I had one of those calls out of the blue this morning. One of my tennis buddies called to tell me his daughter, who I sold a house to in 2003, was being transferred to another state. He wanted me to contact here this weekend, and find her a Realtor to use to buy a home in two weeks where she will be moving. Great! I said to myself, I can finally refer someone to an Active Rain member. I had in the past referred only to CRS, but I love the spirit and sharing here, I thought this was the place to go. Big Disappointment. I know that if it was a major city I could easily find a great Realtor on AR, so this being a smaller town I understood that it would be harder. It turned out worse than that. First there were two Realtors only, but no problem it just takes one. The first Realtor had no pi... 12/31/2009

These are my poodles, Hope on the right and Henri on the left. They were peacefully sleeping when their devious owner(me) decided that it would be a cute picture, and I am sure you agree, all you dog lovers. But just as soon as the flash went off, the pups got up and walked off. I guess I did not learn the lessen of let sleeping dogs lie. Where did the phrase come from? It is said to have origniated by Chaucer around 1380. He meant the phrase to express that we should stir up a difficult situation when it is best left alone. As realtors, how often do we violate this rule? More than we should. The situation we always understand the best is our own, and the more difficult thing to do is to open yourself up, let go of the ego, and realize that sometimes we think it is our way or the highwa... 12/30/2009

Charlene and I are getting ready to head to Eureka Springs Arkansas Saturday for a three night stay for working on the implementation of our business plan. I have never been there, and where we are staying is a cabin on a lake two miles outside of town. I recently had my built in GPS updated, so on Saturday morning I will program in my destination. But GPS systems do more than get you there. They can also tell you where gas stations are, and restuarants among other things. So it started me wondering, when we do a business plan what does it include? Do we just program in our sales forecast, marketing budget, and where the business is coming from. or do we add a bit more? Here are a few added features that my business GPS tells me to use. How do I accomplish my goals in less time?  80 hou... 12/29/2009

12/27/2009

My Sunday morning always starts with Active rain after a few cups of my drug of choice, coffee. I love to comment but my thoughts always turn to writing a blog post. This is a thank you to Christopher Solomon for his article today about a Buyers Negotiation Boot Camp. Let me share some of his pearls with you. 1. Negotiation mistake one. Jumping right in and looking for homes. He is right about gathering information first before buying. But his idea is to do this before you ever talk to a Realtor. I have to say that finding consensus on the internet is impossible. One needs someone to interpret the data. How about dare I say it a Realtor. Isn't that our job to separate fact from fiction? But this was the least objectionable part. 2. It is wrong  to believe your real estate agent is your ... 12/27/2009

The bloom is off the rose on the $8000 tax credit with a flurry of activity to close in November, but just when you thought that it was over, it was renewed. It doesn't look like it has caused another uptick in contracts like before, but in 2010 I do believe that some will be rushing to meet the deadline. One complication could be rising interest rates. Yes, if it reaches 6.5% that is still incredibly low, but it can take buyers out of the system who are young and first time buyers. They didn't experience double digit interest rates like us older folks, so they might sit on their hands instead of signing a contract waiting for a return of 5%. But there is a way I think we can get them off the fence, and deal with higher rates. It is going back to a program that has been around for some ... 12/26/2009

Well we are snowed in in Oklahoma City after a record snowfall of 14 inches yesterday, so my family Christmas gathering has been postponed. So what does being alone at the computer on Christmas Day make me think of? The Law of Substitution. Sinply put, if you are looking at two similar homes that seem equal in quality and location, you should buy the lesser priced one. Or if you have a set amount of money to spend and the neighborhoods are equal but for the same money you could buy the 2000SF home versus the 1800SF home, buy the bigger one. There are other variations on the theme but you get the picture. Now let's apply that to the real world of Oklahoma City in 2010. Let's go through a few scenarios and ask ourselves, if our house is not selling, did we factor in this unwriteen law? Wi... 12/25/2009

I don't have to dream about it, here it is. Along with 4 to 8 inches of snow, we have 60 mile per hour wind gust. The picture was from this morning, but it is a lot worse now. To use a Johnny Carson gag, How cold is it? It is so cold I am thinking about creating a new social network, Active Snow. The planes are not flying, the interstates are closed, and I am not leaving the house. I might try to set a record on the number of blog post I can do in a day. My girlfriend Charlene is in my dog house. She is in West Palm Beach Florida with her family for Christmas, and sent me a picture from the beach, and at 77 degress. The winbd chill makes it below zero here. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. My poodles are asleep together in my office, I have the fireplace on, and there is Bailey... 12/24/2009

I daily search for new bloggers on Active Rain for Oklahoma. Like most states who have a small group of Realtors who blog, a few mortgage bankers, inspectors, and then brokers. I decided to use the drop down menu to search just for brokers and I know I should not have been surprised, but I was. If I take out Judi Barrett who with 400K plus points and is a one person blogging hit squad, that leaves me with 44 brokers. The top broker has 5662 points which would put him at the bottom of page two for Realtors, and the average for the group is 918 points. In otherwords, they are sleeping. I decided to check surrounding states, and except for a few brokers in Texas, it was the same old story. Talk about missing a great recruiting tool! In October I left a large franchise. I didn't leave becau... 12/22/2009

Alright I admit it, I borrowed a bit from Simon and Garfunkel's El Condo Pasa that starts, I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail, yes I would. But really, I can't think of anything I would rather be than an Oklahoma City Realtor. I realize all the criticisms, like the low entry level among other things. There will always be Realtors who get their license and not go beyond that, but fewer and fewer. In this information age, interpretation of the data, putting it into context, and giving it meaning requires desire, determination, a bit of money spent on learning, and a feelling that you can always be better. But I digress so let's talk a few alternatives. My dad sold insurance, life insurance mostly. Think about that the next time you are on a listing appointment. You get to tell them how ... 12/21/2009

In Oklahoma City real estate circles, some people call me Mr. Doom and Gloom. I think that opinion is misguided. It seems anytime you are not a cockeyed optimist, then you are accused of just being negative in your thinking. Lawrence Yun I am not so I don't have to heel for my bosses. When I got into real estate in 1989 Oklahoma was a financial mess, yet I sold a ton of homes in my first year becasue I looked at the market and saw that HUD and VA repos were the way to go. It was then that my real estate mantra formed. It is this, "There is always a market". Not a good market, or a bad one, just a market. Business is being done is some sector, and it is our job to find it and satisfy the client. So why do I feel this way? First, let me talk about positive publicity to make this an even f... 12/20/2009

On Oklahoma City area short sale listings I am a full disclosure guy. I want buyers to know what they are getting themselves into so I put in the listing, this is a short sale available in "as is" condition subject to lender approval. Please advise your buyers to be patient. In otherwords I put into the description the kiss of death. OMG, not a short sale! I have read all the horror stories about seven months later and the deal still isn't though and I may have to start looking again! Yes Virginia, there is not a Santa Claus in short sales. There are some extreme examples but don't believe eveything you read about every one is a Stephen King thriller. Let's talk about some that are going smoothly or maybe just better. BOA/Countrywide-This may be the main source of horror stories and cer... 12/10/2009

When I was a younger man I used to hunt ducks and geese with my older brother. He is one of those people who was born 300 years too late, otherwise he would be pushing west into unknown territory. I used to call him Natty Bumppo. We had a leased property that was right next to the refuge around Tishomingo Oklahoma where tens of thousands of geese would stop on their way south. We would get up at 4 in the morning to go have breakfast with farmers and other hunters, then go out and set up decoys before dawn, get down in a blind and wait for them to fly into our land. With all this preparation and the deafening noise of thousands of geese honking I was nervous in anticipation. We would see the geese rise like in the picture and head our way. My brother would act like Radar in Mash and say ... 11/29/2009

In Oklahoma City we don't have the number of foreclosure and short sale properties as other areas according to companies like RealtyTrac, but I am here to dispute their numbers. There are lots more shorts that are hiding behind Realtors that don't get the big picture about having the expertise to know the difference. Let me give you examples. My team has people who specialize in short sales, and many of them come to us the old fashion way like making cold calls and mail outs. One place I look for them is on our MLS system by checking the expired listings daily. Let me give you a few examples of what i found today, and this is by no means all of them. Home listed ar $299,99 for 279 days with a mortgage balance of $400,000. Home listed at $334,500 for 184 days with a mortgage balance of $... 11/21/2009

I am from Oklahoma City, a place where optimism is strong, and the future looks bright. It wasn't always that way. In 1982 we had the dual collapse of the energy and agriculture industries, and went into a bad economic state that people in Detroit could appreciate. In 1993 we started to see recovery, then on April 19th, 1995 the worst act of domestic terrorism happened when two lunatics decided that they would destroy the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, no matter that they killed innocent children, older people at Social Security, and people just earning a living. I lost dear friends there, and it took me 10 years before I could even visit. I wish it would never have happened, but something remarkable came out of it. Were we angry, of course. Did we want justice, of course. Did we si... 11/17/2009

Oklahoma City has fewer people in mortgage default than most areas, but we are seeing a rising tide of them. I am a positive person by nature, but sometimes you see a problem and wonder how to solve it or if it could be solved. The practice of conventional mortgages going into a short sale, and the handing off the value responsibility to a briker price opinion has gotten me both steamed and discouraged. When someone loses their job or has serious medical problems and can't pay a mortgage, then our team feels like it is our responsibility to rescue them no matter what the extra work load is, and it is a big workload. If it is an FHA or VA default we get to deal with real apprasiers. That is not always perfect becasue some appraisers don't understand short sales, but they can be educated ... 11/12/2009

Part of my daily habit is commenting on post at Active Rain. I started blogging and commenting regularly a year ago while I was in cancer treatment in Houston. As I was commenting on post today I felt more emotion in not only my responses, but in how the post affected me. As I went from pricing historic homes to did I make a ndiffernece in people's lives today, to shedding materialism to live a simpler life, I was moved my the people who wrote them. They cared enough about sharing "secrets" with others they never met, they were telling family stories, and some were talking about epiphanies that changed their lives. Not one was a ego oriented look at me post like some I read. Or was it me that was different. So I made a decision. That time in Houston was awful, but my connection to the o... 11/04/2009

4 bed 3 full bath one story home on 3/4 acre lot.  Fully fenced agriculturally zoned with chicken coupe, pole barn, circular drive.  Has brand new roof replaced in 2009 remodled kitchen and mother in law capable with 4th bedroom having its own full bath and entrance.  Covered screen room. To directly access this property, use this shortcut: http://www.fizber.com/oklahoma-buy-acreage-land-home-11648772.html 10/30/2009

A new book just came out called "Celebrating Failure" by Ralph Heath. I had some recent experiences in short sales that went bad, and my first thought was to say I know better, then to ask myself how I could have been so stupid. I failed again, but now my thoughts are different about it. First I reminded myself about taking Socialogy in college back in the 60's, and remembering what a self fulfilling prohecy was. We see it all the time when people get on a jag or rant to show how bad things are. They look for what can prove to them that failing is okay without going deeper inside. You see it in real estate offices, when Realtors try to top each other to see who had the worst client or the worst closing. After one is finished the other says I got one worse. We can find this everyday. So ... 10/25/2009

The Oklahoma City Housing Market is great, especially for buyers. Recently I became concerned about the amount of communication between our clients via email. A few days ago, when Nancy and I misinterpreted a conversation among ourselves, it suddenly became clear that email can be misleading and misunderstood, even if both parties are being very accurate.  For one thing, you can be distracted by a matter at hand while writing or reading an email.  People also sense a certain tone of an email that may not be accurate.  Email, even though it can a lot of times be convenient, can take a lot longer to work through a question or a situation, than just picking up a phone and calling. I am a licensed amateur radio operator.  I have spent many hours with people all over the world talking.  Gett... 10/22/2009