Apr. 30, 2007 - Bought And Soldout

Back on the 18th of April I posted It's Only A Matter Of Time in which I talked about a new show which was coming to HGTV.  There is no sense in me rehashing the whole thing here because you can just click right over and read it for yourself.  I will say that if it was brought to my attention because I blog then I guess they would expect me to review it.  I tried to do that on the HGTV message board this morning and instead of posting my comments, a window popped up saying that there were some trigger words in my post so it would need to be reviewed by the monitor.  As of right now it still hasn't been put on the board and so I will simplypost a link on the board sending people here where I will proceed to do my review.  Something tells me they might have made a mistake in censoring me over there because I can be even more candid here.

I was hoping that this new show "Bought and Sold" would help to bring about some sanity in a world where amatures want to try their hand at playing agent.  There is a loud contigent of agent haters out there singing the praises of going FSBO, citing the lack of service people are getting for their commission dollars.  The people at HGTV touted the fact that this would be a show that put "the real in realty with a first ever look behind the scenes at everything agents do to make their clients happy from listing to signing the deed".  I felt a real glimmer of hope that now people would really see what an agent goes through in helping them to live their dreams.  I couldn't wait to see the show.

Enter Vanessa Pollok, a model/actress turned real estate agent.  It seems that Vanessa has some buyer clients she has been working with for close to a year with no results.  They have made one offer on a house which came to naught.  A new listing has hit the market which Vanessa (who is not the listing agent) is sure that this couple will like.  Like it they do.  They absolutely fall in love with it and want to write an offer.  Vanessa is a very happy real estate agent.  It seems that not only is Vanessa going to write an offer for these nice first time home buyers, but she has another showing of the same house scheduled for later that afternoon with a different set of buyer clients.

Back at the office the clients say they would like to offer $395,000 for this $399,000 listing.  Vanessa cautions them that they had already lost out on one house, are they sure $395,000 is where they want to be.  Sitting at home on my couch, knowing that she is showing the house again that afternoon, I can see Vanessa's fiduciary duty to these folks flying right out the window.  I scream at the TV screen but these unfortune people can not hear me.  Any way they decide to up the offer to full list price.

Vanessa writes the offer and apologizes for having to rush off, but she has another appointment.  Her clients, looking like deer in the headlights, say that that's ok, they will go and await her call on the sellers decicion.  I suspect they must have felt pretty confident, what with having just written a full priced, no contingency, offer though.  I am also surprised when Vanessa does not take a minute to stop at the fax machine to submit the offer, which she did tell the listing agent she was writing.

Nope, Vanessa scurries off to pick up her second set of buyer clients.  She shows them one house which they are not to impressed with.  Then she pulls up in front of the second house, which is exactly the house she had just written the offer on that is still in her briefcase.  At this point she says she needs to disclose that this house does have an offer on it but we can still see it if you like, and by the way, in case you would like to write an offer on it too, I will have to have another agent in my office write it for you.  It is here that I realize that Vanessa must believe that her only fiduciary duty is to herself.  She must have missed the part in real estate licensing school about an agent needing to be loyal to their client. 

Good old Vanessa does show the second buyers a third property, but they too were so dazzled by the one that had an offer on it that they wanted to write an offer on it too.  Vanessa turns them over to another agent in her office so they can mull it over.  The second set of buyers put a "house to sell" contingency on their offer of $409,000 and it wasn't really clear from the program, but I am going by the assumtion that Vanessa must have been the listing agent on their coop apartment because they were really her clients on the buy.

Now I need to be fair here.  Vanessa did not know what the amount of the second offer was, she only knew that an offer had been written.  Woops, don't let me forget to point out that we are now in the next day and the sellers agent still hasn't seen any offers, that might be important to ome of you readers.  Now Vanessa proceeds to call her first clients and tell them that there is another offer on the table and they need to come up with their highest and best offer.  They do up their offer to $415,000 and they do get the house.

There may be something seriously wrong with the way I think.  It looks to me like Vanessa caused her first time home buyer clients to pay $16,000 more then they needed to pay for this house.  In fact, I don't know her market, but the original $395,000 offer looked pretty good to me, so maybe she cost these people $20,000 by effectively creating a bidding war between her own clients, both of which she was supposed to be looking out for.

I only hope that these poor buyers did not catch their own TV debut.  I especially hope they were not surrounded by family and friends hoping to get a warm fuzzy feeling from everybody seeing them on television.  These poor people were bought and soldout.

Is this really what "the real in realty" is?  Is this really what "agents do to make their clients happy"?  Not in my business it isn't.

This is the kind of stuff that turns people into agent haters.  This is the kind of stuff that causes people to seek out FSBOs thinking that an unrepresented seller will probably treat then better than a real estate agent will.  This is the kind of thing that makes people say that all real estate agents care about is how much money they get at the closing table.  Fortunately there are many good agents out there that do care about their clients but unfortunately this is the kind of garbage that made it to television.  I knew HGTV was making a mistake by not putting me on. 

As always, if you have found yourself receiving my blog postings via e-mail, it is because I have either blogged about you personally, blogged about something I know is of interest to you, or I consider you to be a person of deep thinking and intellect and I would love to have you occasionally commenting on my blog. If you would like to be removed from the list simply send me an e-mail saying so.

Apr. 27, 2007 - The Value Of Appraisals

I am often asked about whether it is wise to get an appraisal before putting ones house on the market.  My answer would be yes, under certain circumstances and if you have money to burn.

Do you know what the definition of an appraisal is?  An appraisal is the procees of ESTIMATING a property's market value based on established methods and the appraiser's professional judgement.  Do you know what an appraisal is used for?  The appraisal substantiates the sales price of the property and assists the lender in determining maximun loan amount.

When I come over to talk about listing your house, I, as a real estate broker, am going to do a CMA.  That is an acronym for a Comparative Market Analysis.  That means that I am going to take a hard, analytical look at the houses that have recently been on the market in your neighborhood that are pretty close to being the same as yours.  I am going to look at the listed prices of what sold, market time, list price to sales price ratio and the listed prices of houses that did not sell.  After I look at all of that I am going to come up with an ESTIMATE of your property's value based on my professional expirience and judgement.  As long as there are some properties to compare yours to, I will be  doing a pretty dead on target job of coming up with a listing price that should help us sell your house for it's market value.  (Notice that I said "for it's market value", not it's full list price.)

If you have money to burn then you can go ahead and spend the $300-$400 it would cost for Appraiser's opinion.  If you have a totaly unique property then I would most likely insist on getting an appraisal before we listed it.  Otherwise, if you can find something better to do with that $300-$400 I would suggest doing it.  Most often, under normal circumstances, the only thing less valuable than a seller paying for an appraisal up front is a Zillow "Zestimate". 

As always, if you have found yourself receiving my blog postings via e-mail, it is because I have either blogged about you personally, blogged about something I know is of interest to you, or I consider you to be a person of deep thinking and intellect and I would love to have you occasionally commenting on my blog. If you would like to be removed from the list simply send me an e-mail saying so.

Apr. 26, 2007 - Unoriginal Sin

One of the basic truths of practicing real estate as a business is that you have to differentiate yourself from the pack.  There are plenty of people in this industry.  There are Brokers, sales agents, listing agents, buyers agents, franchise companies, independent companies, boutique companies, full service, flat fee, fee for service and whatever else is soon to be invented.  When it comes to the mortgage end of things you have mortgage brokers, mortgage bankers, credit unions, banks and loan sharks.  Then you have all kinds of inspectors, home inspectors, mold inspectors, plumbing inspectors, electrical inspectors, termite inspectors, structural engineers and Inspector Gadget.  Recent developements include home stagers, virtual tour photographers, virtual assistants, web designers, home warranty sellers and lets not forget the we know how to do it, but we would rather make our money teaching you how to do because it really is kind of hard to make a living doing it ourselves gurus of real estate.

As you can see there are a lot of people all trying to do the same thing and so originality counts.  Do you have any idea how many "Spouses Selling Houses" there are out there.  Go ahead and GOOGLE® that phrase.  There have got to be thousands of people in this land "Selling" it "One Yard At Time".  These are all cute tag lines and I guess they would be pretty relevent if we where doing cute circus tricks or something.

Then there are the folks who obviously must think that they are the only ones who get post card catalogs from Color For Real Estate.  "My Priorities Are Simple. They're Yours" and "You Don't Sort Of Want To Sell Your Home, And I'm Not About To Kind Of Market It" are both blatant rip offs that I see in peoples newspaper ads and on websites all of the time.  Come on people, have an original thought.

Did you ever notice how when one of the gurus goes on tour and comes to your area, very soon the area is flooded with a bunch of the same marketing material?  Yup, the names and the faces may be different but the gist of the pieces are identical.  

This is what I call The Unoriginal Sin.   

As always, if you have found yourself receiving my blog postings via e-mail, it is because I have either blogged about you personally, blogged about something I know is of interest to you, or I consider you to be a person of deep thinking and intellect and I would love to have you occasionally commenting on my blog. If you would like to be removed from the list simply send me an e-mail saying so.

Apr. 25, 2007 - New Construction Punch List

My last couple of clients have purchased new construction townhomes.  The builders are offering some pretty good discounts in this tough market and my buyers are getting some very good deals.

New construction does carry with it some concerns that are not involved with resale properties.  One of those concerns is "The Punch List".  Here is a question I found on a public forum regarding the punch list.

"Is there a standard time period for the builder of new construction to complete the "punch list'? My lawyer told me I should close on a new house to prevent the builder for taking me to court for delaying the closing due to some items not completed that the builder called a punch list. I considered the items more significant than a punch list, but I didn't want to take the risk of court expenses if I lost".

I felt that the buyer of this home sounded somewhat reluctent to proceed.  I also felt that sounded somewhat under represented and so I answered like this:

"Any new construction contract should contain a time line for when certain things should happen. Because your Attorney has been hired by you to look out for your interest in the deal I am sure they have READ the contract, as you should have done yourself. I understand your concerns, as buying a new home (even a used home for that matter) is a huge investment and something that you do not do every day. That is why we hire people who do deal with these kinds of things on a daily basis. I'm not saying that there are not shylock builders out there, there is good and bad in all professions, but a reputable builder, with a proven track record, will do everything they can to keep the customer satisfied. Having punch list items to take care of after closing is very common. On new construction there will most likely even be issues that arise after you move in, however, you should have a builder warranty, and that would cover that. In most States giving the warranty is mandated by law".

I hope I helped to ease their worried mind.  That's what a good REALTOR® should be able to do.

As always, if you have found yourself receiving my blog postings via e-mail, it is because I have either blogged about you personally, blogged about something I know is of interest to you, or I consider you to be a person of deep thinking and intellect and I would love to have you occasionally commenting on my blog. If you would like to be removed from the list simply send me an e-mail saying so.

Apr. 24, 2007 - I Assume That Maybe............

Have I told you that I have stumbled upon a message board that is populated by mostly home buyers and sellers?  Yes indeed, a forum for people who like to talk about real estate.  A place where the blind lead the blind.  They talk about the succeesses and failures of real estate deals, likes and dislikes, the value of hardwood as opposed to carpet, ceramic (sometimes refered to as porcelin) tile as opposed to vinyl (in many various spellings), etc. etc.

It virtually puts me in front of more buyers and sellers in a day then I would ever speak to in a month.  I usually don't know where they are located because it's a pretty anonymous kind of place.  I am not really there trolling for business, although I could use some right about now.  I am, however, getting quite the education as to what is in the minds of these folks as it relates to real estate industry professionals.

One thing that is jumping off the screen at me is how often these people use terms like "I believe it cost....", "I think the contract said....", "I assume it's in the contract that....", "maybe that is covered by....". 

Now I don't know about you, but I start out reading, word for word, any document that I will be asking a client of mine to sign.  If that bores them and they want to sign before it's all read to them then I strongly advise them to read the entire documentation at a more convenient time, but do read them.  Whenever they have a question later on, I pull out my copy of documents and we review the section, or sections, in question.  Obviously not every agent, home inspector, loan officer and attorney takes the time.  I had a small inkling of that from my own business relationships but man, it seems to be running rampant throughout the land.

I am no longer amazed by the number of agent haters and FSBOs that there are out there.  It's a very sad commentary on the state of the real estate industry when people are saying that the only thing the real estate professionals care about in a deal is getting to the closing table and collecting their unearned monies.  The sadder thing is that when you have represented consumers running around saying things like "I guess I assume that it might say maybe", the commentary is pretty dead bang on target.

I get a bit of satisfaction from answering some of these posters questions.  I do so in a kind and thoughtful manner.  It's good I get the satisfaction, too, because I am giving them something and asking for nothing.  There is no closing table for me.  The pay off for me is that maybe I can prove to some anonymous poster somewhere in cyberspace that not all real estate professionals are created equal.  Some of us care about how real estate is practiced just because we love the real estate life.  I suppose it's my way of trying to improve the publics perception of us, one post at a time.

As always, if you have found yourself receiving my blog postings via e-mail, it is because I have either blogged about you personally, blogged about something I know is of interest to you, or I consider you to be a person of deep thinking and intellect and I would love to have you occasionally commenting on my blog. If you would like to be removed from the list simply send me an e-mail saying so.

Apr. 23, 2007 - Why Our Lips Are Sealed

Any agent who is out in field has heard the unanswerable questions over and over again.  You get them at open houses, when you are out showing properties and when you take a phone call regarding one of your listings.  They are not unanswerable because you don't know the answer.  They are unaswerable because, by fair housing laws, our lips are sealed.

MSN real estate posted a really good article on these types of question, however, I find the title of the article, "What realty agents won,t tell you", offensive.  Couldn't they have called it "What realty agents CAN"T tell you"?

As good as this article is, it started a thread on a message board that began to deteriorate into horror stories and agent bashing.  Being steadfast in my commitment to jump to the defense of GOOD agents (you know, the ones like me) I couldn't let it go unanswered.  Here is what I said:

 Indeed......it's not what your agent won't tell you, it's what your agent is forbidden, by law, to tell you. The funny thing is that The State of Illinois says that The Real Estate License Act was enacted to PROTECT the consumer. As has been previously stated, a good agent will have the knowledge and ability to immediately point you to the resource where you can find your answers. I have them all bookmarked on my Blackjack and my laptop.

As always, if you have found yourself receiving my blog postings via e-mail, it is because I have either blogged about you personally, blogged about something I know is of interest to you, or I consider you to be a person of deep thinking and intellect and I would love to have you occasionally commenting on my blog. If you would like to be removed from the list simply send me an e-mail saying so.

Apr. 20, 2007 - What they Think About REALTORSŪ

The following exchange took place on message board that I have become involved with.  This a very valuable resource for me as it gives me an uncensored look at what the general home buying and selling population is saying.  It also gives me the opportunity to defend what needs defending and expose what needs exposing, not to mention giving me tons of great blogging material.  It doesn't hurt me in my quest to become the #1 name in real estate either.  It also saves me from having to type things twice while I am busy debunking the myths that the general public has about the evil cabal of REALTORS®.  I think you are going to see my blog taking on this direction on a pretty regular basis.

The name and location of the poster has been removed to keep things as generic as possible.

quote:

"I don't believe that any R.E. agent ever protects the buyer. That would be because their money depends on the sale and making sure that the seller gives them that check".

And my reply:

"Oh nooooooo. Although I agree that there are many, many incompetent agents out there, the majority of us realize that the clients interest comes way before monetary compensation. It sounds to me as if you may have been dealing with a timid, maybe newer agent who got overwhelmed by a shark. You should go to the Real Estate Licensing authorities and report that agent. In fact you should report BOTH agents that were involved in your transaction. They both should be held liable. You should probably call them out by name as well. Incompetence should be exposed".

As always, if you have found yourself receiving my blog postings via e-mail, it is because I have either blogged about you personally, blogged about something I know is of interest to you, or I consider you to be a person of deep thinking and intellect and I would love to have you occasionally commenting on my blog. If you would like to be removed from the list simply send me an e-mail saying so.

Apr. 19, 2007 - Own A Piece Of History

**********WARNING************

This post has nothing to do with real estate!

You can own your own piece of Gene Molloy memoribilia by going to Gene's Board and clicking on the For Sale catagory.

As always, if you have found yourself receiving my blog postings via e-mail, it is because I have either blogged about you personally, blogged about something I know is of interest to you, or I consider you to be a person of deep thinking and intellect and I would love to have you occasionally commenting on my blog. If you would like to be removed from the list simply send me an e-mail saying so.

Apr. 18, 2007 - It's Only A Matter Of Time

This blog has been a very nifty tool in my quest to become the almost famous real estate broker of choice to the masses.  Because of my e-PRO® status I know how to sort and filter my e-mail to find out where people are finding my contact information and an amazing amount is coming from this very blog.  Keep coming back, sweet readers.  It gets better.

Let's recap, shall we?  I have been on local radio as the Real Estate Expert from Des Plaines, where I was able to expound upon what it means to be an e-PRO®.  I was featured in the "Agent Snapshot" section of "Chicago Agent" magazine.  I have been contacted by a publishing house and asked to review the June Fletcher book "House Poor", which I have done, and let me take this opportunity to say that it turns out that this book becomes more and more relevant as those tricky loan products of days gone by take their toll on the current market.  I was featured in one of Charles Rutenberg Realty of Illinois recruitment brochures.  On the national level, I have received the recognition of my peers through various nicknames, praise and titles.  Lastly, judging from the tone of some of my hate mail, I have managed to touch some sore spots on the consciouses of the less competent.  Oh, did I mention that I have also managed to facilitate the sale of tens of millions of dollars worth of real estate?

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Amie Kershbaum, a publicist from 360i, touting the premier of a new show on HGTV called "Bought and Sold".  According to the e-mail, this is going to be "a new reality show about real estate".  It "puts the real in realty with a first ever look behind the scenes at everything agents do to make their clients happy".  She goes on to say that "These are passionate, hard-working agents who embody how real estate is a lifestyle, as you recently mentioned".  So obviously she has read my blog, because I always mention that real estate is my lifestyle, not my job.  Included in her e-mail was a link to HGTV's website, where there is a video commercial for "Bought and Sold", as well a link to a sneak preview on youtube (which doesn't work here).  The show premiers Sunday, April 29th at 10 PM  Eastern/Pacific time. 

You will have to check it out yourself, but judging from the sneak preview, "Bought and Sold" would do themselves a great service by seeking me out so they could do a show about me.  In fact, I think that all of my past clients who think they have been well served should contact HGTV and tell them exactly that.  I believe all of my service partners, you know, mortgage brokers, attorneys, home inspectors, etc. should do the same.  Those of you who have given me material for my blog in hopes that I would promote it for you, and have gotten mentioned, like Felicia from Harper Collins, should call or e-mail HGTV on my behalf as well.  All of my friends and fans in the blogosphere come on, get me on TV.

That being said, I need all of you potential sellers of multi-million dollar properties in the Chicagoland area to give me a call.  I am going to need a nice upscale property to promote when I get on the show and I can see no reason why it shouldn't be yours.  After all, with all of this blatant self promotion, as well as my past clients, friends, fans and associates working on this, it's only a matter of time.  

As always, if you have found yourself receiving my blog postings via e-mail, it is because I have either blogged about you personally, blogged about something I know is of interest to you, or I consider you to be a person of deep thinking and intellect and I would love to have you occasionally commenting on my blog. If you would like to be removed from the list simply send me an e-mail saying so.

Apr. 17, 2007 - Nothing But Questions And Answers

Everywhere I go these days people want to know what.  What is the market like?  What do you think is going on?  What would you do if you were me?  What would be my best move?  What, what, what?

Don't be disappointed folks, but the answer to all of these questions is pretty much the same.  The answer is "It depends".  In anticipation of the next what, I will say that it depends on who, what, where and why.  Let me expound upon this piece by piece so as not to befuddle you.

What is the market like?  It depends upon who is asking, what and where they are asking about, and why they are asking.  The "who" is asking relates to whether they are asking from the perspective of a buyer, a seller, a small talk maker, or another real estate professional.  The "what" they are asking about relates to "who" they are and the kind of property they are asking about, detached single family, attached single family, multi-unit, commercial, vacant  land, etc.  The "where" relates to the part of the greater metropolitan Chicagoland area they are inquiring about.  The "why" of course relates back to "who" they are and their motivation for asking.  For example, buyers and sellers get much better answers than do small talkers and other real estate professionals.  Small talkers get polite generic answers.  Local real estate professionals usually get wise cracks because I expect them to be doing their own research and out of area real estate professionals get the same answers that buyers and sellers get because they probably wouldn't be asking if they really didn't need to know.  Are you with me so far?

The answers to the next two whats, what do I think is going on and what would I do if I was you, pretty much follows the same logic.  As I am sure you can imagine, however, I can have tons of fun with those questions when they are asked by small talkers and local real estate professionals

Lastly but not leastly, what would be my best move?  The same logic more or less applies to that one as well, with an exception.  The final answer to buyers and seller, after they have gotten my well researched and thought out analysis, is, hire Gene Molloy to help you accomplish your dreams.  The final answer to small talkers, after a polite generic response is, but if you hire Gene Molloy, you can stop small talking and start achieving.  There is only one answer I can give a local real estate professional who would dare to ask what I thought their best move would be after I knew that they didn't know what the market was like, they didn't know what was going on and they wanted to know what I would do if I were them.  Their best move would be to go out and get a real job.

As always, if you have found yourself receiving my blog postings via e-mail, it is because I have either blogged about you personally, blogged about something I know is of interest to you, or I consider you to be a person of deep thinking and intellect and I would love to have you occasionally commenting on my blog. If you would like to be removed from the list simply send me an e-mail saying so.

Apr. 4, 2007 - The 411 As I See It

Things in the business of real estate are changing all of the time.  You really need to know what it takes to get the job done for buyers and sellers.  You can not be caught standing still when the market shifts.  Chances are the path to the successful resolution of a deal will be a little different tomorrow than it was today.  That is why a proactive agent, living a proactive real estate lifestyle is almost always going to be, and stay, successful.  That is why I stay proactive.  That is why I do everything I can to see where the market is heading and to try and be there to greet the market when it takes a detour.  Doing anything less would be a failure of my duty to serve my clients best interest.

As some of you know, I make the claim that real estate is my lifestyle, not my job.  I had a job once.  I woke up at the same time everyday, Monday through Friday.  I traveled the same route everyday, Monday through Friday.  I saw the same faces everyday, Monday through Friday.  I practiced the same routine everyday, Monday through Friday.  Nothing hardly ever changed and there was not much new to learn.  I was able to do what I was being paid to do pretty much the same on the first day as I was on last.  Fortunately I was able to leave that job at a relatively young age with a nice passive income.  It will pay my bills until the day I die so there is no need for me to get another job.  There was, however, the need to do something besides try and figure out what to with a seven day weekend.  Hence I embarked upon the real estate lifestyle where I found an ever changing landscape.

It is easy for me to stay motivated in this lifestyle.  It is a continuing educational process, keeping an eye on new developments.  As a keen observer of the market, one gets an almost unfair advantage.  I liken the majority of the people who stand still in this business to a block of Chicago Bungalows, they are all lined up in even fashion, a little different, one from the other, but for the most part indistinguishable and unremarkable.  They are products of another age.  Most of them suffer from functional obsolescence.   

As always, if you have found yourself receiving my blog postings via e-mail, it is because I have either blogged about you personally, blogged about something I know is of interest to you, or I consider you to be a person of deep thinking and intellect and I would love to have you occasionally commenting on my blog. If you would like to be removed from the list simply send me an e-mail saying so.