Most Pressing Real Estate Questions

Dear Bob Mitchell;

I read your bio and appreciate the long road you have travelled to get this point in your life, and appreciate the business acumen you have in developing your discount real estate company, ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.  It is a nice story, and you seem like a very honest, hard working, American from the Midwest;  the people that have in the past formed the backbone of this country with their values and entrepreunership.

However, and with all due respect to you, your comments seem somewhat disconnected from my intial blog entry.  The governement does not take away your money if you do not plan ahead with either your health care needs, or with developijng your Will or Living Trust; this is a common misnomer I see in the minds of the uneducated consumer with respect to Estate Planning legal issues.  If you do not have a trust, your estate must go through a Probate process, which involves time and money in the form of attorney fees.  The government is only the oversight agency and not the recipient of any money from your estate, other than the Probat filing fee.  That is usually the extent of the govt. involvement.

As to your other comment that the lack of planning results in the govt taking your money, and that this in the end is, in your opinion, "Elder Abuse,"  I have to assume that you are just making a joke, and are not serious.  Please say it isn't so Bob!  You are not being serious are you?

Bill Massarweh 

Dear Cynthia Sloop;

Thank you for your inquiry and follow up blog entry.  I will try to address your questions as best as I can.  You ask "How is your service to the real estate customer valuable?"  To answer that, I must first digress as follows:

To best explain what I bring to the table is to simply state that while many people consider themselves to be either an expert in their chosen field, or an advisor to a client, very few people can advise a client on multiple topics within a single transaction.  For example, you as a Realtor do not advise clients on topics of tax issues, investment issues outside of real estate, probate and inheritance issues, retirement issues, financial planning issues, legal contract issues, and how a particular transaction affects either their Will or Living Trust.  In other words you are a single category advisor whose sphere of concious knowledge applies only to real estate sales and valuations, along with whatever ancillary topics flow from the type of business you are in.  You can help people with issues regarding schools, moving issues, etc.etc.  But as to substantive legal, financial, tax, retirement, and estate planning issues, you must refer clients to someone.

Similarly, a CPA only advises as to taxes.  A financial advisor only gives advice as to investments.  A mortgage broker only as to loans and interest rates.  An attorney advises only as to the nature of his legal practice.  A real estate agent advises only as to the transaction at hand.

I, on the other hand, am all of those listed above;  Estate Planning Attorney, Licensed Real Estate Broker, Tax Consultant, and Registered Investment Advisor.

As such I am compelled to look al all sides of any given transaction when advising a client as to what is in their best interest.  And what is in their best interest is only derived after a thorough analysis of their current Financial, Tax, and estate planning situation, compared with their current short and long term objectives given where they are in their life.  By that I mean, are they a young couple, or a widower?  Are they still working or retired?  The advice I provide is Global in nature given a particular client's legal, financial, tax, and estate circumstances, and is not ever one dimensional.

Having said all of that, let me be sure that all bloggers understand that I am not in any way ridiculing or undervaluing the services that any of you provide in your successfull business.  I am not saying that there is only one way to get from point A to point B.  I respect all professionals and what they provide to their clients.  I am simply trying to answer your question in describing what I bring to the table.  It is always up to others to determine whether what is being offered is of any value.  If there is value, they retain us.  And if they percieve no value, then so be it!

I hope this anwers your inquiry as to what I provide to customers.  As for your request to learn about interesting situaitons I have experienced, I would like to provide that input.  I was hoping to have the Active Rain community provide me with current situaitons they are facing, which in turn would give me the opportunity to recall some of those interesting situaitons and convey them to you all through the use of a concrete current example.  In other words, I was hoping that your inquiries and comments would help trigger my memory bank of experiences.

 Bill Massarweh