The Sound of Music

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No, damn it. The weather is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about appreciation.

I got a compliment this morning. It felt so good to hear something nice about me that I almost teared up. Now, I know that people think good things about me. I know that I do a really good job. I know that I'm usually a nice person and that I try to make other people feel good. I also know that it's a cold day in hell anymore when people say so.

I am a very verbal person. I need to hear it. Some people need flowers and diamonds or others need a hug to feel appreciated, I need to hear kind words.

The problem with us humans neglecting to show our regard for our friends and family is that if we don't show appreciation then the people who we love assume that it isn't there. That's sad.

So then we get to deal with someone who has this toxic, resentful miasma hanging over their head. We don't know why they're this way - they don't tell us why because appreciation that's been strong-armed means nothing. We thinks that it must be because they're unhappy with us. Then we think, "But why should they be mad at me? Don't I work hard? Don't I do my best? What in the blue blazes more do they want?"

And then the spiral begins and sometimes it ends ugly.

I think that we should all make ourselves a promise. At least once a day we'll say something nice to the people that we care about. Not a big production - just a simple, "Hey - I love it when you smile like that!" or, "Wow. What a good job you did - I can see how hard you worked!" or just, "Yay! You're home!" or "You look great in that color!"

Let's try it. Let me know how it goes, please.

And thanks for reading. I appreciate your time and attention.

Well, thank the powers that be! I just went to a social marketing class taught by Paula Monthofer of the Flagstaff Association. She said that we should just "Be yourselves! Don't concentrate on real estate!"

Thank God. I was boring even myself.

So now the big question is "Well. What do I want to talk about?"

I want to talk about the wonderful weather in central Arizona today. I go outside and am reminded of why it is that I live here in Cottonwood. (Cottonwood is about 15 minutes from the Red Rocks of Sedona and 5 minutes from the wonderful old historic mining town of Jerome. We're right smack dab in the middle of the state.)

I tried to leave Cottonwood once. I was born & raised in Prescott, Arizona, and moved over Mingus Mountain to Cottonwood when I was 17.
Years later, my husband at the time had people in Arkansas and, in an effort to finally make him happy I consented to sell everything that I owned and we moved to Mountain View, Arkansas. This was a colossal mistake on my part.

I'm not writing today to trash Arkansas. The simple fact is that Cottonwood is my home and Mountain View wasn't. Yes, I could tell you hair-raisers, but not today.

Part of the problem was the weather there. Colder than hell in the winter, hot and unrelentingly muggy in the summer, and please don't get me started on the ticks and chiggers and cottonmouths and copperheads, some of them in human form.

The beauty of having lived someplace else is that now I have a frame of reference. I know how special it is here. Our climate is great, (Yes, it does get hot, but not TOO hot. Our summers are like Back East's winters - we go from climate controlled houses to climate controlled cars to climate controlled offices for a couple of months. It cools off during the night, so windows are open. Ahhhhhh!)

What else? Our crime rate is low, people are mostly friendly, and our views will knock your socks off!

If you're interested, shoot me an email and I'll send you some pictures.
carolanne@adobegr.com.

I have something of what I call a voodoo frame of mind. I believe that what we concentrate on is what we get. If we tell ourselves a thousand times a day how horrible the world is, how awful people treat each other, even that there are SOOOOO many bad drivers out there then this is all that we will see. What we believe becomes so, at least in our little slice of the world.

So what does this have to do with real estate? Well, look around you. The real estate market reflects our economy, or vice versa - I've never been sure which comes first. People ask me "What the heck happened?"

I think that it all started with the media, which is perpetuating a self-defeating cycle. (All I know is what I see - I don't know which economic guru to listen to so I've stopped paying attention to any of them - they're all contradicting each other anyway.)

So here's my story. The media caused the real estate feeding frenzy of 2005. News stories about the scarcity of real estate and the wonderful investment of real estate sold newspapers and got hits and so they reported it more and sold more ads and so they amped it up and pretty soon people were buying every piece of property that they could get their hands on whether they could afford it or not. The lenders were throwing the money at these buyers because hey - if the borrower defaults we'll just take it back and re-sell it at a profit. Of course we can - watch the Today Show.

This couldn't continue indefinitely and so of course, it all fell apart and the frenzy slowed down and then quickly came to a screaming halt.

So now the media concentrates on what they're portraying as the poor stupid fools who bought during the frenzy. They tell horror stories of markets freezing and "flippers" stuck with houses they can't pay for and variable rate borrowers who can't make their payments and the public says, "Whoa! I'd better walk away from my house now!" Or, "Gee, I'd better not buy anything until I know what's going on!" And so they do and the economy gets worse because no money is moving.

So, tell me. How do we get the media to tell the true story? How do we make it sexy that it's a wonderful time to buy a house? How do we get them to reverse some of this damage?

I'm fully aware that my approach to what is undoubtedly an intricate economic process is going to make some people crazy. That's OK - your truth is not necessarily my truth, and I'm always open to seeing more pieces to a puzzle.

Since I'm on this Diversity kick, check out http://www.playingforchange.com/pop2.html
It blew me away! Click on "play video."

I'm getting a Diversity class together for April 24th. The point is to teach REALTORS(R) how to work with people from another culture without offending or making either side uncomfortable.



This is harder than you might think at first. Speaking in generalities and using very broad strokes:



Did you know that a culturally aware person might know better than to show an Asian person a white house?



A "GREEN" House in the US means that the home impacts our earth in positive ways, built by and for ecologically aware humans. But, if you pull up in front of a house with a green roof with a Chinese couple, the man might decide that you think his wife is cheating on him.


Some Native Americans would react very badly to a home with gray or black trim, while I think that black trim on a white house is just beautiful.

To some Middle Easterners a blue house is very auspicious, while to my Cherokee friend blue is the color of defeat and trouble.

In China, yellow is a wonderful color that signifies growth and prosperity, while in Egypt yellow is the color of mourning.

So there - I just gave you a 5 minute slice of the 6 hour course. Some people say, "Why, that's ridiculous! Those people need to understand how we do it here in America! Why do WE have to learn how THEY think? It oughta be the other way around!" These are the people that absolutely need to be in a Diversity course, don't you think? If you said something like this, get your butt to Sedona on the 24th.

We have sign outside of our office that says, "Free foreclosure list!" It works like a charm.

I notice that people come in and say, "I would like a free foreclosure-and-short-sale-list, please." We start talking and I realize that 90% of the general public does not know the difference between these two animals - they just want a bargain and think that foreclosure-and-short-sales are the way to get one.

A little foreclosure and short sale 101, OK?

A foreclosure is easy to understand. Somebody bought a house and got a mortgage to do so and then couldn't make their payments so the bank took the house back and is now selling it. We call these REO properties.

Short sales are a different breed. A short sale means that the seller needs to sell the house, but it's worth less than the pay-off on the mortgage. Now we need to find a buyer, get an offer, and then convince the bank to accept less then was agreed upon when the seller bought the house. Short sales get complicated - the banks are not equipped or inclined to give us an answer in any reasonable amount of time. The seller has to "qualify" for the short sale almost like when they bought the house. The bank wants them to prove that they can't make up the difference between the sales price and the mortgage balance.

Since a seller walks away from a short sale with, uh, nothing, and the buyer has to be incredibly patient waiting for the bank to make up their minds, tempers can run high.

Since a seller makes no money on a short sale, why do they bother? Why not just walk away? 2 reasons: most people are honorable and want to live up to their obligations as best they can. Also, a short sale affects a seller's credit for 2 to 3 years, while a foreclosure will ding it for 5 to 7 years.

What's in it for the buyer? Foreclosures and short sales are quite often priced below the "normal" competition.

What are the drawbacks? A buyer is getting involved with a house where the last owner was probably pretty mad when they left. Usually, there aren't any appliances or window coverings or light fixtures, they're often dirty, and the landscaping is suffering or dead because nobody cares. Sometimes the last owner deliberately trashed the place, kicking holes in the walls and taking a drill to the plumbing and a hammer to the tiles. (Shame on them! It isn't the poor house's fault.)

The other drawback on an REO is that the bank has no idea of the condition of the property. The buyer gets no disclosures, no warranties, and no promises - they're on their own as far as figuring out what kind of shape this house is in. (I would never sell one of these properties without a thorough ASHI certified inspector going over it first. Never!)

So if you think that you might be interested in picking up one of
these "bargains," please call a REALTOR(R) who is experienced in dealing with them. Remember, these properties are tricksy and difficult and require a competent professional.

If you're a homeowner that's afraid that you might be in one of these situations, again, call a REALTOR(R) who knows what they're doing. There are a lot of scams out there and a lot of unscrupulous bottom-feeders that want to take advantage of people's fear and desperation. Don't deal with a "loan modification facilitator" if they want money up front. Reputable loan modifiers will wait until the job is done to collect a fee. They're one of the few professions that I can think of that get paid like REALTORS(R).

There's been a lot of conversation in REALTOR(R) circles about how to explain to the general public how we work.

"Uh....how about we tell people?"

So I’m going about my business last week and my phone rang. A very nice man said, “Carol Anne, my name is Joe Public and I would very much like to see your listing at 12345 Main Street.” I said, “Joe, I would very much like to show it to you.” We made an appointment and met at the house and spent, oh, 2 or 3 hours looking at the house, asking and answering questions, qualifying, looking at the house some more – a typical wonderful showing.
Joe was ready to buy it – this is not my first rodeo and I know when somebody gets engaged to a house. I asked Joe if he wanted to go write the contract right then, or did he want to sleep on it? Joe answered that he would go call his agent, who would get back to me tomorrow.

“Your agent? You have an agent, Joe?” “Yes, I have an agent. He told me to go find houses that I want to see, make appointments, go look, and it would all be fine as long as I make sure to tell the list agents that I’m working with him.”

Wrong.

I take a deep breath and remind myself that I like Joe and this isn’t his fault. He’s trying to do the right thing as explained to him by his agent. I also remind myself that my job is to sell the property without ripping poor Joe’s face off. I kindly ask Joe who is his agent? He tells me the name of someone licensed to sell real etate, but not a member of the National Association of REALTORS(R), not a person who is subject to our Code of Ethics.

We’ll call Joe’s agent Dick.

So I sleep on it and have about 40 conversations in my mind and then give Dick a call. Here’s how it went:

“Hi, Dick. I showed a listing yesterday to Joe Public, who told me that you told him to go look at properties with the list agents, and if he finds one that he wants to write on he should say that he works with you. Is that correct? Dick, are you making even the slightest effort to protect Joe's interests, or are you just throwing him to the wolves? Are you actually telling to go out and have another agent show him properties and then have you write the offer? Are you actually thinking that Joe saying, “I work with Dick” will avoid a procuring cause issue? Are you planning to write an offer on a home that you haven’t even bothered to go see with him? Are you thinking that you’re representing Joe even the slightest little bit when you’re sending him out alone? Do you think it’s right that the other agents are doing all of the work and you’re expecting to collect a commission?”

Isn’t it 5:00 somewhere?

How about a little real estate 101? When an owner hires me to list and sell his property, we agree on what he will pay me to do so. My commission is usually a percentage of the total sales price of the property. When I put that property into our MLS, I promise to pay the agent who brings a buyer half of my commission.


What is procuring cause? It means that the agent who caused a buyer to decide to buy that particular property is the one who earned the commission. There are caveats, but that's basically it. We don't dictate who a buyer can work with or have represent them, but there have to be guidelines as to who gets paid.

So what's wrong with what happened?

First of all, Joe wasn't being being properly represented. Dick should have been there to listen to the answers to the questions and see the house and lend his expertise and experience - Joe should not have been out there all alone.

Second, Joe could get stuck in the middle of 2 agents arguing about who sold him the house. That's not fair when all that Dick had to do was show up.

That's the problem here. Dick didn't bring Joe and Dick didn't help Joe but Dick wants me to pay him even though he didn't earn it.

So what would I have had Joe do? Make an appointment with Dick to go out looking. If Dick doesn't want to go then Joe needs to go find himself a REALTOR(R).