Real Estate Snippets

In Memory of the Protectors

Geese are fascinating creatures if one ignores the great green logs they leave in the grass for unsuspecting travelers to step in.  They fly in formation when they migrate, each following in the draft of the one that goes before.  When the leader tires of breaking through the wind for the others, s/he falls behind and another takes the lead.  When one of the flock is tired, sick or injured and leaves the sky entirely, two others join the injured one until s/he recovers or dies.  The ones who have stayed to console then return to the air flying in formation once again to help one another survive the long trek to fairer climes.

The picture above reminded me of another attribute of geese that we can all respect.  They are family oriented being loyal to their mate until death and ever watchful of their goslings.  The little furry feather fluffs can constantly forage for food while the adult watches protectively over them. 

Somehow, for me, this protective quality of the adults and the peacefulness of the grazing little ones connected with Memorial Day.  I am thankful for those who fought before my time for a country of freedom and a place in which we can live and work peacefully.  I am thankful for the genius minds that created our governing documents and those who lost everything so we could live out their dream.  Even today, the protectors are ever watchful of our freedom.  Their sacrifice is great and they deserve our tribute.  My thanks go out to those who have and continue to serve our country in this brave manner.

Real Estate Continuing Education Meanderings

Minnesota real estate agents are required to complete 15 hours of continuing education every year for their license renewal.  In addition, every two years agents must complete an hour each of agency and fair housing.  Every four years St. Paul real estate agents must take 4 hours of ethics.  It's impossible to be in real estate and not be exposed to agency, fair housing, or ethics.  My personal theory is that agency, fair housing, and ethics cannot be taught.  I believe that right treatment of other people comes from deep within as a heart response rather than a head response.  I do believe the laws can be taught so one who wants to act rightly can conform to the law, but the desire to act rightly still comes from within.

Having opined about what is taught, it's interesting to note little statements that were made in my St. Paul continuing ed class this week.

1. REALTORS® (members of the real estate trade organization National Association of REALTORS®) have the lowest average income of any licensed profession in Minnesota.  (I would have liked to see the source for this statement as I know "teachers and preachers" are pretty low on the continuum, too.)
2. Real estate is the career of last choice for many.  (Again, what is the source for this statement?  Do I fall into this category because I had to break down my own stereotypes about real estate agents before I would practice real estate?)
3. A professional is anyone who has done the job well and performed as promised.  Now this I can agree with.  I consider the person who cleans the toilet or digs a ditch well, and as promised, to be as much of a professional as a doctor.  I often think of this when viewing pictures of my house being slid down into a 10 foot hole by a "simple truck driver"!  I think not!  That person had expertise and skill not many would even venture to learn!
4. The most respected profession is medical doctors.
5. There were 35,000 licensed agents in 2006, 28, 000 in 2007, and expected to dwindle to 22,000 at the end of 2008.  It seems real estate is not the place for the weak of heart or for gold seekers.
6. Minnesota has only 3 industries with fiduciary responsibility:  attorneys, real estate brokers, and mortgage brokers.
7. Fiduciary responsibility is the highest level of service that can be given to another person.  The "agent" (read attorney, real estate agent, or mortgage broker) acts in the best interests of the principal (the client) and acts on their behalf to perform the legal instructions given by the principal to the agent.  Principals make the decisions, not the agent!

Fiduciary responsibility (item 7) is why I'm in real estate in St. Paul.  I take pride in being a "professional" (item 4) real estate agent, but item 7 defines my purpose.  I am not a salesman trying to convince a customer to do something they don't want to do.  I LIKE looking out for my client's best interests!  I LIKE using my experience and training to give my client an edge!  I LIKE trying to find that perfect home and then negotiating that perfect price!  I LIKE the challenge of following through on the principal's legal instructions.  I LIKE keeping confidential info confidential!  Yep, fiduciary responsibility is my big WHY for real estate.

Art Work?

I wonder if the person who painted the graffiti in the first picture will grow up to be an artist like the one who created the second and third pictures.  Clicking on the photos will enlarge them.

Dayton's Bluff Vacant Home Tour

Without a doubt, the St. Paul Dayton's Bluff neighborhood registered vacant building home tour was a success.  More than 100 people toured the homes on Saturday and the count was not final for Sunday's tour at the time that I left.  From the home owner's perspective, the tour may not have been a success, because I didn't see any purchase agreements being written, but that doesn't mean they won't be! 

There were a couple reasons I chose to do the tour even though as a licensed real estate agent in St. Paul, I could easily have set up "previews" to go through the homes myself.  First, it was important to support this neighborhood attempt at moving homes off of the registered vacant building list.  When the people who toured the homes tell others how nice some of the buildings were, it will encourage buyers to check out the vacant homes as well.  Secondly, I was curious as to how St. Paul REALTORS were involved in the tour. 

There was no disappointment on my part.  Whereas some of the nicer condemned homes were chosen for the tour, the goal of showing what was available for a reasonable price was reached.  Not a lot of disclosure was made regarding the ramifications of being on the registered vacant building list.  Only one house talked about the cost of fixing the property so it would no longer be condemned.  For those with savvy, buying a house for less than $70,000 and adding $30,000 for fix-up isn't a bad deal.

My second goal of "spying" on my colleagues marketing ploy was met as well.  There was NO hard sell from any of the agents.  Not all of the houses had an agent in them.  Some houses were only "guarded" by active neighbors.  The most marketing I saw was a stack of cards on a card table.  I was impressed.

The crowd was composed of some amateur rehabbers and others that were just curious.  The crowd included my husband who left a house asking me if I thought it would be worth our while to buy that house for a rental!  This coming from the man who tried desperately to prevent us from buying our first rental property many years ago!  His auditor mind was doing numbers as we walked.  "How much do you think . . . ?"  Aaack!  I have created a monster!!!! 

Tax Day 2008

It was my first experience with delivering taxes in downtown St. Paul.  The only other time I've been unfortunate enough to mail taxes after closing time was in Minneapolis.  That evening was truly an event as we lined up by the downtown post office at 11:00 PM.  Literally, there was a line like rush hour passing the mail bins slowly in front of the post office. 

The post office in downtown St. Paul had it figured out yesterday.  There were employees with fluorescent vests and big rolling mail bins a block north of the regular boxes and additional employees on both sides of the street in front of the post office so those going both east and west could avail themselves of curbside service from your friendly mail carrier.  The employees actually stepped into the street and reached across passenger seats to get those tax returns from the filer!  What a service! 

The traffic didn't stop long enough to get a focused picture.  It was quite a system to observe.  My real question is which bin did my taxes go in?

A New (or Is It Old) View on Finances

There's an entertaining little book being read recently.  It's not your ordinary book, but a collection of parable like stories from the richest man in the city of Babylon, at one time the richest city on earth.  "The Richest Man in Babylon" can be easily read in one sitting or picked up like a Reader's Digest to read a bit at a time, but it is full of wisdom and good advice about finances.  This sage advice is very relevant for our time when the economy seems topsy turvy and consumers are nervously realizing how precarious their financial situation is. 

The decision to suggest "The Richest Man in Babylon" to my readers was affirmed while reading Sam Glover's Caveat Emptor.   Sam asks, "What Would You Do If You Lost Your Job?"  That question was right in my face when my husband experienced two lay-offs in the last 4 years.  Thankfully, we had learned SOME of the rules of gold taught by "The Richest Man in Babylon".  Sam Glover touched on two in his blog post.  To discover the rest, check out the "little" book. 

George S. Clason authored "The Richest Man In Babylon" published by BNPublishing.  I've finished it and still don't know if the book was transcribed from original tablets found in archaeological digs from Babylon (I'm guessing not) or if that tale is part of the fantasy of the entire book.  Nevertheless, in the book the king of Babylon recognized that too many of his people were poor and hired the richest man in Babylon to teach how to become rich.  (Well, duh!) 

Arkad, loyal subject of the king and the richest Babylonian started his lesson:

"The first storehouse of my treasure was a well-worn purse.  I loathed its useless emptiness.  I wanted it to be round and full, clinking with the sound of gold.  Therefore, I sought every remedy for a lean purse.  I found seven . . ."

If you're struggling with how to get out of debt or how to save a down payment for a house, I highly recommend "The Richest Man in Babylon".  The seven remedies for a lean purse are simple to hear, take commitment to apply, but can produce wealth for those who forebear!

Happy Easter

 

Real Estate Clients

Sometimes my St. Paul real estate clients don't reveal themselves until after they've purchased a house.  It's fascinating to discover the hidden talents behind seemingly normal people who behave themselves quite nicely while shopping for houses from my car.  Such is the case with the gentleman in the picture.

The closing was last summer on his house.  The buyers joked about a practice room for the "boys", but it seemed to be just a joke.  Unbeknownst to me, the band Chosen Robot was the "boys" and their practicing was serious rather than a joke. 

Tonight I was privileged to attend a Chosen Robot concert at Station 4, a club at 4th and Sibley in lowertown St. Paul.  As the clubbers would say, clubs are not "my scene", but Chosen Robot did not disappoint me.  It was a delightful evening watching my "normal" (normal is only a cycle on the washing machine) client in a persona that surprised and entertained me for the evening.

Just imagine what I would miss if I had a desk job!

Knee Jerk Solutions

Once again I'm watching as policy and rule makers scurry around trying to solve a problem that has existed for a long time, but a tragedy or lawsuit has brought the issue to the forefront.  This week the calamity is the wasteful and unnecessary death of 4 young children caused by an illegal alien in our midst.  It seems to me illegal immigration is a problem we have had for some time (even my hero the Dog Whisperer was an illegal alien at first), but now the media is all in a tizzy about what legislation should be created (It's already in place.) to prevent such a travesty again.  The same was true of our 35W bridge collapse.  The same was true of 9-1-1. 

If there's a lawsuit, policies suddenly appear across the nation.  Buyer agency was created because our own Minneapolis based Edina Realty suffered and lost a class action lawsuit for not disclosing who they represented.  Before that time there were no agency disclosures.  I bought my first two houses with an agent who I thought was MY agent but legally represented the seller!  Who knew?

Private home inspectors now are required by their insurance companies to have a waiver signed by the buyers who hire them.  A paragraph of legalese is added to every inspection report basically saying the inspector did his best but is not liable for making a mistake. 

The lawsuit against the blogger in Florida is generating discussion among real estate brokers as to whether policies should be made or not to control what their agents say on blogs.  Even closer to my back yard is the St. Paul City Council proposal about vacant homes. 

My husband calls it reactive rather than proactive policy making.  I tend to be more common in my description.  To me it's all a knee jerk reaction created by a need to cast blame and the fear of being the object of that blame.  Occasionally I make a mistake.  Avoiding mistakes is high on my priority list (I don't like mistakes or the embarrassment that accompanies admitting them!), but I am not perfect.  The difference I see is that I take responsibility for my mistakes.  When I forget to send an e-mail, I admit I forgot or used the wrong address.  If I'm ever sued, I will be sunk, because I'll admit I was wrong if I was.  It's part of what I consider to be accountability and responsibility for my actions. 

We live in a society that thrives on law suits.  The media publishes that people get rich by spilling hot coffee in their laps (Again, I am not demeaning the pain but point out how the media conveys the story.  See this link.).  Teachers are not allowed to control their classrooms because they might offend someone.  Bus drivers get attacked by students while their moms listen on the cell phone and the moms think it's okay?   

Our national and local real estate market is full of short sales and foreclosures currently.  The stop gap measures taken to forgive unpaid debt, to pump money back into the economy, to put a band-aid on the "owie" to make it better are just that . . . stop gap.  They are temporary fixes.  Our economy has to go through the bad times and come out the other side.  Time will be the healer as homes return to prices people can afford.  As sanity is restored to the lending market with clearer guidelines and a return to more stringent requirements.  As buyers and sellers realize they can't always get their way. 

Rather than looking for knee jerk solutions, we need to examine the residual consequences of our proposals (whether it's St. Paul houses, illegal immigrants, or coffee in the lap) and make them good solutions that will stand the test of time.

Spring Is in the Air

Spring is definitely in the air.  It's still cold outside, but the St. Paul snow is melting.  How do I know this?  Because I just washed my car yesterday and it looks like these cars today!  I only drove 40 miles and it's full of road spray!  The downspout extenders have frozen lakes at their ends.  The bunnies . . . well, the bunnies and I are going to war this year again.  Currently they're only leaving tons of turds in my snowy yard but that means they're there.  And if they're there, that means I won't have a single tulip bloom this spring.  Spring is definitely in the air.