&*%$!!! All right, I'll play along here. Before I do though, I'd like to point out that I've read mutliple blogs that have written a things NOT to do with your blog list. Every time, on that list is don't talk about yourself or your life, no one cares. So if you're reading this for Real Estate related info... pass on this one, you won't find any here.
Those of you unaware of what's going on, I got meme'ed. It's like a game of blog tag, and meme sounds a whole lot better than "blag," and only a moron would use the term blag. Well, once you get blagged, you have to tell 5 things about yourself that most people didn't already know. Then tag 5 more people. Sooooo...
#1) I HATE talking about myself. If someone asks me how everything is, I usually will just say "same old," then proceed to change the subject, or ask them something about themself. I secretly wished this wouldn't actually make it around to me, and contemplated just ignoring it if it did happen. Well, Merry Freaking Christmas Jon.
#2) Speaking of merry x-mas, yeah, I celebrate it, AND hannukah. I'm completely American in the sense that I am a mutt in body and spirit. I'm German, Hungarian, Swedish, English, and one that I forgot. My mom's a jew, my dad's a presbertyrian. I have a jewish friend that accuses me of being JWC (jewish when convenient). The fact of the matter is, I tell everyone the same thing when the topic comes up "my moms jewish." So all jews say "oh, then YOU'RE jewish" and the goy (non-jew for the goy out there) say "so you're half jewish" I just smile, and let people jump to their own conclusions.
#3) I have a severe fear of needles, you will NEVER find any tatoos or piercings on my body. When I was younger, I would constantly break out into tears when I had blood drawn. Even at the age of 16, my doctor would have to come out to calm me down. The most recent time that I had my blood drawn (2005).... I fainted. That's right ladies, I'm a real manly man.
#4) Not that it matters ladies, I'm taken. I have a beautiful girlfriend that I've been dating longer than most celebrity marriages last. We've been together since September 2 1999.
#5) Whenever I'm doing anything business related, and I tell people my age, everyone tells me I'm still a baby. It half annoys me, half makes me appreciate what I've done so far with myself. I was born November 9th 1979, I just turned 27.
That's it. You officially know more about me than most people do. Happy??? Great. Thanks a whole bunch Andrew, and those who brought it to him:
Now comes the time where it's my turn to pass the buck to the next bloggers, should they choose to accept the challenge.
The first one's a no brainer for me, we all know I love reading the Bloodhound, and as of recently he's added a few "frequent contributors" however for one of them, it appears that frequent means not yet. So the first call out is to a man in my town, who appears to be quite the clever marketing guru (from what I've seen on his site), who I have yet to hear from. Ronan Doyle... blag, you're it. Followed by Broker Bryant, BigP, John Keith, and Allan.
I am fortunate enough to be taking part in the first annual Yankee Blog Swap. Tomorrow this blog will be graced with the presence of Jeff Corbett from the X Broker (and after previewing his article, I actually mean that in the most sincere way possible), while I in turn will destroy every amount of credibility he has worked so hard to acheive, by posting on his blog. Unfortunately, not everyone always gets what they want in a yankee swap.
The brainchild of Mary McKnight from RSSPieces is being held on December 19th and includes an impressive list of some of the most widely read real estate bloggers in the industry, and me. We'll be pairing up and trading spaces for the day. The groups and participants include (thanks to Mary at RSS Pieces for the list, and all the hard work):
Ahhh the hangover. The time when you remember how much you love advil, your couch, your blanket, and your water closet. And a great time to think about / try to remember just what the hell happened, and what you're going to do about it.
As promised, I wanted to present the other 11 great entries that just didn't make the top 10 cut. These are in a particular order, just not the order you're thinking of.
Drew Meyers at zillowblog is shaking in his shoes about 'quakes, and provides a "how to protect your investment." A great article, that didn't make the top ten, because I though it was such a specific topic that doesn't affect me. I guess what I'm saying is that it's not Drews ... fault. HIOOOOO I got a pun in!!!
And last and certaintly least ( I say that because I was actually going to trash it, as it was written on October 18th, and that is clearly in violation of the rules of the carnival). But:
A) I liked the entry B) I like the idea of the whole blog 3) bugger off, it's my Carnival this week
To finish, Drew asked me for my input regarding improvements, as there has been some discussion this week on the subject. So my two cents is this:
Sometimes when you start adding to many complex rules, you make something too complex. The idea of the Carnival of Real Estate should be something very basic. A bunch of Real Estate bloggers that submit their posts each week to a different host. In my opinion, the rules should be entirely up to the host. Different hosts should use their own discretion as to what will fly, I mean, it IS their blog this is going on. I think the more that hosts stray from the norm, the more interesting their carnival is. The more rules you add, the more uniform (aka boring) the carnival will become.
And as far as splitting the carnival in two... please don't. I love getting suggestions from people. I love even more when I get suggestions from people in my company, because they usually get the same response. Make it so... If it's something you're passionate about, then you're the best man for the job.
Hold onto your hats people. The Carnival of Real Estate has finally made it around to little old me. I have to say I am completely honered to be hosting the Carnival on it's 21st birthday. So submityour best entries by Sunday the third. And hopefully we can celebrate the big #21 with style, as opposed to the other way around...
Apparently I've been under a rock, I swear I wasn't playing Mansion Impossible. Regardless, Boston's skyline might be getting a facelift. Only one developer, Steve Belkin, actually bid on the project. He might have had a slight advantage, seeing as he owns an adjoining property.
As seen above, the new building designed by RenzoPiano, will be 75 stories, 15 stories higher than the current New England record holder, the John Hancock Tower. It will feature 1.3 million square feet of commercial space, and 40,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space. It will also have an additional 55,000 square feet of public space including a one acre town green on the ground floor with public art, as well as a wind protected, richly landscaped, public observatory area on the top of the building.
The location will be bound by Franklin St. to the North, Summer St. to the South, Devonshire St. to the West, and Federal St. to the East.
CNN reported on home prices across the country. Hold onto your hats people, the bubble has popped, the sky is falling, housing prices fell a whopping ...... 1.2% this quarter compared to a year ago. What does that mean? Not too much because real estate is local. Fortunately, the article is kind enough to break it down by city, and by single family homes and condos. These numbers were based on the median price of homes.
Cheers go to:
- Salem, Oregon where single family homes (median price $228k) saw a 24.7% increase from the third quarter last year. - Knoxville, Tennessee where condos (median price $155.7k) saw a 29% increase over last year. - other notable cheers go out to Seattle/Tacoma/Bellview WA (single family) and Honolulu HI (condos) that had both high median prices and good percentage increases over the last year.
And the Jeers:
- Detroit MI area single family homes ($154.1k median) lost 10.5% of their value from last year. - and Sarasota FL area condos ($275.6k median) lost 11% (ouch) of their value.
So where does that put Boston? Unfortunately we're in the red. For single family homes Boston / Cambridge / Quincy ($412.3k median) lost 4.3% from last year. Strangely enough, Boston / Cambridge / Quincy condos (median $300.8k) are doing a little better, having lost only 1.9% of their value over last year.
I was just reading about the CFA ragging on the Real Estate Industry. One of their claims was that NAR and Real Estate boards (led mostly by Agents and Brokers) have been trying to keep barriers to entry low. The low barriers to entry causes there to be too many licensed agents, which leads to an inefficient marketplace, where commission rates are kept high. Essentially they are saying that NAR and the Real Estate industry has complete control over commission rates.
Apparently the CFA claimed that there were 2.5 million licensees, and only about 7 million sales annually. Therefore, by most brokers completing only a handfull of sales each year it helped "support a system that keeps comission rates high." And they claim that this is from an economists point of view.
I studied economics, and this couldn't sound more wrong to me. Competition creates efficiency, and the most efficient market, is one that has perfect competition. In general, conditions for perfect competition require:
- A large number of buyers and sellers (check) - goods or services offered are functionally identical (pseudo-check....nothing's perfect) - and freedom of entry and exit
The fact of the matter is, the more players that there are in a market, the more competative and efficient it becomes. One factor that could possibly effect comissions in an area, would be a market with a few large players that had a large majority of market share.
I think the better question comes if we take it to the extreme, and assume that the CFA is right, and the real estate industry and NAR do have a magical grasp of (negotiable by law) commission rates. What exactly would be their plan to deal with some of the new discount brokerages popping up, that are giving a percentage of the commission back to the buyers?
The easiest way to deal with that would be to snuff them out. These new discount business models are based on the going commission rates. Use the strength of numbers and the grasp of the market share and make the going comission rate lower. Lower the standard, and their model won't survive.
However we don't see that happening because the real estate industry and NAR cannot change commissions with the flick of a switch. The market sets the rates.
It was a dark and stormy...morning. My third day on the job managing a one bedroom condo, also my very first property management gig. The owners moved out to Japan, and came to me asking about Property Management. I told them I'd never done it before, but it's just a one bedroom condo, how hard could it be?
I got the contract, and we set up the appropriate accounts. They left for Japan, and I found a nice young recently married couple to rent the place. So a small condo, in a professionally managed association, the place was rented, and I was on easy street.
So before the tenants moved in, I wanted to have the place professionally cleaned for them. So I called a friend and asked if he knew a good cleaning lady. I call her up and set up a time, 9:00 Saturday morning.
I get there that morning to let her in at 8:45, 9:00 rolls around, 9:15, 9:30... I call her up to see where she is, and it goes to voice mail. 9:45, voicemail. Finally 10:00 rolls around, and I get in touch with her. She had to move around some appointments and wasn't going to be able to make it. Now it's short notice for me to find someone else, so I ask her if she can do it tomorrow morning, she says yes 9:00am would work.
I get there Sunday morning again at 8:45 to let her in. She shows up at 9:45. It's her and her daughter, they have all their supplies... Awesome. I let them in and tell them to call me if they need anything.
Sure enough, I get a call from the daughter at 11:00. "Jon, I need you to come here, my mom cut her finger." I ask her "Is it bad? Should I call 911?" She says no, but she wants me to come over. So figure it's not pretty but it's not bad, I stop by the store and buy some cotton balls and hydrogen peroxide.
I show up at the property and the mother is sitting on the ground with some paper towels around her finger, and the daughter is standing with her back turned to her mom (she couldn't stand to look). I look around the room real quick, there isn't any blood splattered around, the paper towel is not soaked, how bad could it be?
So they ask me to look at it because neither of them can. And I lean over, and thinking is a small cut, I give her the "let me see this little cut" So I remove the paper towel.
I saw blood and bone. This wasn't a deep cut, THE WINDOW HAD FALLEN ON HER FINGER!! Think more like a fat guy taking down a chicken wing in one bite. The window had removed her nail and skin from the bone just under her nail bed.
The smirk dropped from my face and I freaked "WE ARE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL RIGHT NOW!" I ask which window, and they point me over (well the daughter did). So I lift the window, and underneath is the cleaning rag, and the fingertip and nail. I grab both, hand them to the daughter and hightail it for the nearest hospital. I made it in 5 minutes. During the drive, the cleaning lady told me I looked pale.... Yes, the fingertipless lady told me I looked pale.
After I got them to the hospital, I went back to the property and had the new tenants moving in within hours, and upon closer inspection, there were spots of blood all around the window and wall. I had to spend the next 3 hours on my hands an knees cleaning up the blood, and finishing the 1/2 done cleaning job.
Now if you think that's bad. On top of all of that, the cleaning lady didn't have workers comp, and the landlords owned the property outright and didn't have homeowners insurance. My first communication with them after they arrived in Japan was telling them the story and advising them that they will be needing legal representation.
I figure, in my first 3 days I had an experience that Property Managers doing it for 20 years have never seen. Wonderful.
As far as the carnival, if that one doesn't get me in the top ten, I can't wait to read the ones that beat it.
So if you haven't noticed, I've been gone on a small vacation. So it's catch up time for me, time to get back in the groove and see what I've been missing. I figured I'd start it off with my week in review.
Urban Trekker Blog put together a very good list of some recent articles that will be effecting the housing market both locally (DC area) and nationally.
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