Diana Moves Her License to Prudential NW Real Estate

 

Diana moved to Prudential a few months ago. Why? Well, as many of you know, Diana’s specialty par excellence is relocation. It is a strength at Prudential, a national company. Not quite so at Windermere, a regional company. But as Diana has been indoctrinated into the Prudential system, we’ve been introduced to some surprisingly refreshing ideas pertaining to residential real estate marketing and technology. In short, Prudential on-line systems make Windermere’s look like two tin cans and a piece of string. Don’t get me wrong. I’m still at Windermere and have no intention of leaving Big Blue. But Prudential’s systems are 2 or 3 years in front of the local pack of Windermere, John L Scott and Coldwell-Banker-Bain.

One by one, Diana is cranking out “Property Investment Profiles” ["PIP"] for our past clients. You can view a sample PIP HERE. This is a snapshot market analysis that is generated automatically on a predetermined schedule, then sent via email. There is a great deal of information in these reports. The best part is being able to readily see, without logging on to anything, what is taking place with properties located in your market area. If you are interested in receiving a PIP report send me an email and I’ll move you to the front of the list.

2012: Welcome to Al-Qaidastan

One of our greatest concerns regarding Al-Quaida is that they find a way to obtain a nuclear weapon. I submit that perhaps our concerns have been misdirected, as I believe that our gravest threat is that within a few short years, waaay before Iran develops a nuclear weapon, Al-Quaida will obtain a nuclear country i.e., Pakistan. While we have dithered about chasing Al-Qaida, and their lackey Taliban brethren, around the various dirt farms of Afghanistan, they have been surgically eliminating, tribal head by tribal head (literally), all resistance to their presence in Northwestern Pakistan tribal areas. With advent of the removal of President Musharraf from office, and the murder of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan is ripe for a fundamentalist Muslim revolution. If the US thinks Iranian President Imanutjob is a threat, just wait until Al-Quaida gets control of a state with a real nuclear arsenal backed by an actual Western style economy. Too bad about Musharraf. He seems like a decent guy, but we hung him out to dry for far too long, allowing extremists to infiltrate the political core of his country.

As Robin Williams has asked, “How come we can’t find a guy that is 6′7″ and has to be hooked up to a dialysis machine?” Forget Iran and find Bin-Laden. Soon it will be too late. It still appears that this is the only way the spread of this cancer will slowed, if not stopped.

Federal Way Sign Ordinance: Not Rocket Science

I’ll be brief: Real estate open house signs are a time honored tradition. The regulation thereof should be simple and straightforward. Her is how I would propose that any municipal and/or county sign ordinance should read.

1. Open house signs shall be no larger than 24″ by 24″;
2. Said signs shall bear the name of the licensed real estate brokerage that owns and places said signs;
3. Signs shall not be placed in a manner that impedes foot traffic, or that causes undue distraction to motorists;
4. Hours of placement of said signs shall be limited to 9:00AM to 6:00PM. Signs that are left outside of the the prescribed hours will be confiscated. Confiscated signs may be recovered from the jurisdictional authority by payment of a penalty per sign in the amount of $10.00.

It is unconscionable that Federal Way authorities would arbitrarily target open house signs at a time when this relatively new municipality is losing over 1,000 jobs at Weyerhauser, its largest nearby employer. This, coupled with an unusually slow market has many home sellers hamstrung with virtually no way to promote their properties for sale in the traditional manner. Agents are facing tougher times than they have in years, and open houses are the one way that they can keep working, networking, and promoting their listings in a professional manner.

It is understandable that Federal Way is concerned about signs. Many retail businesses have resorted to A-board type signs to enhance visibility while Pacific Hwy South (99) has been under construction for many months. Excavation, heavy equipment, blocked lanes, dust, barricades, paving machinery have all combined to make 99 a bit of a war zone, uninviting to those that would visit the many small businesses along this corridor.

The problem is the haphazard design, size, placement, and hours that these businesse are using A-board type signs in an effort to keep from going broke. If the business owners were properly educated and adhered to the regulatory points above, all should be able to co-exist.

Another common offender the marketing of new construction. New construction sites are often held open several days a week. Prooblems arise when agents/site representatives get complacent and rather than remove their signs, they will sinply fold them and lean them up against the nearest telephone pole, street sign or retaining wall. This is unacceptable, not to mention unprofessional, and a poor reflection on the many agents that dispatch and recover their signs in a proper manner. Such signs should be susceptible to confiscation.

Seller Responsibility: Clean the House and Take Your Junk!

 What is it with Sellers that think it is OK to leave all kinds of garbage behind for their Buyers to deal with? We’ve seen it all, from engine blocks to garbage bags filled with used diapers. A favorite is old paint cans with colors that haven’t been used in the house in 20 years, or old broken hollow-core doors that have been replaced. Stacks of ancient, rotting, insect infested firewood are truly a treasure every home buyer covets.

Wake up! Nobody wants your junk! Pardon me if I offend anyone, but selling a house is NOT the same as vacating a rental without a damage deposit.

There is a nice little provision in a Northwest Multiple Listing Service Form that is part of nearly every Purchase and Sale Agreement: Form 22D, Paragraph 5 states:

Items Left By Seller. Any personal property, fixtures or other items remaining on the Property when possession is transferred to the Buyer shall thereupon become the property of the Buyer, and may be retained or disposed of as Buyer determines. However, Seller agrees to clean the interiors of any structures and remove all trash, debris and rubbish on the Property prior to Buyer taking possession.

I bring this up because we had an issue….again….last week when our Client, the Buyer, arrived at his house with the keys in anticipation of a clean house. What he found was a garage full of JUNK! and the both dumpsters were packed to the brim. We notified the Listing Agent of this little problem and were ignored. We advised them that unless the Seller was going to clean out the garage, we would hire a company to take care of it. Still no response. We hired a trash hauling company. The total bill, which we paid as required by the vendor, was almost $500. We faxed the invoice to the Listing Agent who promptly handed it to the Seller. The next morning Diana received a screaming earful from the Seller over the phone: “How dare you blah blah blah…..”

I sent an email to the Listing Agent. [This is a guy that always wears a suit, never gets his hands dirty, and found this garbage issue well beneath him.] His response was that “he has no control over what his Seller chooses to do”. I replied that that was not a good answer, along with a few other sternly stated facts. An hour later I received his phone call and he agreed that a reimbursement check would be sent out right away.

So Sellers, be mindful that you are legally bound to remove ALL trash from the property, even the trash that was there when you bought the place.

Agents, if your Seller is too pressed for time to take care of it, the right thing to do is to take care of it yourself, at your expense! You make enough, unless you are a Redfin agent or a member of some other low hanging fruit company, so take the initiative, demonstrate some professionalism, and take of it for your Seller.

Every Buyer has the right to expect a clean property upon their arrival. It is the reponsibility of all Sellers and their respective Listing Agents to make certain it is so.

The More I Learn, The Less I know…..

As if things weren’t strange enough, the subscription service that brought you Monday Morning Coffee for the last few years ceased operations in June. Since then I have been musing as to what to do for the many subscribers that have enjoyed those weekly snippets of wisdom. A dear long time friend and client jarred me back to responsibility last week asking, “what happened to Monday Morning Coffee? Did you drop us from your list?” No. I’ve just been thinking about what to say, if anything, as a replacement.
In keeping with the turmoil surrounding us in today’s real estate market, and just about everything else in our lives:

But Noooooo…..

Last week HUD announced to it’s thousands of mortgage brokers across the country that a full 3% fee would apply to all loans, all borrowers. Well, that’s about the end of that. Thanks, Uncle Sam. Instead of the carrot we were anticipating, we get beaten with the stick. Bear in mind that the same thousands of mortgage brokers paid up to $7,000 each to become FHA certified lenders, all in anticipation of FHA loans providing the needed path out of a deep hole. Now it would appear that they flushed that $7k down the toilet. No one is going to want these loans. They are now absurdly expensive.

The More I Learn, The Less I Know.

Although I’ve been at this real estate game for over 25 years, including the down markets surrounding Desert Storm, the Dot Com Bust, and 9/11, this has to be one of the weirdest periods I’ve seen yet. Suffice it to say that I learned a lot from those down markets in terms of strategy, tenacity, and faith. What I did not learn is how badly our financial systems have been in need of repair. With each of the aforementioned downturns, band-aids were applied. Small fixes that were just enough to restore confidence in what were dilapidated systems. Have you ever used “stop leak” in a failed radiator? It might get you to the repair shop, but no further. When the band-aides have been applied to our financial systems, we thought all was well, and drove right on by the repair shop.

Folks, we’re facing a bit of a perfect storm. People want to buy houses, and people want to sell houses. The only impediment to transacting business is obtaining decent loan terms.
The one entity over which the Federal Government asserts complete control is Housing and Urban Development ["HUD"], which in turn is the administrator for Federally insure home loans ["FHA"]. Since raising the FHA loan limits to a level almost relevant to to day’s prices, in the past 6 weeks HUD has vascillated wildly as to how to charge borrowers. For weeks it was stated that the insurance premium cost would be based on risk assessment of individual borrowers. Makes sense. The driver that has 3 DUI’s pays more for auto insurance than the driver that’s never had a ticket. The borrower that has never paid their bills on time should pay more for their loan than someone that has never been late.
Next on the hotsheet of not-so-good news: FNMA and FHLC, because of their own problems, just announced that they are now going to charge lenders 0.5% for loans that they buy. It has been 0.25% since, well, forever. Of course this cost will be passed on to borrowers in the form of 1.25% origination fees instead of 1%. Or the APR will simply be higher in order to preserve the 1 point fee and still pass on the added cost. That should be a big help……..to no one. Fewer loans, less volume, slower recovery.

Why is it that lenders, when the easy money stops rolling in, assert draconian fees and costs on those that are still doing business? IndyMac Bank, the California based lender that failed last month, is a case in point. Inexplicably, IndyMac announced early this year that it is their policy, on all of the second mortgages they had made, that they would NOT allow subordination of their loans for the sake of homeowners attempting to refinance their FIRST mortgages. For those with toxic first mortgages, this left them no way out. They either had to sell, or walk away. In either case, when told by their lender that their refi was dead because IndyMac had effectively blocked the process, how long do you think it took for these borrowers to decide whether or not they would continue to send payments to IndyMac? As soon as I heard this I said, “dead bank walking”. Sure enough, it’s dead.

I keep visualizing these really bads decisions being made by a very few sweaty little men in windowless rooms. All they look at is printouts ananlyzing cash flow, and then they hit the panic button. They have no faith, and they have no vision. They’re hanging on so tight the blood doesn’t get to their brains. Who put them in charge? When busines is slow at a Seven-Eleven do they turn off the lights and beer cooler to save money. No. They cut prices to entice MORE buyers, get the volume up to compensate for lower margins, and keep prices low until things improve. If they turn off the lights and the beer cooler, they may as well lock the doors. Why don’t lenders, especially that which is run by the Feds, get it?

I suggest that we all start writing to our Federal representatives. Does yours have a clue as to what is at stake?

Not to get too political:

6 years ago, before the congrssional vote was taken on whether to attack Iraq, I wrote to Patti Murray and Maria Cantwell. While it was admittedly self serving at the time, I asserted that war [unabated ego], combined with tax cuts [shameless vote buying], could bring ruin to our financial markets. When the government starts borrowing money, it depletes the pool of cash available for everything else, and drives up interest rates. Well, here we are. Money is tight, and getting tighter. Banks are failing. People are losing their homes. All for lack of liquidity because the goverment is spending more than it takes in. And people are worried that a Democrat will raise taxes, spend more? If traditional politics are to be believed, then Bill Clinton was the best Republican President we’ve ever had.

The current goverment cash burn rate is unsustainable. It won’t matter who is in charge when the bill comes due. Tax cuts were a great idea to stimulate growth, as long as the thin ice held out. How about those recent tax rebates? Not even a blip on the radar. We can’t buy our way out of this mess. We are going to have to work harder/smarter, spend less, and pay taxes commensurate with the expenses incurred. Honestly, would the Iraq war have lasted 6 years if taxes had been increased each year to pay for it?

The More I learn, The Less I know. So teach me something.