Sarbanes Oxley auditors believe there are 3 kinds of people.

Those that can count and those that cannot!

Sometimes a prospective buyer will notice their Realtor seems to have lost interest in them.  I am going to outline a few reasons why this might happen below.

As a Realtor, I naturally like people and want to serve their needs in their quest to buy or sell real estate.  But as a provider and productive member of society, I also need to generate business to put food on the table.

The most logical way to do this is to spend my time wisely.  This means that as soon as I recognize certain signals, I should try to move to greener pastures.

A few signals:

(1) A buyer who seems overly concerned with signing a Transaction Broker Notice.  Wanting to understand it is one thing, but every time I have been asked if it obligates them to anything, I have later found out they were already working with another Realtor, even though they may have told me they were not.

(2) A buyer who is reluctant to pre-qualify for a mortgage or produce the proof of a mortgage they claim to have already qualified for.

(3) A buyer who is looking in several widely dispersed neighborhoods for a home.  This may be a red flag that they are indecisive.  If they insist on using different Realtors for other neighborhoods, even though you offer to show them homes in them, this may be a flag that they have a preferred Realtor.  A friend maybe, and they plan to have this other Realtor step in once they have narrowed their search.  See item (1) above.

Sometimes it is just a gut feeling.  It may be the way the husband looks at his wife when asked a question.  Or an overheard whisper about consulting with "Jim" about some item or feature or question.  If said aloud in front of me, I assume that this is probably dad or an uncle or some other trusted advisor.  But when it is whispered, I am concerned that "Jim" is a Realtor friend who will be the one actually writing the contract.  This has happened to me after a whole weekend of showing properties.

My defense mechanism is to try to do the best job I can upfront to qualify my buyers.  And the majority of the people I deal with are honest and upfront with their intentions.  But, if I see these or any other actions that trip my "suspicion-o-meter", I may become more aggressive in my pursuit of a committment.  If I can't get it, I will find another buyer to work with.  I am someone that will look you in the eye and shake your hand and make you a promise and you will know you have a promise.  I have no hidden agenda and my word is my bond.  I am the kind of person I want to do business with.  I am the kind of person I want my buyers (and sellers) to be.

What kind of person are you?

There are 10 kinds of people.

Those that know binary...

And those that don't!

I am a geek!  I have been a geek all of my life.

When I was in school, I was always the kid with his hand up trying to get the teachers to call on me.  I had studied and I knew the answers.

In school, this didn't make me popular.

But, now at age 48, I have a lot of experience at studying and knowing the answers.

In 1981, I started a career in Information Technology (back then it was called Data Processing) as a computer programmer.  In 1984, I started my own consulting company,  which I successfully ran until 2004.

I have a lot of experience with helping many businesses, large and small, grow through the use of technology.

Selling Real Estate is a business.  Some agents don't approach it like it is a business.  They may have had a certain amount of success because they were able to get enough business from the friends and relatives in their first year or two.  Or maybe they work for a broker who is generating buyer and seller leads and giving them to these agents.

But, in the long run, what does it take to be successful?  You have to approach Real Estate as a business.  That means studying the market. Finding out what works and what does not.  Watching for trends that may cause problems down the road.

GEEKS ARE GREAT AT ALL OF THESE THINGS!

I love to measure results.  If I have been advertising in a particular magazine and not tracking how many calls, sales, website hits, etc... developed from that advertising, how do I know if it is money well spent?  But being the geek that I am, every inquiry I received is tracked and then on a monthly basis I can tell where I should reduce advertising, where I should increase it and maybe even where I should stop it all together.  For you, as a client, this means I will be able to sell your home as quickly as possible and for the most money, without having to raise my commission rates.

I love technology.  Websites, micro websites, Talking House, blogs, etc...  If I can justify the cost by showing that a technology produces results, I will use it.  At the same time, if a technology is not proving itself, then I am able to reject it quickly without wasting more money on it.  Again, this is because I am measuring results.

If you agree and would like a GEEK to help you sell or buy Real Estate, I am waiting for your call.  Please be prepared to identify how you found me so that I can track the effectiveness of this blog.

Many agents hate questions about their commissions.

Not me, I love them!  I suppose that if you felt like you were not worth what you are being paid, you would not relish justifying them to your clients.

Commissions are driven by two main factors.  Competition and cost of doing business.

To be successful, every agent has to realize that their business is not operating in a vacuum.  If they charge a commission that is significantly higher than the competition, getting business will be difficult.  If they charge a rate that is too low, they will lose money.  No matter how hard you try, if you are losing money on every deal, you can't make up for it with volume.

Every customer should ask the agent about the commission and what the agent is doing to earn it. 

On the listing side, there are many obvious expenses associated with listing and marketing a house.  Things like signs, advertisements, open houses, flyers, direct mail, etc...  If the list price of the home is competitive with the market and the commission rate is high enough that I can make a profit, I will take the listing and market the heck out of it.  Otherwise, I don't want the listing.

Buyers should question the commission too.  The agent is likely to reply that the seller is paying the commission.  This is false.  The transaction is paying the commission.  If it were not for the commission, it is likely that the seller would have accepted less for the property.  If I were the agent representing a buyer who came to me knowing exactly what they wanted and my effort expended was less than normal, I would be inclined to make a concession on the commission, as long as I could do it without violating any lending laws.  But, if I have been driving the buyers all over town for three months, I would feel justified in accepting the entire commission.  You never know if you don't ask!

At the end of the day, the buyer, the seller, the listing agent and the selling agent all have to get what they want and need or the deal is not a success.  Agents who realize this fact prosper while those who do not, do not.

As a Realtor I hear what buyers say almost every day.  Sometimes what they say makes sense and sometimes not.

But, whether it makes sense to me or not, to the buyer, it definitely will influence their buying decision.

For example, you would not believe how many buyers will rule out a home because they don't like the color of a wall,  the style of curtains, a bedspread in the master bedroom, etc...

None of these items should cause a buyer to rule out a particular home, but many times, these are the kind of objectiions they raise when asked about a home.  As a Realtor and trusted advisor I have to tactfully point out that most of these items will not even be left with the house and the others can be easily changed.  Sometimes they volunteer these comments during the showing and other times, these objections only come out at a post showing discussion.

What does this mean to a home seller?

Well, first of all, paying attention to staging and cleanliness is of prime importance.  Obviously, you cannot stage a home so that everyone will like the colors or the drapes or floors or whatever.  But you can certainly try to make the home as appealing as possible to the largest audience possible.  This is where I can help.  My exposure to many homes on a daily basis has given me a kind of "eye" for what works and what doesn't.  I can give you many tips on things to do to make the house appeal to as many people as possible.  In fact, whether you are listing with me or not, you can email and ask for my "Geek Staging Tips" and I will send them right out to you.

The second thing this shows to potential sellers is the value of having an experienced agent showing their home to potential buyers.  If these buyers were looking at your home and they objected to your choice of drapes, do you think they would tell you this is the reason they are ruling out your home?  Probably not, that would be rude.  So they just make some excuse about needing to think about it and then they never call again.  You are never given the opportunity to point out that the drapes are not staying anyway, or maybe even offering a drapery allowance to them to sweeten the deal.  An experienced and creative agent would be able to hear the objections and come up with many different ways to handle them, depending on the situation.

I mentioned above that I have an "eye" for staging.  As an after thought, I want to add that sometimes a "nose" for staging is what is needed.  Offensive and/or unidentifiable odors will turn a buyer off as quickly as anything else.  The lesson here is to scrub and clean the home to a state I like to call white glove and toothbrush clean.  If possible, move pets somewhere else during the selling phase.  Definitely remove them for the showing.  Smoking, same thing.  Get rid of the odor and stop smoing in the house to keep from reintroducing the odor.  If you have pets and/or smoke in your home and you feel like there is no odor, find someone you trust who has no pets and does not smoke to come into your home and give you their opinions.  This could make the difference between another showing with no result and an offer leading to a contract and ultimately the sale!

It's a little after 7:30 am and I have arrived about an hour early at the local IBM office for a class on SOA, JSF, Web Services, etc...  I was up at 4:15 this morning to get to the YMCA to workout, trying to get back into that routine.

But I digress.  I am sitting in front of IBM, using my Sprint EVDO modem to type this in from a spot that I used to spend a lot of time at.  When I was a kid, my grandprents used to bring me and my brother and sister to Rocky Point to go "crabbin".  Back then there were just a couple of restaurants out here.  Not very fancy places.  I remember the Mullet Inn.  They had the best smoked mullet and smoked shrimp.

My grandmother and my brother and sister and I would stick about 20 - 30 broomsticks into the ground along the shore.  Each one had a long string with a piece of chicken neck tied to the end attached to it.  We would watch for a broomstick that was moving and then very slowly pull the string in until the crab was above the net we would have extended and laying on the bottom.  Onc they were above it, we would scoop them up.  Meanwhile, my grandfather had a bunch of traps that he would drop over the side of one of the bridges, that he would be working.  We were not allowed on the bridge because of the traffic.

Looking around out here now, you would not believe how it has changed.  Everywhere you look, condos, office buildings and hotels.

WOW, times have changed.  Back then, this was all like  marshy area between the bay and the bayhead.  Kinda like a swamp between the water that stnks and the water kinda stinks.  It's amazing they were able to find enough dry land to build all of this on.

Anybody else remember what this area used to be like?

Today, the National Association of Realtors and the local board of Realtors published the latest numbers for the area.

An example of what was published is shown below:

Zip Code:33558

Average Price:$423,700

Price Change:-5.49%

Total # Homes Sold (Quarter):43

% Change in # homes sold:-34.85%

Average Days on Market:67

% of Asking Price:96.2%

If you would like to know the statistics for your zip code, call or email me and I will look it up for you.

In the same report, they have declared that the market for Hillsborough County is a Buyer's Market.  No surprise there!

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being a buyer's market and a 5 being a seller's market, they have placed the Hillsborough County market at a 1.  My interpretation is that this means we are in a full fledged buyer's market!  What do you think?

My comments will follow later today.

Well folks, it is Sunday night and the Strawberry Festival is over.

If you don't know, Plant City is the Strawberry Capital of the World and the home of the Strawberry Festival.

I live on one of the main roads leading to Plant City and the Strawberry Festival. Like everyone else in the area, I kind of hibernate during the festival.  I only go out on the roads when necessary.  Starting tomorrow, it is back to business as usual.

GeekAgentMan, time to go sell some real estate!

The table below is for the overall local Tampa market.

Now look what happens in the upper price ranges.

If you would like for me to give you the statistics for your price range, give me a call or email me.  No Realtors please, this information is available to you through the MLS.

Right now I am getting a lot of calls from "buyers".  I put the word "buyers" in quotes on purpose.

They identify themselves as buyers when they call, but very quickly I find they are wannabe buyers.

I need good, real and qualified buyers.  I will tell you how to know if you are good, real and qualified.  It is an easy three question test.

1. Do you have a pre-qualification letter from a real lender?  Or better yet, a pre-approval letter?  By a real lender, I mean someone who is really going to give you a loan.  If you don't understand what I mean by this, give me a call and I can explain.  All but the most desperate sellers are going to refuse any offer without a strong pre-qualification or pre-approval letter.  If you don't have one, give me a call and I can put you in contact with  a mortgage advisor than can get you one in mere minutes!  CASH WILL WORK TOO!!!!
2. Do you have a specific timeframe in mind?  If you know you want (or need) to buy before school starts up again in the fall, that is good.  If you need to buy within a month, that is even better!
3. Have you already decided on a neighborhood, if so that is good, or I can help you find one that meets your needs.  Or, If you have already narrowed your search down on the internet to specific homes, that is good, or I can help you there too.  But if you still have not decided on the town or at least the general area, then you still ave some work to do.ave

If you gave positive answers to these three questions, then I want to talk to you.  I promise that if you are a "real buyer", I will spend as much time as it takes to make sure you get the home you want.  I will commit all of the resources at my disposal to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible.  I will negotiate the very best deal I can for you.  In short, I will do everthing possible to make sure you are a happy customer!

If you don't meet the three point test above, but you still think you are a "real buyer", let me know what is missing from my test and we can discuss.  I am always open to improvements.

On September 13th, the National Association of Realtors submitted testimony to the Senate Banking Committee hearing on the economy.  Buried among the many statistics and facts was the statement: "the seller's market is transitioning to a buyer's market."

What does this mean to you?  If you are a buyer, the implications are obvious. Stop reading now and go buy a house!

But for sellers,  this can also be good news. Most people sell their current home with the intention of buying a newer and bigger home.

Let's say you have a home in a subdivision that you know is worth $200,000 because your neighbor across the street sold the exact same home last year for $200,000.  He reminds you how smart he was to sell when he did, at the top of the market.  He says you will have to wait a few years to get the kind of deal he did.  He's almost beating his chest as he gloats and brags about his impeccable timing.

For some strange reason you want to move up to a bigger house that is right across the street from your old neighbor.  You are buying the exact same model he paid $300,000 for a year ago.

There is some good news and some bad news in this story.  First the bad news, your current house will probably not sell for what his sold for.  The good news is, you can probably buy the house across the street from him for less than he paid.

Using round numbers just to make the math easy, assume you have to discount your home by 5% to sell it.  So instead of selling for $200,000, you sell for $190,000.  But when you purchase the new home, you pay $285,000 instead of $300,000.  This means that last year your "move up" would have cost you $100,000 out of pocket and this year you get it for $95,000.

On top of that, you are paying real estate commissions, title insurance, documentary stamps, etc.. based on a lower sale and purchase price, saving you even more money.  Long term, it gets even better.  And now for my favorite, you save money on your property taxes for years to come.  For example, your neighbor paid $300,000.  The county will assess it at full market value, or $300,000.  Take away the $25,000 homestead exemption and he will pay taxes on $275,000.  With a typical millage rate of 24, his annual tax bill will be $6600.  Yours will be $285,000 minus $25,000 times 24, making your tax bill $6240.

So by waiting until this year, your net out of pocket will be $5000 less,  plus you will save money on the transaction costs, both selling and buying, and you will continue to save year after year on your taxes.  If the prices have dropped by more than 5% in your area, then your savings will be even greater.

Who's the smart one now?

If you are ready to sell your home, pick up the phone and call your favorite Realtor now.  You'll be glad you did!

 I originally wrote this article for Our Town Apollo Beach in September 2006.

You have probably been reading the news stories about the "real estate bubble" bursting, or how prices have flattened or how the bottom has fallen out or any number of other doom and gloom expression those in the media are fond of using.

What does all of this mean to you if you need to sell your home?  Well, take a deep breath and relax, the news isn't as bad as you may believe.

The first thing to think about is how long you have owned your home.  If you just bought it and you are already trying to sell it, you may not be in great shape.  This is the position a lot of investors and speculators find themselves in at the moment.  This is because the phenomenal appreciation we have seen for the last few years has slowed in many areas and stopped in others.  If you have owned your home for more than a year or two, you are probably going to be fine.

Statewide, the existing home median price last month was $256,400.  This is an 11% increase from the same month last year when the median price was $232,000.  In 2001, the median sale price was $125,200.

So as you can see, if you need to sell and you have lived in your home for awhile, things are still looking up!

But to be realistic, you need to realize that the market has definitely slowed down in recent months.  What does this mean to you?  Just a few months ago, anything and everything you did to sell a home would work.  Many real estate agents are now longing for the days when they listed a home on the multiple listing service (MLS) and by the end of the day the home had been shown a dozen times with multiple full price or above offers tendered.  To these agents, their primary focus was getting listings.  They listed the home on MLS and let the other 19,267 MLS users sell the home.  It didn't matter how you got it there, as long as your home was priced right, it would sell once it was listed on the MLS.

Now the market has changed and buyers are not stacked up 10 deep waiting for homes to be listed on the MLS.  Now it is more important than ever to get the price right and get the home in front of people who are ready to buy now.  Certainly, getting the home on the MLS is still very important.  But now you also need to make sure the agent has a plan to market your home and get qualified buyers to view it.

A discussion of what this marketing plan should include is beyond the scope of this article, but at the very least it should include open houses, newspaper and real estate magazine advertising, featured website placement, email and postal mail campaigns, etc...  As you interview agents, ask for specifics about how and when these marketing activities will be carried out.  Make sure you understand what you will be getting and at what cost.  Many agents' business models include discount or ala carte pricing.  At one price you get a sign in the front yard and a listing on the MLS.  At another price, you get additional services.  Other agents charge a flat commission rate and everything is included.  The point here is, ask questions and understand what you are getting and at what price.

So if you need to sell your home now, pick up the phone and call your favorite Realtor.  You'll be glad you did!

 I originally wrote this article for Our Town Apollo Beach in July 2006.

How many times has your rent went down?  OK, stop laughing.  The National Association of Realtors estimates that average rents will increase by 5% this year.  I predict that this year is not the last year they will increase.  There are many reasons for this.  Apartments were turned into condos, depleting the supply of rental units at a record pace over the last couple of years.  During this same time, new apartment projects slowed down dramatically.  The population growth in Hillsborough County is still strong and is expected to continue until at least 2012.  All of these would suggest an increasing number of renters competing for a limited supply of rentals.  Prices have to go up!

So as a renter with an eye towards the future, you make the decision that you want to quit paying your landlords mortgage, lock in your payment so it can't increase every year and paint your living room any color you want.  So what do you do now?

With the current shift in the real estate market from a full blown no holds barred sellers' market to a more balanced market, you will find that the approach you need to take while looking for a home has changed.  Just a few months ago, as soon as a home was listed on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), there would be 15 showings that afternoon and several offers tendered with above asking price offers being very common.

This made it easy for any agent who had listed a home.  Somebody else would sell it for them and fast.  And if an agent was working with a buyer, it was very difficult since you had to convince your buyer to be swift and make at least full price offers.  Agents could be very picky about only working with "qualified" buyers who would not be wasting their time.

Many agents are still stuck in this mode and if you have less than perfect credit, or little or no money for a down payment, or any of a number of other prequalifying "faults", they do not want to work with you.  If you run into one of these, pick up the phone and call other agents until you find one that will work with you. 

An experienced agent should be able to not only help you find the perfect home at a fair market price, but also suggest ways to help you obtain financing.  In addition to lendors that make loans to only those with perfect credit, most agents know a few lendors that specialize in loans to people with less than perfect credit.

Realize that you are asking this agent to spend a lot of time, probably many hours, to help you with your home search, financing, negotiations, contract preparations, inspections, closing, etc.  In exchange, he will want to know that you are  loyal and serious buyer, so make sure you let him know what your intentions are.

So if you are ready to own your own home, pick up the phone and call your favorite Realtor now.  Happy house hunting!