New Clients

Most Realtors are always looking for new clients. Of course, so am I. It's part of what I do, look for new.

And, I start with the current clients in my search for new clients. My intention in Real Estate, and in life, is to always treat someone the way I wish to be treated. I try very hard to never stray from that age-old concept.

Current clients are the ones that become past clients. And current clients needs are of utmost importance when they are in my care. So, I return their calls in a timely manner. Do my work, prod them along. Help them complete their goals in home sale or purchase. And, I do it all with the utmost respect and diligence.

"The best compliment I can receive is a referral from you." 

How many agents have we seen put that on the back of their business card?

It is very true though. It is proof that they felt you did the absolute best job for them that they are referring one of their friends or family to you.

But, they can sometimes forget about you a couple years later.....if you are not continuing to do the best job for them by keeping up communication. Letting them know that you still think of them as people. Contacting them to let them know you are still a Realtor. And letting them know anything new about the current market.

Has to be done. All the time. If you want to keep up the stream of New Clients? You have to do the absolute best for current clients....and still remember them when they have turned into past clients.



Should I Sell Now? How About Buy? Should I?

Poor Realtors, we are always the one that people turn to if they want to know if now is the right time to buy or sell. Dependant upon the market, it can be an easy answer or a difficult one. I won't pretend and say this isn't a difficult market.

But, I will stand on that the time to buy or sell isn't just about how the market is doing. It's about how the client is doing. Their family, their job...their needs and wants.

Now is a great time to buy a bigger home, you can get a lot of house for a little bit of money. Time to buy a first time home? You bet! We haven't seen homes priced like this in quite some time. How about an investment property? I'd say so, but do your homework first. We have seen a lot of investors buying up property, a lot of homeowners displaced by foreclosure renting after losing their homes. Those renters will buy again in the future and the investment property may be vacant a bit, or certainly not getting what you were getting on a per month basis. But, maybe you need a tax write-off.

Selling now? Standard sales are the nicest to see on the market in this fall of 2010. (Temperatures Saying Otherwise) We get seller disclosures, we get to close escrow in a more timely manner. And, thankful for an appraiser, we don't pay more than the property is worth......unless we are willing to do so of course.

But, why are you selling now? Moving out of state? Go ahead and sell. Downsizing, sure. Want to buy bigger, go for it. Think the bottoms not yet here.....who the heck knows!

To the nuts and bolts of this post now......

No One Has A Crystal Ball....

I'd be retired if I did....how about you? We'd certainly do things different if we could read the future. But, where would the fun be in that? LOL.....well, might be a little bit of fun!

I've always felt that the time to buy or sell was very personal. Every person, or family, may have one reason or another that the time is right or wrong for them.

I love my home. I bought it almost 5 years ago for over 600k and now it's worth a little more than 1/2 of that. But, I still love my home. It works for my family and we're not going anywhere. So, now is not the time to sell for us. If my little crystal ball told me I was going to win the lottery......things would probably play out a smidgen differently.

For today, I keep my home.....for tomorrow, who knows. It's a personal choice for me and should be for you too.

Interesting SCV Market Stats Today

Today is a typical Realtor day. It changes moment to moment. I confirmed showings for tomorrow afternoon earlier this morning. Then corresponded, and talked, with current clients and associate agents as well. Then re-scheduled this afternoons listing appointment due to a client illness.

So I elected to post a blog this afternoon about the current stats in 'Awesome Town' (that's the publicists name for us) Santa Clarita. Aren't we cute? See the link, we really are called this:

Awesome Town!

And, our towns' stats were rather interesting, to say the least....to me.

Encompassing Santa Clarita is Acton to the East, Westridge and Stevenson Ranch to the West. Newhall to the South and Castaic to the North. All lovely little neighborhoods in between included.

A nice number of active listings. 1158. A wonderful number. Great amount of properties closed escrow (I'm using the full month of September for this posting). 256. Currently we have 421 in escrow taking back-up offers and another 406 in escrow not taking back-up offers. 93 properties are on Hold. Can't even get into those.

But, what I find worthy of noting, is the number of cancelled, withdrawn and expired (CWE) properties in our MLS. In the month of September it totalled 163. Only 35% more properties closed escrow than were removed from the market by other means. Very different from September of 2008 & 2009! Each of those years were about 1/2 %, yes 1/2 of 1 percent of homes that were off market due to reasons other than transferring ownership.

Want to draw your own conclusions? Or shall I guide you? You're reading this so you're interested in my opinion.....I can only presume. ;o). And, it will change tomorrow or next week based upon outside pressures.

Let's face it, the majority of those properties were not successful SHORT-SALES (SS). And, they've gone back to the bank or are at least on their way back to the bank. The stats show about 1/2 of those CWE's were SS....I would have to beg to differ. I've been wading through our MLS long enough to know probably about another 30% just aren't noted as SS's in the correct box in the MLS. They may be noted in the public remarks, the private remarks, the direction remarks. However, a lot just don't get entered in the right place. 

It completely annoys me!


Sooooo, I may never do a stat report again......well, definitely not until we are done with 'Special Circumstances' like SS......so I'm thinking.....maybe in a couple more years!?!?

Is there some other reason?

You just have to wonder how come they are all halting foreclosures now, over not validating signatures. Except Wells Fargo, that is. Read the article from Housing Wire.

Wells Fargo will not join B of A

This has been buzzing around all week. B of A just moved it up from 23 states to all 50, judicial or non-judicial...doesn't matter. You stop paying your mortgage, you get notices, you get foreclosed on. Really, pretty simple.

So, they screwed up....and now we are going to have further delays in returning to a normal market?!?!?

I'm sorry, but something truly makes me wonder what else is going on behind those banking doors.....

Thoughts????

Home Seller Anxiety

Atypical I am reading real estate news this morning. I do it every day. Sometimes twice a day. Housing Wire, LA Times, Inman News, MSNBC. I have to keep up on this stuff, don't I?

Today I found a fun one, well for me at least:

Mental Health Tips For Frustrated Home Sellers

All about the woes of a home not selling. The author has a nice sense of humor and I enjoyed her article. She continues on to let the reader know how she handled the sale of her Arizona home. How challenging it was and what she did to finally get it sold.

Reduced The Price !!

Now, she hated that idea in the beginning, and she explains why. Apparently she tried several avenues prior to reducing the price. But, the author determined that the anxiety wasn't worth the money. Smart lady. A little late, but intelligent decision overall.

She Wrote A Book:

And She Writes A Blog Too:

House Selling Blues Blog



So, for any of my sellers out there reading this, listen to your agent! And, other agents reading this, share with your sellers!

Nice to see, in writing, another clients' woes and what she finally did about it.



Title Reports - What a Realtor Should Read

Part of an escrow includes a preliminary Title report. It tells us who legally owns the property, any easements, liens, rights to the property other than the owner of record, and additional items that educate the buyer about the house they are considering making their home.

Most buyers don't know what to look for in a title report. I was trained to read them, really read the reports. I look for unusual items on all of them. And, when I see something that looks odd, I always ask for the underlying documents. That is the more detailed documentation of the item on the report. Should help to explain what exactly it is.

This morning, I did just that. Two items showed easements on the property that my client is buying. We were pretty certain there were easements based upon the property location, but I felt we needed to dig a little deeper.

Oh, boy, here comes another 15 pages of documents. I'm not an attorney, but I trudged thru the legal jargon and actually enjoyed reading the documents.

One page was hand written in 1876 ! Yes, I say, 1876 !

Needless to say, I couldn't read that one! The rest of the 14 pages I did though. And, it showed me that there was in fact an easement. Put in place many years ago for the good of the people.

I then forwarded it all to my client, with my humble opinion attached to it.....we shall see what he thinks of it......if he even reads it...... ;o)



The Halting of Foreclosures

The hottest ticket in the Financial/Real Estate news is the halting of foreclosure statements we've read all over the place in the last few days. Read the article below:

Robo-Signing Controversy Grows

So, really what do we think that means to us?

Well, in my humble opinion, it just means a further delay in weeding out the bank-involved properties. Which means a further delay in coming to a stable, 'normal', Real Estate market.

The financial institutions have been in a mess for several years now. And, the honest admission that foreclosures were being granted, by some of the biggest companies, without validating important information, was no surprise to many of us I'm sure.

So now, the horse comes after the cart, and they are halting foreclosures. Really now, will any homeowner in that position continue to make their mortgage payment? Will that house not end up foreclosed upon anyways?

At least they haven't put a halt on Short-Sales.....yet. But, Wells Fargo isn't offering much of an extension on those anymore now either. Others will follow. They do seem to do that.

So, all these bail-out, buy-out, incentives, stopping, starting ideas.....just clear it out and get it done, I say. I've been saying that for a couple years now. All this date estimating of when the market will be normal. All these thoughts that we are getting stable. News about appreciation. News about hitting bottom.

No one can predict any of that when there is still constant change in the financial market. Predictions are valid for a moment, then ...whoosh....another idea and that prediction becomes invalid!

But, I do still swear by Real Estate as being a great investment. Long term, just like stocks and bonds. A great investment financially, a great investment for you and your familys' happiness. Rocky roads are hit along the house highway, for certain this is one of the rockiest in years, but the road to happiness is paved with good intentions, isn't it?

I'm just not so sure that some of the above mentioned good intentions were all that good..... ;o)