings on my phone though. I've had my iPhone for 10 days now, and I'm not yet convinced that the additional ownership and data plan costs are offset by any notable productivity increases, but I'm still learning how to use it after having a Treo for three years.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Responding to a Verbal Assault from Crazed Realtor

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:44:17 -0500

I had an angry Realtor unleash a vulgar cursing tirade on me today and challenge me to a fight. He said he’d come to my office “and settle this man to man”. I declined, not because I’m a wussy, but because it wouldn’t be prudent or professional. Plus, I have nearly a three decade streak of not putting up my dukes and this didn’t seem like an issue worthy of breaking that streak. I’d rather it be a noble cause such as defending and protecting the honor of another.

No matter how long I’m in this business there remain pleasant surprises around every corner. The agent flipped out because his client’s rental application was not accepted. I had received multiple rental applications on a rental property and chosen another application to approve.

Multiple rental applications are much like multiple sales offers in that it’s the seller’s or landlord’s choice to either pick one, respond to all requesting better offers, or reject all. In this case, being the owner of the home myself, I decided not to try to shop the applications against each other for higher rent offers because I am happy enough with $1,295/mo. and I didn’t want to drag the application process into the weekend. I decided instead to pick the application that was received first, because on face it was not deficient in any way. Had that first application failed to meet the required criteria, or contained undesirable terms, I would have chosen from the remaining two.

Is a landlord required to accept a rental application based on first come, earlier move-in, or any other criteria? No. This other agent has no clue how leasing works, which is common, but his gutter mouthed tirade was unlike any I’ve ever experienced coming from a Realtor.

What is the best way to respond to a verbal assault from a crazed Realtor?

First of all, remain calm and talk in a cordial, soft matter of fact tone. Think of a manly sounding Mr. Rogers. Acknowledge hearing the person without agreeing or disagreeing, then go for a closing line to end the conversation. “OK, I hear what you’re saying and can tell you are angry. The checks are at the front desk and I’m sure your clients will find a house they like even better. Have a good day”.

That didn’t work. So I let him keep venting, expressing his judgments and opinions, then went for another close. “OK. I know it’s frustrating and I feel the same way when it happens to me. The checks are at the front desk and I’m sure your clients will find a house they like even better. Have a good day”.

Why not just hang up?

It doesn’t work and it makes the person even angrier. I’ve done this before with tenants. It’s best to let them vent their tirade to conclusion if they won’t allow a cordial ending of the call.

Finally, the call ended after I was assured in extremely angry and vulgar terms that my Broker would receive a call and I’d be fired. I walked downstairs to give a heads up to my Broker and office manager and, while talking to them, the agent called again and went for round two. This is when, among other things, he invited me to meet him out front with the checks and we’d “settle this man to man”.

15 years ago I’d be shouting back. Older and more mellow now, I thought of him as a hurt little boy who wasn’t getting his way. When children throw tantrums, you don’t try to correct misstatements of fact, or argue, or set the record straight, or shut them up. None of that works. You just listen quietly until their done - however long that takes or until they agree to stop. And so he finally finished and hung up on me.

I’m sure somewhere, some place, there have been Realtors who’ve come to blows. This business seems to bring out strong emotions in both agents and clients sometimes. Multiple offers especially create very strong feelings, probably because it’s a subjective process that is easily viewed as unfair by the unsuccessful parties, and it involves a loss. I’ve listened over the years to both tearful sobbing and begging as well as angry rants and threats. All because someone’s inner child didn’t get their needs met and there just had to be someone to blame.

It’s not enough to attribute such things to the process and “that’s just how it goes sometimes”. There has to be a villain toward whom the emotion is directed and vented, and that villain is usually the agent who delivered the news.

What about the agent’s disgraceful behavior? Just let it go? Yes. Through his ranting it became clear to me he knows not the ways and customs of leasing. In other words, he is practicing in an area of real estate for which he is not sufficiently trained. That’s a violation of the Realtor Code of Ethics Article 11 which states, among other things:

REALTORS® shall not undertake to provide specialized professional services concerning a type of property or service that is outside their field of competence unless they engage the assistance of one who is competent on such types of property or service, or unless the facts are fully disclosed to the client.

I could file a complaint with our Board of Realtors based on violation of Article 11, and he’d be found in violation and be punished in some way. Most likely it would be a reprimand. Oddly enough, the cursing and ranting, though unprofessional, is not “unethical” as it is strictly defined for Realtors. In other words, it’s not unethical to be rude. It’s just unprofessional.

I’m not going to file a complaint unless the agent persists in being bothersome. His tirade was a blessing for me. A chance to practice remaining calm. A chance to let someone have his anger without reacting negatively or being sucked into it myself. Older and more mellow I must be.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Is Your Austin Realtor a Beta Test or a Production Version?

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:05:42 -0500

I was evaluating some Property Management software recently, which was still in the “beta” stages of development. Beta software is commonly thought to be ready enough to function, but is expected to have undiscovered bugs and flaws, and may not be ready or stable enough for production use. I decided against this particular software because it has shortcomings and limitations I cannot live with.

I started thinking of some of the many past encounters we’ve had with what I would call “beta version” Realtors. These are freshly minted, green agents who have passed some testing requirements, such as passing the real estate exam and completing basic training classes, but have not yet been proven as stable and reliable in a “production” environment.

Now all they need are some beta testers. Like beta software, many of these beta agents will never achieve the level of maturity and stability required to move into full production release status. They’ll never become Version 1.0. But they will be tested by some users (clients), with varying results, before the market spits them out. Some will pass the test and become great agents, but they still have to be tested first.

Buyers and Sellers, will that beta tester be you? And is it a good idea to use a Newbie Agent to help buy or sell your home in Austin?

Read the rest of the story

Steve Crossland
Austin TX
www.CrosslandTeam.com

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Realtor or Dog Catcher

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:12:04 -0500

I recently showed a property occupied by a large barking dog. The showing instructions said "appointment with owner". When I called the seller, the voice message said "if you need to show the property, call the agent". I called the agent who gave me a different number to call, for the daughter of the seller, who the agent said might be able to go take care of the dog. The agent also told me that another agent had showed the property with the dog inside and said it barked a lot but didn't cause any problems. I might go try it if I can't reach the daughter, she said. The daughter didn't answer when I called, so I left a message. Whew, a lot of effort to try to try to show a property.

When we arrived at the property, my two buyers and Sylvia (who came along with us that day) waited in the van while I scouted out the dog situation. Sure enough, it barked loudly as I looked in through the side glass, but it's tail was wagging. I opened the door, made the required kissing noises in between "Hey there...Good dog..Hey there", holding out the back of my hand. The dog, barking incessantly, moved backward toward the kitchen and I followed, hoping to move it into the garage.

As I moved into the kitchen, the dog suddenly stopped barking and bolted around through the living room and out the front door, which I left cracked open in case I needed to exit quickly.

As I emerged onto the front porch, Sylvia and our two buyers were standing outside the van, looking north up the street and shouted to me, "he's gone!". They told me the dog came out of the house like a bolt of lightning and headed straight up the street and disappeared.

I locked up the house and we drove up the street looking for the dog, but saw no sign of it. Sylvia called the agent and told her what happened.

At this point, what is the proper protocol? We had a heavy schedule of occupied homes still on our showing list, and a time schedule to keep. Do we stop the showings and become Dog Catchers, drafting our buyers into that role as well? Or do we make sure the listing agent is informed, then move on? We continued on with our showing list, leaving it up to the listing agent to inform the sellers and find the dog.

This decision was viewed as uncaring and irresponsible by the upset owners, who called to complain to our Broker that we didn't continue our search and/or wait at the house for the sellers to get home. On the other hand, I'm not sure our buyers would have been happy with halting the showing schedule to become dog catchers. Also, there were all pre-scheduled showings for other homes we had called that morning. We would have needed to call through the showing list again to reschedule the times. That seems like a lot of people to inconvenience over a loose dog.

While I understand the feelings of the sellers, we followed the showing instructions as provided, and I don't think me or my buyers should pay the price for a seller's decision to not make better arrangements for the containing the dog. The dog was later found and returned to the house. I won't be showing that property again unless the showing arrangements change.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Showing Feedback Directly to Seller a Bad Idea

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:43:22 -0600

I've been showing and previewing a lot of property lately - probably more than a hundred homes in the past week. After showing a home and syncing the MLS key each night, the lockbox owners (listing agents) are notified electronically that the lockbox was opened by my key. This normally results in what we call "feedback requests" from other agents. Typically, they will email or call and ask for feedback on the listing.

The other day I received a call from someone asking for feedback on a home. I asked if she was the listing agent, and she said "no, this is the owner". She was calling from the card I left inside the property (which I always leave in occupied homes so they know that I have been inside).

This is rare, but not unusual. I said simply "I'll be happy to provide feedback to your agent". She said, "can you just tell me what you thought and if your buyer is interested?" Again, I said "I'll be happy to do that if your agent calls me". After a couple of more tries, she seemed frustrated but finally gave gave up.

Why not tell her directly that they've made way too many trips to Home Depot, over decorated the home, screwed up the balance of the home by installing really nice expensive granite counters but also the cheapest pergo flooring (lousy do-it-yourself job to boot), have too many different colors in the house, dog odor in the back room, too many pictures on the walls, and the home is over-priced?

Well, it's just not a good idea to be saying those things directly to a seller. That's the listing agent's job, and the listing agent shouldn't require my analysis to come to the same conclusion, though I'm happy to offer it. It's always best to have all communication go through the agents.

Were I to provide feedback directly to the seller, there are any number of unintended consequences that could result. She could interpret my comments as being rude. The agent could, hearing the comments second hand, interpret that I was insulting both the seller and the agent. The seller could in fact take the comments objectively, but then start hammering the other agent with "why haven't you told us all of this", which could result in the other agent accusing me of interfering with his business relationship. Instead, in such situations, it's best to remain cordially mum, offering no hint whatsoever to a seller about my opinion of the home.

Sylvia and I are obsessively diligent about requesting feedback from other agents on our own listings. Sylvia calls and/or emails every single agent who shows one of our listings. Sometimes we already know what the problem is with a home and have told the seller, but when we receive feedback from multiple agents telling us the same thing, it provides additional leverage to try to get the seller to understand that what we are suggesting is in fact important and it should be done. Other times, we'll hear things that we didn't actually notice or consider. We all have our blind spots, and feedback from others helps identify those areas. Also, if an agent does have a buyer who is interested, we want to follow up with the agent and encourage them to have the buyer send an offer. This is an important but often overlooked reason for requesting feedback. Sometimes a buyer needs prodding, and the agent needs to do the prodding, but requires some encouragement and motivation from us to do so. These little things do matter and they do make a difference.

Sometimes when previewing a home alone, the seller will remain in the property, thinking it unnecessary to leave as they would if buyers were with me (which is ok). Upon departure, they will sometimes ask "so, what do you think? Any feedback you have is welcome. Don't worry about hurting our feelings. We want to know how the home compares to others".

This is even trickier, as I normally have things I could say, but still have to cordially dodge the question. "Gosh, I've seen so many homes lately my brain is starting to fuzz over. Are you guys moving out of town...?" If you're a parent of young ones, you recognize that technique as "redirection". I'd really love to share what I know with the seller, but they are not my client and it just wouldn't be prudent.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

When Real Estate Bloggers go Wild

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 05:47:40 -0500

I was recently challenged about a blog article I wrote. I was told that the references to the "bozo agent" along with the accompanying visual graphic of Bozo the Clown was over the line and damaging to the real estate industry and the reputation of all Realtors. It was suggested that unflattering stories about the real estate industry erode confidence in Realtors, as evidenced by the first reader comment under the article that stated, "This is why we always represent ourselves. We have had bad luck with agents and find them to have the biggest ego's."

Given that the content of the article was a factual retelling of actual events that I experienced as a listing agent dealing with a buyer's agent, and that the agent was indisputably incompetent, I didn't at first understand what the problem was with the article. In other words, it really happened exactly as I told it. I thought there was a lesson to be shared by telling the story. I thought readers would appreciate having a glimpse into the real life happenings of a deal gone bad. Coloring it up a bit with a nice photo of Bozo and some harsh, opinionated commentary about the agent seemed appropriate to me. Nobody will ever know who that agent is, but you'll know there are agents like him out there. And you should know that. You deserve to know that. Why should I keep it a secret?

Nevertheless, I edited the post, removed the photo of bozo, and toned down the writing a bit, though the message of the article remains unchanged. I did this out of respect for the wishes of the person who shared their concerns with me. I always appreciate when others respect my concerns, so I try to do the same. It's only a blog article after all.

This is the second complaint I've received in 2+ years of writing 300+ blog articles. It's the second time I've respected the wishes of someone with concerns. The other instance was an article about an MLS photo that was so crappy (the photo that is) I just had to share it. It was a photo of a house with an SUV parked smack in the front yard (in the grass) and a trash can sitting in front of the garage door. I wondered why the agent couldn't have had the SUV moved and pulled the trashcan out of the way before taking the photo. Someone saw the blog article, recognized the house, sent a link to the Seller who in turn informed his agent, who in turn demanded that I remove the photo, which I did.

Again, in that instance, I didn't understand why the agent was so irate. It was in fact the actual photo he took and placed in the MLS. Why was he mad at me? Every agent and buyer who saw the listing would see the same photo. If he was so ashamed of it, why was it used and why was he yelling at me for showing it off? He should be driving over to take a better picture instead of threatening me. But I took it down right away. It's no big deal.

Where should real estate bloggers draw the line in writing about our everyday experiences, observations and viewpoints about the real estate industry and the people in it? Some of the best material pokes fun at the stupid things agents do. It's hard to ignore all that material. But is this unprofessional? Is it mean? Is it arrogant? Is this sort of brutal honestly damaging to the real estate industry and demeaning to other Realtors? I don't think so.

What I believe is accomplished in owning and publicly admitting the shortcomings of our industry is that the reader/consumer gains a better understanding of the fact that not all Realtors are the same. We don't all operate on the same level and we don't all hold ourselves to the same standards of accountability. Yet, as Realtors, we're often viewed as having little or no difference, which isn't the case. When the consequences of choosing just any agent to work with are illustrated and made clear through recounting of actual experiences, I think it helps both the consumer and the better agents.

If you read an article such as the one I wrote about the misguided agent who blew the deal for his buyer, and you see that a real woman actually in fact lost the home that she had under contract because of the incompetent actions of her agent, and that she really, really wanted that home and was unaware of the damage her agent was doing to her deal, I believe it helps you get the fact that who you choose to represent you matters. It matters a lot. Your agent matters.

So where is the line drawn when writing about the life and times of a Realtor? For me, if it's true and it really happened, and there is a lesson to be learned that might help a consumer make better choices, it's fair game. If it's embarrassing to our industry, or makes another Realtor feel defensive and uncomfortable, it doesn't change the fact that it's true.

Most agents in our business are very good, or at least adequate. Many are superb and exemplary. But you need to know that it can really cost you if you pick a bad one. And you need to know that the bad ones are out there waiting and hoping you'll hire them.

So you, the consumer, need to work harder at picking an agent. Talk to at least three. Ask them how many deals they do, which areas of town they know best, and why you should hire them. Listen and watch. Trust your gut. Is the agent authentic in demeanor, or just a good show person with a good pitch? Do they look you in the eye? Do they give straight answers or do they wiggle around the question? Pay attention. You can tell the difference if you really try.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Taking the Plunge to Become a Realtor

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:14:48 -0500

When I was a small boy, 9 years old, my family was traveling on summer vacation and we stopped at a campground that had a huge pool with a high dive. It was 1972. There were a ton of older kids lined up to jump and dive off the high dive into the pool. I had never made such a leap but wanted to try, so I put on my swim trunks and got in line.

After reaching the top of the board, and walking to the end, it looked much higher than it had from the ground. I became scared and didn't want to do it anymore. I turned to head back down the ladder, but the other kids were lined all the way up the ladder, waiting. The next kid in line, a fat red-cheeked bully-looking type, stood at the top staring me down. He said, matter of fact, "you can't go back, you have to jump".

I was paralyzed and frightened. The other kids became impatient and started heckling me. "Hurry up". "Go!" "Come on, chicken". I almost started crying. I wanted my Mom. There was no way to get down unless they all backed down the ladder and let me off, which wasn't going to happen. I had to do what I climbed up there to do. I walked back to the end, and jumped.

The fall down seemed long. I was off balance, arms flailing, legs peddling. I hit the water on my side and felt a painful sting as the water spanked my skin hard. Ouch! Under water seemed other-worldly as I tumbled, disoriented. I realized I was ok, kicked a couple of times, resurfaced, and let out a war-whoop of triumph waving my fist at the other kids, who were now cheering and laughing at my ungraceful plunge. I scurried out of the water, my side burning with pain, and got back in line, hungry to do it again.

I had made the leap. I had survived. And I never felt so ALIVE and full of confidence.

I wasn't old enough to interpret what that plunge represented at the time, but I now know it was one of many instances in life where we are all called to face our fear, step through, and take a leap. I was learning how to approach life with fear in front of me. I was learning that I can do scary things and come out ok, even if it wasn't perfect. I was learning to feel absolute terror about doing something, then doing it anyway.

Can you take the plunge into real estate?
For many who make the decision to go into real estate sales, they climb the ladder, but never climb back down nor take the plunge. Instead, they remain in the safe place of doing neither. There is not a crowd of people yelling at them to hurry up and do it, the bills are still being paid by the job, so they remain in limbo, having neither failed nor succeeded at becoming who they want to become.
Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Would a one dollar price reduction motivate your buyer?

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:35:34 -0500

There is an active listing that pops up almost every day as a "Price Change" update in one of the neighborhoods I like to keep an eye on. At first I thought maybe this was a glitch, as the price seemed to be the same each time (or so I thought). This morning it was there again so I decided to investigate further.

I ran an Archive Report on the home, which shows the entire MLS history of a property, and sure enough, the agent has been lowering the price by $1 almost daily for the past couple of weeks. This, in my opinion, is an ineffective and counterproductive pricing tactic.

The home started out grossly overpriced in the mid $200's in June 2007. It was never going to sell for that much. I remember the day it came on the market and I saw it. At 64 days on the market the price was dropped $19,900 (now that's a price drop, but it was still over priced). At 75 days on the market, the price was dropped another $100, then another $100 the next day. Then the price was dropped ten times over the next 15 day, $1 each time, until the listing expired.

The same day it expired, the listing was entered again as a new listing by the same agent, at a list price about $700 below the expired list price. Since then, the list price has been dropped $1 per day 8 out of the last 9 days. It's now been on the market for more than 100 days, and it's still over priced. At this rate, in about 30,000 days (82 years) the price will be right. But of course appreciation may shorten that time frame to about 4 years.

The reason the agent is doing this $1 price dropping every day, I presume, is to force the still overpriced listing to remain at the top of buyer search portals as a "Price Changed" listing, and to force the overpriced listing to show up on other agent's the daily Hotsheets as a "Price Changed" listing. This, theoretically I suppose, causes potential buyers and agents to regularly see the listing and eventually become interested. That's the only rationale I can think of.

Well it worked, sort of. I was so baffled by the recurring appearance of the listing in my watch list that I checked it out further because I thought something might be wrong with the MLS functionality. I was not interested in the listing, just the anomaly of it's persistence in the watch list and wondering how that could be.

So, what is the result of the agent's price dropping tactic? Speaking only for myself, my conclusion is:
a) The seller is poorly represented.
b) The seller doesn't know how to hire a good Realtor.

News flash to the goofy listing agent: Reminding buyers and agents of your overpriced listing almost daily doesn't change the fact that it's over priced. It's been on the market over 100 days now, and dropping the price $1 each day isn't going to get it sold quicker.
Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Austin Illegal Immigrants, Car Crashes and New Homes

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 13:04:38 -0500

Sylvia was broadsided yesterday in her new (3 months old) honda odyssey by an Illegal Immigrant driver on Manchaca Rd. He had no insurance, no driver's license, no proof of identification and didn't speak English. The police came and wrote him three tickets. I'm surprised he wasn't arrested, since he had no proof of ID. Luckily, the damage is cosmetic and the van is still drivable, but it was unnerving for Sylvia as she was 1 hour late to meet her buyers and was distressed that her nice new van is now damaged.

The funny thing is, the first thing I thought as I looked at the damaged side of the van was "I wonder if that's going to cost more to fix than what we're saving on the cost of building our new home?" Then I wondered why I thought about it like that.

The thing is, we all want the best value we can get when buying or building a home. As I make daily visits the jobsite of the home I'm building, most of the people working there do not speak English. I have no idea if they are illegal or not, and I don't ask. My home is coming along well, the quality of the work is very good and I like the price I'm paying.

If a builder were to say "I can build your home with only English speaking workers and guaranty that only documented workers will set foot on your property, but it will cost $10 or $20 per square foot more", I'd say "no thanks". Knowing that, do I have a right to feel angry that an illegal immigrant just ran into my wife?

For all I know, this guy who ran into Sylvia is a skilled tradesman who works on new homes. He may be an excellent tile worker. [Edit: Sylvia tells me now that he is a painter] He's not personally working on my home, but is representative of many who do. So I can't simultaneously think "damn that illegal immigrant, sneaking into our county, driving on our roads and running into my wife" and 30 minutes later stand inside my new home and think "I sure do like how my new home is coming along and the great deal I'm getting on the construction costs". I guess I could say that I wish all the illegals would get a drivers license and buy insurance, but I'm not certain that they can without proper documentation.

This is the paradox of the illegal immigrant debate. To those who say we should round everyone up and send them home, I'd ask "how much extra are you willing to pay for your new home, your lawn care and maid service, or even your meals at your favorite restaurant and your hotel stay?" I don't condone law breaking, and I don't want to pay more for these things either, so what's the answer? Probably the answer is to allow more legal immigration and make the process easier.

Let's imagine that a builder decided to build a 100% "documented worker" home. A certification could be made ala the "organic" label on food products, or the "green certified" classification on new homes, so that an anti-immigration buyer could feel good about the purchase - the same as an environmentally conscious person feels good about paying more for a "green" home.

If we believe polls that say Americans are angry about illegal immigration, this new product would provide those Americans with a tangible, honest way to truly answer the poll question. Would a person stridently against the influx of Mexican immigrants into Texas, who thinks they should all be rounded up and sent home, be willing to pay more for a "documented worker certified" home? I seriously doubt it.

So at first, I was angry at the guy who ran into Sylvia's van, and my perception of who and what he represents, then I realized that feeling that way makes me a hypocrite. I can't have it both ways. One thing affects another.

Last night a woman called, saying she was interpreting for the driver who caused the accident. He called to say he was very sorry and wants to pay for the damage instead of us filing an insurance claim. I'll have to look further into the implications of dealing with it outside the insurance claim process, but it was good to know that the driver wants to make it right.

Tuesday we'll get an estimate for the van repair and go from there. Later today I'll be at my new house, saying "hola" to the workers as I walk through and check things out, and "adios" as I leave.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Are you a Real Estate "Pretender"?

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 17:21:47 -0500

I learned a new term this week at the Keller Williams camp in Austin. Agents from declining markets that have turned into Buyer Markets referred to the real estate “pretenders”, who are now dropping like flies. This year will be the first year in a decade that membership in the National Association of Realtors (NAR) declines. Austin saw this in the 1980’s. In 1986 there were over 5,000 Austin Realtors. Then the market tanked. 18 months later, there were less than 2,000 Realtors in Austin.

So who and what is a real estate pretender? They are agents who jump into hot markets and ride the wave. These can include discounters, newbies, scammers and legitimate Realtor hopefuls wanting to crack into the business. They are referred to as pretenders because they are not truly running a real estate business, but instead are just surfing a wave. They can get listings and sell them, or find buyers willing to write offers, but are not operating in a business manner that will survive a downturn. When the wave dies, so does the business, and the agent goes away.

One of the biggest real estate companies in Arizona is actually doing better now the that market has turned into a Buyer’s market. As the Owner/Broker put it during a panel discussion, “the market doesn’t matter to us. We stick to the fundamentals and the basics because we know that’s what will sustain us long term. We actually lost market share in the hot market but now we’re in the process of taking back more than we lost as the pretenders and discounters can’t compete with the results that our agents are able to provide”.

This reminded me of an interview of Warren Buffet, which I saw around 2000. The questioner essentially asked Warren Buffet if he felt like he was missing the train by sitting out the tech stock boom. In other words, by sticking to his business fundamentals, wasn’t Warren Buffet leaving huge gains on the table? Buffet just smiled and said “no”.

He trusted his method and was happy to leave the tech stocks alone. He didn’t say it, but he could have said that the investors flocking to these stocks and making money were investment “pretenders” as well. They might look smart when the market is doing well, but their true abilities are revealed by the downturn.

Similarly, when real estate markets heat up, a real estate business that remains grounded in its basic core business philosophy may be leaving some deals on the table, and letting the pretenders temporarily take away some business, but when the market turns and the smoke clears, the pretenders are gone and the remaining agents become even more valuable and needed than before.

Austin will have a downturn again. I’m not sure when we’ll cycle out of this current “good” market, maybe in 3 to 5 years. When we do turn, the market will separate the real estate professionals from the Pretenders as it always does.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

How Big is Austin - Diary of a typical Realtor Drive

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 11:50:26 -0500

Many people don't realize how geographically spread out the Austin Metro area is. I'm going to share with you an example of the actual drive Sylvia and I made yesterday while tending to some listings.

We live in Oak Hill ('A' on the map), which puts us about 12 miles from Downtown Austin. We left there to go check on a new listing in South Austin (B) and put out some flyers. From there we drove a straight shot up IH35 to a listing in Round Rock (C) to stage the property and put out some new flyers. From there we came back down IH35 to North Austin to check on the painters at a new listing (D) that's still being worked on. From there we headed out toward Lake Travis to Steiner Ranch in NW Austin to check on a listing (E) and put out some new flyers. From there it was back to Oak Hill (A) through Lakeway.

Looking at the accompanying map showing the destinations, how long do you think this excursion took and how many miles do you think we drove? At first glance, it doesn't look that far does it? The total drive was about 120 miles (including a small detour for lunch) and was about 3 hours of pure drive time and about 5 hours total trip time. This was on a Saturday with normal traffic and encountering no accidents.

Many people don't know this, but the city of Austin is over 300 square miles in size. Check the light yellow shaded areas on the map. That represents our actual city limits. 300 square miles is larger than "bigger" cities such as Atlanta and Boston, in terms of square miles. Accordingly, our city government has a lot more miles of roadway, sewer lines, water lines, etc. to maintain than "larger" cities that have denser population. And we keep expanding. Including the 5-County Austin Metro Area, we are a huge city in terms of driving and getting from one destination to another.

That said, our commute time tolerance is lower in Austin than what I hear from people in California and other places with heavy congestion and longer commutes. In general, Austinites don't like driving more than 30 minutes to and from work. People we know from the East Coast and California tell us anything under an hour is ok. Personally, I'm in the 30 minute or less crowd, but as you can see, practicing real estate in Austin can make for some long days on the road. I would never have attempted the route shown above starting at 2PM on a weekday.

Likewise, when we have buyers who are not set on which part of Austin they want to live, it's sometimes hard to explain that we won't be able to effectively show them the entire area in 1 day. Often, they'll think we can see South Austin, then go check out Round Rock, then out to Leander or Cedar Park. That would be a long, long day if trying to see a lot of homes in all those areas.

Typically, South Austin alone can take 3 to 5 hours (depending on how fast or slow the buyers are at looking) if we're going to show 10 or 12 homes, cover many different neighborhoods (some just being drive-through tours) and possibly include a trip out to Belterra and Dripping Springs. 10AM to 3PM is the best time to look, as far as driving goes, and we find that by 3PM people start getting tired anyway and it becomes hard to remember all the homes. Heading up to Round Rock at 3PM after a day in South Austin would be murder.

If you're planning a house hunting trip to Austin, and you really want to explore all corners of our metro area to decide which areas feel best for you, you should plan on 2 or 3 days (5 hours being a "day") of touring and driving. Weekends are best for getting around. We often recommend to our buyers that they plan an unstructured day of driving and scouting on their own as well. Finding your way around Austin with a map can help you learn the area better than simply being driven everywhere by a Realtor.

As you consider your next home in Austin and pick an area, know that our traffic, though not terrible by some standards, is going to keep getting worse. Maintaining close proximity to your most frequest destinations (work and play) should always be a top consideration unless you don't mind spending a lot of time on the road.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Austin Rental Market - June 2007 Update

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:57:46 -0500

Rents continue increasing overall in Austin, as the number of homes rented drops. The average leased price of a home in Austin for June 2007 is $1364 per month, up 7.5% from $1269 in June of 2006. Average days-on-market for homes rented in June 2007 was 41 days. The median days on market was 28 days, which means half of all homes listed in the Austin MLS for rent were leased in less than 28 days. We are clearly moving back into a solid Landlord's market.

Austin Rental Market Stats June 2007
Previous Month and Year Comparison
All MLS Areas - Houses Only
	May 2007	June 2007	June 2006	Yr % Change
# Leased	650	750	789	-4.9%
Avg List Price	$1384	$1370	$1279	7.1%
Median List Price	$1250	$1250	$1195	4.6%
Avg Leased Price	$1377	$1364	$1269	7.5%
Med Leased Price	$1210	$1250	$1150	8.7%
Avg Size SQFT	1910	1897	1837	3.3%
Median SQFT	1817	1810	1745	3.7%
Avg $ per SQFT	$0.72	$0.72	$0.73	-1.4%
Avg Days on Mkt	40	41	46	-11%
Median Days on Mkt	36	28	37	-24%

Year-to-Date, average 2007 rents in Austin are up 6.5% from the same 6 month Jan-Jun period of 2006 last year. The YTD average leased price is $1309 per month, up from $1229 last year. We must be mindful however that summer rental activity is stronger, thus as we move through July and August and into the slower Fall/Winter month, the YTD average may drop some. But things are certainly looking good for landlords and property managers in Austin.

Austin Rental Market Jan-May 2006/2007 Comparison
All MLS Areas - Houses Only
	Jan-Jun 2006	Jan-Jun 2007	Yr % Change
# Leased	4044	3936	-2.7%
Avg List Price	$1240	$1317	6.2%
Median List Price	$1150	$1195	3.9%
Avg Leased Price	$1229	$1309	6.5%
Med Leased Price	$1125	$1195	6.2%
Avg Size SQFT	1823	1881	3.2%
Median SQFT	1746	1791	2.2%
Avg $ per SQFT	$0.67	$0.70	4.5%
Avg Days on Mkt	54	50	-7.4%
Median Days on Mkt	45	36	-20%

Below is a breakout by selected cities. You can see that Austin proper enjoys stronger rental stats overall than any of the surrounding metro areas. I continue to believe that the best place to purchase a rental home is in Austin rather than the suburbs, though some of the outer areas are no doubt gather momentum as new toll roads and freeways shorten the commute times.

Austin Rental Market Stats Jan-Jun 2007
YTD Breakdown by Selected Cities
Houses Only
Austin	Round Rock	Buda/Kyle	Cedar Park	Leander	Hutto
# Leased	1819	615	244	248	195	151
Avg List Price	$1432	$1215	$1110	$1315	$1137	$1067
Median List Price	$1250	$1175	$1097	$1250	$1100	$1050
Avg Leased	$1423	$1210	$1108	$1308	$1137	$1059
Med Leased	$1250	$1150	$1095	$1250	$1100	$1030
Avg Size SQFT	1784	2015	1819	2108	1874	1914
Median SQFT	1656	1878	1790	2103	1800	1867
Avg $ per SQFT	$0.80	$0.60	$0.61	$0.62	$0.61	$0.55
Avg Days on Mkt	46	52	53	55	48	63
Med Days Mkt	34	38	40	38	35	48
Avg Year Built	1984	1999	2003	1998	2000	2005
MedYear Built	1987	2001	2004	2000	2003	2005

Below is a breakdown of leased prices by MLS area. As usual, be mindful that smaller sample sizes can skew things. For example, I promise you rents have not fallen in area 7 in Central/South Austin as indicated below. Only 6 homes have leased through the MLS in area 7 this year and they all happen to be very small homes with lower rents. If you're not familiar with the MLS areas, check the map at the bottom of this post.

Austin Rental Market Stats - 2007 Jan-June
YTD by MLS Areas - Houses Only
MLS Area	# of Homes Leased Jan-Jun			Avg $ Leased Amt Jan-Jun			Avg SQFT	Avg $ Per SQFT	Avg Days	Avg Yr Built
2006	2007	%Chg	2006	2007	%Chg
Area 1A	12	18	50%	$2185	$2418	11%	2554	$0.95	61	1976
Area 1B	33	44	33%	$1951	$2163	11%	1726	$1.25	33	1950
Area 1N	99	76	-23%	$1318	$1508	14%	1917	$0.79	44	1983
Area 2	82	57	-30%	$1111	$1274	15%	1249	$1.02	32	1958
Area 2N	67	67	0	$1054	$1070	2%	1435	$0.75	48	1974
Area 3	79	69	-13%	$1100	$1091	-1%	1276	$0.85	49	1963
Area 3E	30	39	-30%	$1076	$1039	-3%	1371	$0.76	85	1993
Area 4	89	88	-1%	$1458	$1582	9%	1350	$1.17	51	1948
Area 5	77	67	-13%	$998	$1045	5%	1248	$0.84	51	1970
Area 5E	36	23	-36%	$1030	$990	-4%	1649	$0.60	53	2001
Area 6	63	50	-20%	$1286	$1620	26%	1446	$1.12	31	1957
Area 7	15	6	-60%	$1492	$1285	-14%	1151	$1.12	21	1952
Area 8E	20	22	10%	$2419	$2653	10%	2390	$1.11	33	1978
Area 8W	28	26	-7%	$2284	$2367	4%	2490	$0.95	58	1989
Area 9	14	17	12%	$1076	$1150	7%	1362	$0.84	65	1983
Area 10N	81	79	-2%	$1073	$1129	5%	1319	$0.86	39	1971
Area 10S	192	169	-12%	$1128	$1179	5%	1564	$0.75	38	1989
Area 11	60	61	2%	$976	$1034	6%	1481	$0.70	43	1992
Area CLN	337	287	-15%	$1104	$1159	5%	1952	$0.59	49	2001
Area CLS	168	201	20%	$1319	$1394	6%	2091	$0.67	53	1998
Area DT	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Area EL	19	22	16%	$1011	$1029	2%	1890	$0.54	58	2001
Area GTE	46	48	4%	$1059	$1086	3%	1800	$0.60	46	1998
Area GTW	35	30	-14%	$1298	$1364	5%	1968	$0.69	55	1993
Area HD	39	27	-31%	$1636	$1800	10%	2338	$0.77	57	1999
Area HH	243	245	1%	$1056	$1118	6%	1828	$0.61	53	2003
Area HU	142	168	18%	$1032	$1061	3%	1920	$0.55	63	2005
Area LN	26	24	-1%	$1060	$1132	7%	1600	$0.71	61	1988
Area LS	110	145	32%	$1732	$1858	7%	2250	$0.83	61	1994
Area MA	68	66	-3%	$1023	$1087	6%	1812	$0.60	55	2004
Area N	89	79	-11%	$1184	$1208	2%	1704	$0.71	47	1990
Area NE	108	103	-5%	$1137	$1179	4%	1902	$0.62	52	1998
Area NW	127	94	-26%	$1297	$1306	1%	1971	$0.66	46	1988
Area PF	310	313	1%	$1128	$1200	6%	1991	$0.60	54	2001
Area RN	53	68	28%	$2190	$2110	-4%	2634	$0.80	75	2001
Area RRE	447	430	-4%	$1141	$1190	4%	2003	$0.59	50	2000
Area RRW	175	188	-7%	$1239	$1338	8%	2133	$0.63	52	1996
Area SC	26	21	-19%	$1237	$1190	-4%	2087	$0.57	38	2003
Area SE	38	29	-24%	$1055	$1049	-1%	1881	$0.56	54	1998
Area SWE	121	125	3%	$1266	$1352	7%	1924	$0.70	35	2001
Area SWW	114	93	-18%	$1658	$1695	2%	2289	$0.74	35	1996
Area UT	26	17	-34%	$1746	$2164	24%	1672	$1.29	41	1945
Area W	30	42	12%	$1861	$1982	7%	2317	$0.86	54	1992

Below is a graphical representation of Austin's rental market history from 1999 to June 2007. It's alot easier to understand the huge dip we took in rental prices by seeing it visually. Also, our recovery appears to be in full swing also, but I'm still not certain our average rental rates at the end of 2007 will beat the 1999 number. We'll see.

Below is Austin's current MLS map.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Austin Real Estate Market Sales Stats - June 2007 Update

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:23:38 -0500

Below are the June 2007 and YTD mid-year real estate sales stats for Austin and surrounding areas. These are for single family homes, condos are not included.

The most interesting thing to me on the first chart below for June sales is that the median days on market is 28 days. That means half of all homes listed in the Austin MLS sell in less than 28 days. That's outstanding. The Average days on market for June was 56 days, which is also very good. Austin is really a city of many sub-markets, as the breakout by MLS area below shows. Some areas are experiencing strong demand and great appreciation while other parts of Austin (mainly surrounding suburbs to the east) are seeing slow sales and little or no appreciation due to a slowdown in starter home sales.

Overall, June sales saw the number of homes sold fall 11%, but the average prices keeps rising, with a 7.9% increase in average sold prices in Austin from $244,710 last year to $263,985 for June of this year. The Median sold prices rose 6.9% from $182,000 to $194,500. We're not far from our Median sales price moving above $200K for the first time ever. The average price per square foot increased 7.9% from $114 last year to $123 for June 2007. Days on market continues to decrease, meaning homes are selling faster than this time last year. Though not reported in the charts below, our inventory of available homes is increasing somewhat, but demand is keeping up in most areas.

Austin Sales Stats June 2007
Previous Month and Year Comparison
All MLS Areas - Houses Only
	May 2007	June 2007	June 2006	Yr % Change
# Sold	2568	2613	2921	-11%
Avg List Price	260,267	270,162	249,914	8.1%
Median List Price	189,900	199.086	187,415	6.2%
Avg Sold Price	254,392	263,985	244,710	7.9%
Med Sold Price	187,000	194,500	182,000	6.9%
Avg Size SQFT	2130	2139	2146	-0.3%
Median SQFT	1923	1951	1965	-0.7%
Avg $ per SQFT	$119	$123	$114	7.9%
Avg Days on Mkt	54	53	56	-5.3%
Median Days on Mkt	27	28	32	-12.5%

Below is a year to date breakdown, again for the entire Austin MLS, single family homes. So far YTD Austin MLS sales prices are up 6.1% over the same period last year and the median sold price is up 5.7%.

Austin YTD Sales Stats April 2007
Year to Date with Previous Year Comparison
All MLS Areas - Houses Only
	Jan-June 2006	Jan-June 2007	Yr % Change
# Sold	12958	12740	-1.7%
Avg List Price	244,011	259,345	6.3%
Median List Price	178,000	189,000	6.2%
Avg Sold Price	238,076	252,657	6.1%
Med Sold Price	175,000	185,000	5.7%
Avg Size SQFT	2112	2116	0
Median SQFT	1924	1920	0
Avg $ per SQFT	$113	$119	5.3%
Avg Days on Mkt	63	60	-4.8%
Median Days on Mkt	37	33	-11%

Below is a YTD Sales breakdown, same as above, but with new homes eliminated. Average YTD appreciation for resale homes is 1% higher than the overall Austin MLS average, at 7.2%. Median price is almost flat, which tells me a lot of the median gain in the chart above is coming from new home sales in higher price ranges. Average and Median sales prices are lower also when new homes are removed from the stats.

Austin Sales Stats (resale) Jan-Jun 2007
Year to Date Previous Year Comparison
**All MLS Areas - Resale Houses Only - New Homes Excluded**
	Jan-Apr 2006	Jan-Jun 2007	Yr % Change
# Sold	10,951	10,698	-2.3%
Avg List Price	233,639	250,565	7.2%
Median List Price	172,000	184,900	7.5%
Avg Sold Price	228,548	244,916	7.2%
Med Sold Price	170,000	181,900	1.1%
Avg Size SQFT	2051	2054	0
Median SQFT	1868	1865	0
Avg $ per SQFT	$111	$119	7.2%
Avg Days on Mkt	57	52	-8.8%
Median Days on Mkt	32	27	-16%

Below is a breakout by MLS area. If you're not famiar with Austin's MLS areas, a map is at the bottom of the page. As usual, the areas closer in to Austin proper continue to see the biggest increases in sales prices. Areas in lower price ranges further out and east of Austin tend to have more sluggish markets. Hutto, Elgin and Manor are all seeing prices fall.

I want to go over the data fields listed below and explain why I show these particular sets of figures.

# Sold
This tells us if a particular area is experiencing a spike or drop in number sales. Scanning down the chart below, you'll see that almost all areas have a drop in number of sales, but there are several, mostly areas east of IH35, that have increased numbers of sales. Large increases in number of sales often indicate a lot of new home sales in that area.

Average Sold
This is the average sold price of all homes sold in an area. By itself, it doesn't tell the entire story. For example, Area HD (Dripping Springs) shows a 32% increase in average sales price, but that doesn't mean that a particular home in HD has appreciated 32%. That's not likely. In this case, there are several high priced sales for homes with acreage that pull the average up. But overall, HD is a very strong and growing area moving toward higher end homes. As you scan across the "Changes" line for area HD, you'll notice that all of the metrics are moving in the direction we want to see if we are looking for value appreciation.

Median Sold
Median sold prices are a good reality check against Average sold prices. Medians are less susceptible to swings caused by a few high or low sales, so movement of a median price in some ways tells us more about the broader direction of a market area than does the average.

Average SQFT (Square Feet)
This tells us the average size of the homes sold in an area. It's interesting to see how much the average size varies across areas, but we also divide sqft into the Average Sold price to get the average price per square foot.

Average Price per Square foot
This is another reality check against average sales prices. You'll notice for example in MLS Area 3E that the Average and Median sold prices are up about 14% and 17%, but the avg square footage has also increased and the average sold price per square foot is up only about 7%.

Average Days
This is Average Days on Market for homes that sold. Typically, a lower number of days on market should correlate with stronger sales numbers, but not always. Area HD from our example above has a high DOM of 90. This is largely due to a high number of new homes being listed, which typically remain active in the MLS for more days.

All of these pieces of data have to be viewed in the context of each other. Real Estate market data, especially as reported by newspaper writers, can be very misleading. In general, when looking at the data for a particular area, if I see low days on market, rising Average, Median and Per SQFT sales prices, then I think that area is probably doing ok. But there can be specific neighborhoods with a strong area that go counter to the area overall. This can be due to factors such as the quality of schools, quality of construction, traffic issues, etc.

OK, on to the numbers below. As usual, post any questions/comments and I'll do my best to answer.

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
All Areas	2007	12740	$252,657	$185,000	2,116	$119.40	60	1990
	2006	12958	$238,076	$175,000	2,112	$112.73	63	1988
Change	-1.68%	6.12%	5.71%	0.19%	5.92%	-4.76%	2

MLS Area	YTD-Apr	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
1A	2007	145	$480,797	$455,000	2,656	$181.02	52	1978
2006	147	$437,036	$399,000	2,676	$163.32	58	1976
Change	-1.36%	10.01%	14.04%	-0.75%	10.84%	-10%	2

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
1B	2007	180	$714,223	$595,450	2,634	$271.16	63	1961
2006	218	$652,037	$530,000	2,561	$254.60	75	1958
Change	-17.43%	9.54%	12.35%	2.85%	6.50%	-16%	3

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
1N	2007	310	$299,793	$269,000	2,203	$136.08	36	1984
2006	333	$279,554	$250,000	2,250	$124.25	40	1986
Change	-6.91%	7.24%	7.60%	-2.09%	9.53%	-10%	-2

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
2	2007	224	$248,236	$240,000	1,386	$179.10	33	1957
2006	252	$215,904	$210,000	1,390	$155.33	34	1958
Change	-11.11%	14.98%	14.29%	-0.29%	15.31%	-2.94%	-1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
2N	2007	161	$141,796	$139,500	1,498	$94.66	38	1973
2006	209	$134,577	$127,950	1,507	$89.30	49	1974
Change	-22.97%	5.36%	9.03%	-0.60%	6.00%	-22.45%	-1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
3	2007	167	$195,654	$195,000	1,490	$131.31	46	1962
2006	193	$164,761	$155,000	1,468	$112.24	38	1958
Change	-13.47%	18.75%	25.81%	1.50%	17.00%	21.05%	4

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
3E	2007	122	$118,767	$117,000	1,426	$83.29	87	1995
2006	66	$103,809	$100,271	1,332	$77.93	82	1993
Change	84.85%	14.41%	16.68%	7.06%	6.87%	6.10%	2

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
4	2007	193	$349,440	$321,250	1,550	$225.45	52	1951
2006	204	$297,800	$276,750	1,437	$207.24	39	1951
Change	-5.39%	17.34%	16.08%	7.86%	8.79%	33.33%	0

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
5	2007	211	$173,671	$155,600	1,156	$150.23	57	1956
2006	208	$144,577	$130,154	1,178	$122.73	57	1960
Change	1.44%	20.12%	19.55%	-1.87%	22.41%	0.00%	-4

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
5E	2007	48	$108,323	$109,450	1,499	$72.26	75	2000
2006	54	$113,665	$114,700	1,568	$72.49	47	1998
Change	-11.11%	-4.70%	-4.58%	-4.40%	-0.31%	59.57%	2

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
6	2007	162	$349,473	$318,800	1,508	$231.75	46	1961
2006	173	$319,833	$290,000	1,535	$208.36	64	1956
Change	-6.36%	9.27%	9.93%	-1.76%	11.22%	-28.13%	5

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
7	2007	72	$376,465	$372,500	1,586	$237.37	39	1958
2006	70	$345,714	$323,950	1,684	$205.29	43	1959
Change	2.86%	8.89%	14.99%	-5.82%	15.62%	-9.30%	-1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
8E	2007	139	$954,737	$759,000	3,669	$260.22	69	1987
2006	147	$782,812	$660,000	3,437	$227.76	73	1987
Change	-5.44%	21.96%	15.00%	6.75%	14.25%	-5.48%	0

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
8W	2007	147	$652,639	$525,000	3,438	$189.83	69	1991
2006	159	$593,815	$478,000	3,273	$181.43	62	1990
Change	-7.55%	9.91%	9.83%	5.04%	4.63%	11.29%	1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
9	2007	46	$164,384	$154,007	1,556	$105.65	45	1989
2006	37	$134,554	$132,500	1,460	$92.16	61	1968
Change	24.32%	22.17%	16.23%	6.58%	14.63%	-26.23%	21

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
10N	2007	144	$180,565	$162,500	1,420	$127.16	30	1970
2006	208	$142,462	$134,700	1,399	$101.83	38	1972
Change	-30.77%	26.75%	20.64%	1.50%	24.87%	-21.05%	-2

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
10S	2007	405	$170,656	$163,847	1,644	$103.81	28	1987
2006	468	$152,767	$146,700	1,608	$95.00	31	1988
Change	-13.46%	11.71%	11.69%	2.24%	9.26%	-9.68%	-1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
11	2007	169	$120,597	$118,000	1,435	$84.04	56	1989
2006	166	$103,068	$99,850	1,307	$78.86	59	1985
Change	1.81%	17.01%	18.18%	9.79%	6.57%	-5.08%	4

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
CLN	2007	647	$163,035	$146,790	1,941	$84.00	57	1999
2006	730	$152,466	$137,577	1,950	$78.19	60	1999
Change	-11.37%	6.93%	6.70%	-0.46%	7.43%	-5.00%	0

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
CLS	2007	596	$229,351	$205,450	2,354	$97.43	57	1998
2006	622	$203,356	$180,000	2,254	$90.22	64	1997
Change	-4.18%	12.78%	14.14%	4.44%	7.99%	-10.94%	1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
EL	2007	156	$130,820	$124,500	1,755	$74.54	82	1993
2006	108	$130,085	$119,950	1,779	$73.12	92	1988
Change	44.44%	0.57%	3.79%	-1.35%	1.94%	-10.87%	5

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
GTE	2007	215	$149,766	$135,700	1,718	$87.17	53	1988
2006	181	$140,471	$129,000	1,704	$82.44	67	1986
Change	18.78%	6.62%	5.19%	0.82%	5.75%	-20.90%	2

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
GTW	2007	442	$253,617	$218,000	2,242	$113.12	71	1996
2006	425	$242,520	$220,000	2,292	$105.81	77	1995
Change	4.00%	4.58%	-0.91%	-2.18%	6.91%	-7.79%	1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
HD	2007	221	$426,389	$342,378	2,896	$147.23	90	1996
2006	229	$322,916	$285,000	2,614	$123.53	93	1997
Change	-3.49%	32.04%	20.13%	10.79%	19.19%	-3.23%	-1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
HH	2007	561	$170,393	$152,800	2,006	$84.94	72	1999
2006	490	$167,577	$145,000	2,027	$82.67	73	1998
Change	14.49%	1.68%	5.38%	-1.04%	2.74%	-1.37%	1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
HU	2007	358	$147,085	$137,295	1,846	$79.68	77	2003
2006	278	$147,202	$135,009	1,868	$78.80	67	2003
Change	28.78%	-0.08%	1.69%	-1.18%	1.11%	14.93%	0

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
LN	2007	124	$307,074	$203,250	2,155	$142.49	86	1995
2006	169	$253,450	$190,000	2,103	$120.52	103	1993
Change	-26.63%	21.16%	6.97%	2.47%	18.23%	-16.50%	2

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
LS	2007	436	$445,980	$368,000	2,701	$165.12	84	1997
2006	548	$435,356	$337,250	2,812	$154.82	82	1997
Change	-20.44%	2.44%	9.12%	-3.95%	6.65%	2.44%	0

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
MA	2007	183	$153,311	$133,980	1,866	$82.16	83	2002
2006	118	$158,118	$130,011	1,904	$83.05	85	2000
Change	55.08%	-3.04%	3.05%	-2.00%	-1.07%	-2.35%	2

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
N	2007	269	$188,212	$180,000	1,921	$97.98	28	1991
2006	269	$171,257	$167,000	1,883	$90.95	45	1991
Change	0.00%	9.90%	7.78%	2.02%	7.73%	-37.78%	0

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
NE	2007	192	$151,501	$151,425	1,744	$86.87	56	1989
2006	200	$138,993	$138,100	1,754	$79.24	62	1988
Change	-4.00%	9.00%	9.65%	-0.57%	9.62%	-9.68%	1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
NW	2007	396	$246,339	$200,000	2,283	$107.90	35	1987
2006	474	$234,073	$190,157	2,333	$100.33	43	1988
Change	-16.46%	5.24%	5.18%	-2.14%	7.55%	-18.60%	-1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
PF	2007	727	$163,250	$154,900	2,057	$79.36	60	1999
2006	739	$150,985	$142,000	1,963	$76.92	63	1998
Change	-1.62%	8.12%	9.08%	4.79%	3.18%	-4.76%	1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
RN	2007	314	$531,791	$460,500	3,460	$153.70	86	2000
2006	294	$494,711	$423,750	3,316	$149.19	77	1999
Change	6.80%	7.50%	8.67%	4.34%	3.02%	11.69%	1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
RRE	2007	854	$178,981	$153,000	2,091	$85.60	61	1997
2006	742	$173,211	$143,875	2,123	$81.59	65	1996
Change	15.09%	3.33%	6.34%	-1.51%	4.91%	-6.15%	1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
RRW	2007	741	$236,788	$219,000	2,488	$95.17	56	1997
2006	771	$219,012	$196,000	2,483	$88.20	64	1996
Change	-3.89%	8.12%	11.73%	0.20%	7.90%	-12.50%	1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
SC	2007	102	$198,799	$182,632	2,237	$88.87	66	1998
2006	89	$190,780	$152,895	2,142	$89.07	88	1997
Change	14.61%	4.20%	19.45%	4.44%	-0.22%	-25.00%	1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
SE	2007	108	$121,809	$119,285	1,742	$69.92	52	2002
2006	87	$112,282	$111,000	1,708	$65.74	60	1999
Change	24.14%	8.48%	7.46%	1.99%	6.37%	-13.33%	3

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
SWE	2007	351	$229,391	$210,391	2,154	$106.50	46	1997
2006	315	$199,566	$187,000	2,085	$95.72	44	1996
Change	11.43%	14.94%	12.51%	3.31%	11.26%	4.55%	1

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
SWW	2007	381	$297,286	$280,000	2,483	$119.73	34	1996
2006	434	$271,171	$254,900	2,517	$107.74	36	1996
Change	-12.21%	9.63%	9.85%	-1.35%	11.13%	-5.56%	0

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
UT	2007	23	$440,082	$410,000	1,915	$229.81	63	1939
2006	37	$413,879	$358,600	1,705	$242.74	37	1931
Change	-37.84%	6.33%	14.33%	12.32%	-5.33%	70.27%	8

MLS Area	Year	# Sold	Avg Sold	Med Sold	Avg SQFT	Avg PSF	Avg Days	Year Blt
W	2007	174	$588,360	$355,500	3,108	$189.31	67	1994
2006	212	$560,879	$350,000	3,212	$174.62	77	1995
Change	-17.92%	4.90%	1.57%	-3.24%	8.41%	-12.99%	-1

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Why you should register YourName.com

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 18:02:15 -0500

A Realtor friend of mine, from a city and state which shall remain unnamed, called me the other day to ask if I knew what could be done about the fact that a disgruntled party in one of his deals (not his client) had registered the dot com of his first and last name and put up a "this Realtor Sucks" website. He called me because he knows I know a lot about this stuff. Unfortunately, all I could suggest was contacting an attorney. Once that domain is registered by someone else, he has no control over the content of the website. I checked in with him a couple of days ago and the attorney had drafted a strongly worded letter and was taking quick action. The person who did this could actually be in big trouble for liable and slander. Hopefully the site will be down soon.

This brings up a good point though. Even if you are not in an occupation that requires regular public interface, such that your name is part of your business and branding, you should register yourname.com, if it's available, so that someone else can't do what was done to my friend. I've registered mine and my wife and kid's names for that reason.

You never know when your 15 minutes of fame might strike and suddenly yourname.com has value as a destination that curious people type into their browser and search engines. More importantly, you want to have it so someone else can't grab it and do what was done to my friend, or worse. What if your angry ex decides to put a site up at yourname.com with some embarrassing home photos or movies? It's a different world we live in now-a-days. In the case of my Realtor friend, a Google Search for his name brings up the offending site already as the number 2 result, right below his real website. That's not good.

For $5 or $10 per year, there is no reason not to register yourname.com. Go to GoDaddy.com and see if yours is available and grab it while you can.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811

Quick-turning an Austin rental home - pros and cons

Steve Crossland - Austin TX Real Estate (Crossland Real Estate) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 14:01:20 -0500

I moved two new renters in on Sunday July 1st. Both moved into homes that had been vacated by tenants with leases ending Saturday June 30th. There are all manner of things that can go wrong with such a tight turnaround, especially on a weekend.

Nevertheless, I've always been a proponent of quick-turning a rental unit whenever possible. The most I ever did was 12 next-day turnovers on May31/June1 back in the year 2000. That was pure madness, and I was still out checking up on the properties, painters and my carpet people at 1AM on the 1st. It didn't go perfect, but everybody got moved in and the loose ends and problems were resolved soon after. Primarily though, those 12 property owners did not suffer one single day of vacancy loss. That's a touchdown no matter how ugly.

There are many Property Managers in Austin, and around the country, who won't offer a first of the month move-in on occupied rental homes. Instead, they will set the availability/move-in date for the 5th, or later, and turn away renters who absolutely must be in on the 1st. These property managers have a great deal more sanity than me, and I fully understand and agree with the premise under which they have formed this policy. It's a policy of chaos avoidance. It's running and managing the turnover process in a way that eliminates most of the uncontrollable factors that come with a fast turnover.

Since one never knows for sure in advance the condition a departing tenant will leave a property, it's difficult to pre-schedule and allocate the resources that will be needed for a smooth turnover process. And yes, some of these turnovers can be very difficult to manage. So a good, well organized property manager who likes to keep things under control will be very hesitant to subject themselves to such chaos.

But personally, I don't mind the chaos as much as I dislike vacancy. A vacant home is a landlords' worst enemy, period. I'll trade all the chaos and problems of short turnaround in favor of avoiding vacancy loss any day. In fact, if I could own/manage a rental portfolio where there were only quick-turn move-ins, I'd gladly take it over the potential vacancy loss that results from avoiding such chaos.

Let's look at how this works. First, when an interested tenant wants to rent a home for a move-in on the first, I'll explain that I'm willing to do that but only if they are willing to not complain if the move-in doesn't go perfect. If they have some slack time in their moving schedule, and they don't want to have any potential inconveniences related to the move-in, we can always go ahead and set the move-in for the 3rd or the 5th and I'll promise that I can have everything done by then. In this case, I'm still happy to have the home rented with only a few days vacancy loss.

But if the tenant absolutely must be in on the first, as is often the case with tenants, I'm not going to let a good renter walk away over my fear of logistical snafus. Performing the carpet cleaning, touch-up paint, make-ready maintenance and cleaning after a tenant has moved in is a hassle, no doubt. It can be a nightmare even. But I'd still rather live that short nightmare than allow a home to go vacant while still not rented.

The trick is to set the expectations of both the incoming and departing tenant. If a good relationship has been maintained with the departing tenant, they will more often than not respond favorably when told that we have someone moving in immediately after they are out, and that we'd appreciate any extra time they might be able to provide us. In the case of these two that I did this weekend, one tenant cleared out Thursday and the other by Saturday and both left the homes clean with no damage. Whew! That really, really helps. So these two move-ins went off without a hitch. Imagine if I'd turned these renters away and didn't have replacement tenants willing to wait until the 3rd or the 5th to move in? I would have done so to avoid expected problems that never materialized. It's better, as a landlord, to just grit your teeth and go for it, so long as you have properly set the expectations for the inbound tenant such that they will cooperate instead of complain if things get tricky.

Other benefits are that I didn't have to call the utility companies to switch the electricity, gas and water while the home is between tenants. Nor, therefore, will I have to call to shut off those utilities after a new tenant moves in, nor will I receive utility bills that I have to pay. It's a straight shot from the old tenant to the new. Also the house doesn't sit vacant with nobody to care for and water the yard. And did I mention the avoidance of vacancy loss? There is a lot of upside that comes with a quick turnover.

Now, if a home has been occupied for 5 years with the same tenant, and I know after a pre-lease walk-through that it's going to need new carpet, full paint, cosmetic repairs and a heavy make-ready, I won't attempt a quick turn. A 5 year occupancy is great, but the home will need freshening up to attract another good tenant. But for most homes in good condition, that are only going to need carpet cleaning and a make-ready clean, it's well worth the effort to try to have a new tenant move in as soon as possible after the old tenant vacates.

Steve Crossland, REALTOR, MPM
Crossland Real Estate
http://www.CrosslandTeam.com
(512) 301-5811