Real Estate Snippets

Snakes

I don't know about the rest of the world, but my tolerance for distressed properties is very high.  Missing plumbing, filth, garbage houses, rodent infestation, roach infestation, most any gruesome thing you can imagine would be a house I would consider for fixing and placing back on the market.  The line stops with snakes.  Nope, if the house is full of snakes and they don't look like they're moving out, I'm outta there!

Since reptiles are a protected species, one cannot just fumigate them and sweep them up like you can roaches.  Rodents?  Call Ron's Rodent Rooter or Scurry Away and for a minimal fee they're gone.  But snakes are protected.  If they've chosen your house as their abode, you either relocate them, which isn't particularly easy because too far away puts them in the wrong habitat where they'll die and too close will encourage them to come back; or you move out!  Well, I suppose one could co-habitate as well.  Crocodile Dundee I am not.  Nope, I'm not sharing my body heat with any snakes.

This is one owner's plan for dealing with a snake house: "They sent a videotape of the house, their children and, of course, the snakes to the producers of "Extreme Home Makeover," in hopes the television show would send its decorators in for a filmed renovation."  Read the entire story here.

My plan would be: next!

Thanks to Steven Hong, a ReMax agent here in Minneapolis, Minnesota for finding this article on snakes. 

A Lesson in House Values

Your house as seen by yourself. Your house as seen by the buyer. Your house as seen by the lender. Your house as seen by the appraiser. Your house as seen by the assessor.

Each of the people involved in your transaction see the same house very differently. Yourself:  You love your house and your emotions color how the house looks. The buyer:  Likes the house but has not yet become emotionally attached so the house still can use some improvement. The lender:  Must have enough value in the home to cover the amount they are going to loan the buyer. The appraiser:  It's the appraiser's job to determine if the value is enough to cover the amount of the loan IF you stop making payments and the bank must foreclose. The assessor:  Most counties have guidelines for how much your taxes can leap, but the assessor's job is to find as high a value as possible so you continue to pay high taxes.

Shhh!

When will this market end?  That's the question that was asked during the "feeding frenzy" that started around 2000 and just ended last fall.  Buyers were frantic to buy houses because there were more buyers than houses on the market.  The scarcity of listings made houses a rare commodity.  As a result homes were selling for much more than the list price.  Agents shook their heads in disbelief.  After a failed offer or two, buyers were fearful they'd never find a house.  The auction bug grabbed buyers and they bid blindly on houses in an attempt to win!  Agents proceeded with caution.  At some time, this market would have to end.  Then what?

Well, folks, the end has come.  It arrived last fall when showing requests on listings came to a sudden screeching halt.  Was this just a return to the normal fall slowdown and spring would see an upsurge as usual, but closer to a normal market?  Was the feeding frenzy finally over?  Would we sigh with relief?

Spring came and the market was slower than a record on the wrong speed.  The adjustment was hard for everyone to make, agents and clients alike.  The market stall was couched as "return to normal" in an attempt to allay panic.  Homes continued to flood the market.  Buyers continued to be scarce.  Interest rates remained low.  Sellers refused to lower prices and thus houses stayed on the market while even more were added.  The question of the year, "When will this market end?"  (We're never happy!)

Shhhh, it's a secret.  Most likely the slowdown will not end until prices drop.  Something has to trigger buyers to buy once again.  Currently the buyers are at an auction where there are 400 9N Ford tractors of identical condition and only 50 buyers.  The buyers certainly are not going to competitively bid because there are so many tractors that each buyer could buy 8.  The bidders are going to start bidding low and NOT bid against someone else.  They don't need to.  They are guaranteed a tractor and have lots to choose from.  So, despite the yea, rah, rah crowd trying to convince us that the market is normalizing, something must change to make buyers buy.  The easiest factor to change in a sale is the price.  Once it comes down, buyers will buy again.

Sellsius 101 Blogathon

Last week the Sellsius guys did 50 blog entries in one day.  It was fun to read.  The feat boggled my mind.  As so often happens when one has completed a marathon (like I would know!), punchiness set in, and Rudy and Joe mentioned a blogathon contest.  As they bantered about the contest, 100 plus 1 post for good measure in 24 hours became the goal.  Unless you're a blogger you have no concept of the challenge in that statement.  Every blogoholic on the planet heard the challenge and their minds started rolling.  Could I do it?  101 . . . Wow.  That's one post every 14+ minutes or a little more than 4 posts per hour.  Rudy and Joe knew it was tough.  They had managed 50 already and were only half serious about the blogathon until two crazy bloggers came forward.  History was set yesterday when 102 posts were entered on the participants' respective blogs.  Our congratulations to Ardell and Greg for this demonstration of their competitive tenacity!  Greg finished 100 posts hours before the time limit but like every gentleman, spent the time patiently waiting for Ardell to finish in the ladies room before posting his last entry (about coffee makers, no less!) minutes before the 24 hour deadline.  They both crossed the finish line in time and with accolades from the rest of us (faint hearted chickens all).

The prize?  They have been invited to join the Sellsius 12 step program for blogoholics!

Egg on the Face

If I were the president of the National Association of REALTORS, I wouldn't want to admit to having egg on my face.  Egg on the face is unpleasant and sticky, not to mention dumb looking.  But, as of September 8, 2006, in the Washington Post, "The president of the National Association of Realtors, Thomas M. Stevens of Vienna, admits he didn't follow his agents' advice when the real estate market started to cool. That, he says, is why his old house in Great Falls has now been on the market for a year at the price of $1.45 million."

"What I should have done," confessed the senior vice president of NRT Inc., parent of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, "was listened to my agent and cut the price by $50,000 to $100,000 early on, and the property would have sold last October."

This statement says a couple things about Thomas Stevens.

• He's a secure enough person to admit when he made a mistake
• Despite being a professional, he's as emotionally involved in selling his own house as any other consumer

Stevens observed in Inman News today that "In some areas home sellers are not making sufficient adjustments in their listing price, so their homes are staying on the market and contributing to the buildup in inventory."

The Inman article goes on to report NAR published a 1.7% drop in the U.S. median home price in August as compared to last year.  That figure is a national figure and does not necessarily represent your specific region.  The entire statistical chart can be viewed here.

Thomas Stevens' only consolation is that he is not alone in having a house on the market longer than he would like.  His advice from experience is to listen to what your agent suggests and price your home to sell in this year's market, not last year's!

The Commode

I don't know about the rest of the world but the toilet at left is a really great idea for cabins and places that you don't have running water.  It's produced by Envirolet and I've only seen one in my lifetime.  It would be a great replacement for our cabin outhouse!

The only time I have seen one of these toilets was this exact style and color or possibly an older model of the same thing.  It was stuck in the closet of a kitchen hall.  The MLS listing for the house said the house had one full bath and one quarter bath.  Usually that quarter bath is a toilet in the basement with no walls surrounding it.  It would be one of those places that you go when you "gotta go"!  My clients had never seen one of these toilets in the basement so I was looking forward to the chuckle we would have when we got there.  To my surprise there was no free standing toilet. 

The house was a rehab (distressed house fixed up for resale) but not what my clients wanted.  They refused to leave until they found the quarter bath.  The search began. We opened every closet and nook and cranny.  The discovery was in a space about three feet by three feet.  The room had no light, no exhaust fan, no sink, and the toilet was gray!  None of us had heard of composting toilets at the time, so we wondered at this marvel.  Did one have to empty it like a camping toilet?  If that was the case how could the listing agent have gotten by with calling it a quarter bath?  It was weird!

Now that I've researched more, there are a couple models of toilets that are waterless.  My first thought was it would be great for the cabin.  On closer inspection they work for your home as well.  Some actually look almost like a water operated commode.  Environmentalists would be happy with this seldom advertised invention.  One style (the one pictured) is a composting toilet.  Another style incinerates the waste and only empties ashes periodically.  Search Google for "waterless toilets" and find what you've been missing!

What If . . .

I'm not turning morbid on my readers, but occasionally it's good to be prepared for the worst.  My family had a scare recently of a close relative developing cancer, bone cancer.  Not the kind of cancer you live with.  The scare set me thinking about the "what if's" in life.  What if my husband died and I have this ten year rehab project on my hands.  What if I died and he had this ten year rehab project on his hands!  What if we became disabled?  What if . . .   There's a million "what if's" and many are uncomfortable to discuss.

Occasionally one partner in a home ownership is ill and preparing to die.  Sometimes the couple shops for a smaller home together hoping to establish the home for the surviving spouse before the dying spouse is gone.  These shopping experiences can be sadly sweet.  There's poignance in watching a caring partnership plan for becoming a future single-ship. From my perspective as their agent, I find it rewarding to bend to the needs of the frail partner.  I enjoy the memories some share.  I validate the feelings of loss they are experiencing.  In my mind I've questioned, "What if  . . . "  Mentally I've also wondered "what if" the spouse dies before the contract closes on a purchase or a sale? 

Our association has a legal hotline and their answer to this question is, "The estate of a deceased person is obligated to comply with the terms of any contract that the deceased person entered into unless the deceased person was providing personal services."  That means a purchase agreement for the sale of the deceased person's home would have to close with the estate representative acting on behalf of the deceased party to complete the terms of the agreement.  In the purchase of a home, it might be a little different if the deceased person's income was used toward the financing of the home.  If the surviving spouse could not qualify alone, that would void the purchase contract as a result of the financing contingency.

Most often we think of situations like this applying to senior populations, but what if your spouse was hit by a car and died?  What if . . .

Ain't We Sweet?

Everyone knows there has to be some reason why people live in Minnesota.  It can't really be that we enjoy the cold weather!  Besides being the second in the nation for longevity, we've got a few other things going for us as well.  According to the September, 2006, edition of Minnesota REALTORS, a publication for all Minnesota REALTORS, Minnesota has a lot going for it.  These facts were gleaned by the Minnesota REALTORS publication from the 2002 Census current revisions.  As compared to others in the 50 states Minnesota has:

• First in women in the labor force
• Second lowest poverty rate
• Second highest home ownership!
• Second highest with at least a high school education
• Second in United Health Foundation's ranking of state healthiness
• Fourth highest percentage with health insurance
• Fourth highest in men in the labor force
• Eighth in family median income
• Ninth in percentage with college degree
• Fifteenth in family median income over $150,000

Maybe these factors are what compensates for our cold weather. . . or maybe these factors result from our cold weather!  Either way, if you want to own a home, Minnesota is a good place to be!

Spam

Spam is a difficult subject.  I get over 500 e-mails a day and many agents get thousands.  As a result sorting the spam is something one gets used to.  But, when spam comments are posted on one's blog, it's not as easy to fix.  The blog owner has to log on, review the comment (which vary from porn to diet pills to vacation offers to mortgage lending to any other variable), and delete or accept it.  The struggle for the blog owner is whether to allow comments to be posted immediately or to have them "moderated".  Moderating means the blog owner has to approve the comment before it's seen by the public.

Now when I comment on someone's blog I like to see my name come up in lights.  It's just human.  Plus, when the comment just disappears, how do you know it is in the system?  Now most blogs have letters or numbers in a "picture" or box (captcha) as a partial protections against spam.  It's a hassle.  Being "older than dirt" I sometimes can't read the numbers correctly.  Those letters force spam companies to hire a person to make the spam posts.  Without that protections a myriad of computer programs would be sweeping the internet placing spam on everybody's open site.  Today, I'm getting a ton of spam on my old platform.  Some others on that platform are getting close to a hundred spams already and they keep coming.  I've changed the comments there to be moderated.  I really don't want unsavory links on any of my blogs.

When the spammers find this blog, I'll probably have to switch over here as well.  I hope that time doesn't come for awhile yet, because I know all of you like to see your name come up instantly when you comment!

How Stupid Are You?

This little test of intelligence is the result of Maureen McCabe's search for fun things to do.  I like jigsaw puzzles which is why solving computer problems has begun to fascinate me.  I took the test and didn't do too badly although I have no clue which questions I got right and which were wrong!  See what your score is and put it in the comments so we all can see "How stupid" you are!