Looking Out From the Garage: September 2007

And then I thought about it and decided that it wasn't as good as I thought it was...

Do you want to know the word?  It will take comments...

Anyway, as most of my weird ideas seem to, it pooped into my head at the oddest time.  I was wandering through the grocery store with my son.  As we approached the frozen pizza, I had a completely unrelated idea.  I talked it over with him... he thought it was cool, as long as I let him drive the little car attached to the front of the grocery cart.  

After we picked up dinner (DiGiorno Stuffed Crust...) we headed out to the truck.  It's only two miles from the store to the house, but Garrett wanted to talk about... construction equipment.  I tried to mention the new word to him again, but since I didn't make up "Backhoe" he didn't care any more.  

Anyway, ever have one of those moments?  You know the ones, flash of inspiration... and then reality sets in.  The flash wasn't inspiration, but rather just a misfired synapse.  I think everyone would love to hear... and if a few people ask nicely, I'll toss out my new word... 

Soon to hit the MLS, you saw it here first...

This is a great 1 bedroom/1 bathroom condo that also features a den/office.  With 966 square feet (tax records) of interior room, and a 103 square foot patio (builder's plan), there is more space than in other 1bd/1ba floorplans. 

This is a great top-floor unit with a view out to mid-town, overlooking Juniper Street.  It features a lovely double sided fireplace between the living room and the den, halogen track lighting, and a huge walk-through closet in the master bedroom.  It also features beautiful wood floors throughout, and luxurious solid surface countertops in the kitchen and bath.  

All kitchen appliances will remain, as will the washer and dryer in the laundry room off of the kitchen.  there is also a covered parking space included with the unit.  

Walk to Piedmont Park, or to one of the many restaurants in the area.  Located between 10th Street and 8th Street, just one block off of Peachtree, Tuscany is incredibly convenient.  While others are still fighting the traffic on I-75, I-85 or GA400, you can be home and relaxing in front of the TV, working out in the complex gym, or floating in the pool.  

Welcome home.  This rare floorplan is offered at $209,900.  The seller is motivated, and will consider a lease purchase as well. 

Here is a link to the property on my site...

Are you a car person?  Do you know what a 220V outlet is, and why someone might want three in the garage?  Can you recognize an epoxy coated garage floor, racedeck, or acid stained concrete... and know the strengths and weaknesses of each?

In preparation for the launch of my new website, and the advertising that will go along with the official launch, I want to know that there are some agents out there that would like referrals that may come along.  Of course, I also want to know that when I send a garage loving client, that you will know what they are looking for, and how to help them.  

Back in my "pre-real estate" life, I bought a couple of houses.  I was always frustrated with real estate agents that knew nothing about garages.  As far as they seemed to be concerned, they were a place to park lawn equipment...

Just as there are equestrian specialists and golf specialists, I felt there was a need for agents that were auto enthusiasts to help their fellow enthusiasts.  

If you want to be on my list, let me know... 

This is a left-over from my alphabet series.  I decided to write a stand alone post rather than to play the alphabet game again (BTW, I already have another X and another Q... so that's not a problem). 

There are so many different ways to look at vision... was that a bad pun? 

There is the vision we provide to our clients.  We help them to see the big picture of the transition they are making, as well as the details of a smooth transaction.  We help them see what their old house can be to a potential buyer (often with the help of a stager), and we help them see what their new house can be.  We often help them see how it can be done financially, as well.  

There is our own vision of our future.  We need to plan for where we want our business to go, and then see the ways to implement the plan.  We need to see our own big picture, as well as the details.  We need a clear view of our strengths and our weaknesses, so we can see what changes to make and what we should farm out.  

We need the vision to see things like flyers, websites, and listing photos.  Even if we hire the work out, we need to have an idea of what we want, or we will be impossible to work for... think of the buyer that can't articulate what they want to buy.  Now matter what they see... it isn't it.  

Here's to vision...  

This is a serious work in progress. 

Three days ago, I didn't know anything about Joomla.  I got past the installation, and started populating with content.  The first thing on the agenda is getting all of the articles and pertinent blog posts migrated (copied) to the new site as well as put meta tags and descriptions on them.  

While all of this is going on, I am having to design menus and figure out the best way to organize the content.  The organization has to intuitive for a user that doesn't know what might be there.  I think that the organization is the toughest part of this.  

So, if you want to play along, feel free to drop in.  If you are on in the evening, you might even see the site change around you while you are there.  Buttons will pop up on menus.  Themes will change.  Content will show up... and then move.  

It certainly isn't "live" for public consumption, but for those that like watching races just to see wrecks... this might be fun... and it will last for weeks. 

Sorry to disappoint. 

I picked up a story today about a "Bubble Blogger" in San Fransisco.  I actually enjoyed the article.  Here is the link.  I have read a few of these bubble blogs in the last couple of years.  Some are quite educated, and others are just rants.  I actually haven't read this particular blog, although I will be putting it on my reading list.  I just wanted to talk about the news story...

First, was it a slow news day in San Fransisco?  Was there nothing else negative happening in real estate for the paper?  The reason I say this is two-fold.  Not only is there some sort of perverse desire on the parts of some in the media to constantly have a negative real estate story in the news, but this one isn't even that strong. 

Next, if one makes a plausible, but vague prediction, and then attaches no time frame to it, it will probably come true.  I can predict that the stock market will hit 20,000 as well as say that it will suffer a 10% correction.  In the next several years, both of those will come true.  That isn't some amazing feat of prognostication.  

Finally, I see that Mr. Killelea was looking to buy a house in Berkeley in 1999.  I'm curious (and maybe one of you agents local to that market can tell me) what the prices were then, and what they are now.  Had he bought the over-priced home eight years ago, what would his position be now?  What was the median price in 1999, and what is it now?  

In conclusion, I just want to point out that it is easy to make a vague prediction with no timeline and eventually have it come close to true.  Making a specific prediction about the market, that includes a reasonable timeline is a LOT more difficult.  But, let me say here that another housing bubble is coming.  I won't say when or where, but it's coming... 

Oh yeah... Comments?  Ratings? 

I have taken a step.  In a few weeks, I'll be making a big change in my real estate career.  I'm not ready to announce it yet, but one of the parts is an all new website.  Because of the HUGE amount of content I have created do to blogging... and blogging here, I have a LOT of content to put into a site.  So, I decided to jump into the world of CMS.  I finally was able to set up a test with Joomla, and I think I am really going to like this. 

While I know that I probably should hire someone to handle my website, I'm not going to... :P

I will be hiring a designer to build a custom template, and possibly also to design a new logo and some other portions for the new business plan, I will remain the one responsible for content and implementation.  Because I know that I will be updating and adding content frequently (if I migrate my blog to this platform, it will be updated almost daily), I know that I have to learn how to handle some of these responsibilities.  

In the mean time, I just realized that I will be migrating a SERIOUS load of content.  I have 125 blog posts here.  Many of those posts are suitable as articles and content on my new site.  That is a LOT of stuff to get set up and categorized on the new site.   

Don't worry, updates and progress reports will appear here first.   

Last week I posted up a couple of entires about cool garage stuff.  One of the items was a fridge make-over kit that seems to have disappeared.  While trying to find it again, I wandered over to Northern Tool's website.  I was pretty sure I had found the fridge kit there previously, but it wasn't there... but there was some more cool stuff I couldn't just pass by.

Need a cool drink?  Of course, don't forget a cool opener for your beverages.  And, if you need to mix your drinks, don't rely on spotty, weak electrical power... power your blender with GAS.  

Of course, no self-respecting garage geek would be proud of an undecorated garage.  We decorate the every other room in the house... why not get a little decor for the garage, too.   Drag racing Christmas tree lights, or cool neon would be a great addition.  Maybe a racing hood would be cool.  BTW, Northern Tool has a great series of ads that are all guy-centric.  These hoods have the tag lines from some of their ads.  

Of course, don't forget that you also need to store things on shelves, as well as have a little hanging room for welding helmets and jackets, as well as some of those other clothes that really don't need to come into the rest of the house. 

Enjoy.

This morning, the NAR kindly sent me this little update through the Real Estate Insights eNewsletter.  It explains, quite well, the steps that we will need to move through before the market stabilizes, both locally and nationally.  And then, this afternoon, in my REALTOR(R) Magazine Daily Online, I got this story. 

Both have something underlying that I think is very important.  Congress needs to stay out of the mortgage meltdown issue.  While there might be a need for revision of the jumbo loan limits for some high priced markets, anything beyond that will have unintended consequences that would be bad for the housing market.  (BTW, unintended consequences seems to be my comment theme of the day)  In the second story, there is a mention of Barney Frank calling for more regulation of the mortgage market.  He feels it would increase confidence... and it may.  But, it would also increase compliance costs, and slow funding.  And, as we know from the myriad of regulations that abound for everything the government want to protect, those that mean to be unethical will still be unethical.  Those that are hell-bent on buying something they can't afford, will... and they'll still default.  But, there will be those on the margin that won't be able to buy their dream home because there is another point of interest, since the regulation means more costs for the lender.  

And, as well highlighted in the first linked article, the correction is underway.  Before Congress could even think of acting, the market started to fix itself.  Is it going to hurt people?  Absolutely.  Will it hurt people that were responsible in selecting appropriately priced homes and financing products?  Not so much.  Mostly, the people that will be hurt are those that used products that they didn't understand to buy houses they really couldn't afford.  Some did it in ignorance, but many just didn't care or didn't think through the logical conclusion of their actions. 

Am I mean to say so?  Maybe.  But, that doesn't mean I'm wrong.  

The good news is that the needed steps are happening (without Congress critters, thank you very much) and the housing market is correcting.  Deals are staring smart buyers right in the face, and those deals are selling.  As we look in the rear-view mirror of market reports, we can see that the worst is over in many places... and other places still may have some correcting to do. 

I like to hang it out on my market reports.  For Gwinnett County, I'm calling the bottom of this cycle to be in the next six months.  Of course, I might not really see it for a month or two after it passes.  And, if something wild happens, all bets are off.   

I previously covered Buyer's Markets and what they meant for both buyers and sellers.  Feel free to look over that blog entry in conjunction with this one. 

Before I dive into talking about a Seller's Market, I want to cover a neutral market very quickly.  When there isn't a Buyer's Market or a Seller's Market, there is a neutral market.  It lasts about 13 minutes, and just about never in more than one block of property in the country can be in a neutral market at any given time.  So... on we go.

There are a few markets, and micro-markets (Thank you Jennifer Bukaty for that term) around the country that are in Seller's Market's even now.  Despite the loud whining sound coming out of national media and others, there are places where seller's are outnumbered by buyers seeking their property.   And, that is the definition of a Seller's Market.  A few years ago in southern California, buyers would bid over list price in order to have a shot at buying a property.  Sometimes one could actually flip a property without improving it simply because the values were moving up so quickly. 

Obviously, as with the Buyer's Market, in a Seller's Market there will be pockets based on price or area that are less popular.  Right now, for example, because of the sub-prime mortgage issues, the tightening of credit, and the $417,000 government backing cap, there are cool spots in the hottest of markets.  Properties over $500,000, and properties under $150,000 are less attainable, so they are less hot. 

So, we've established that a Seller's Market gives sellers more power when dealing with buyers.  But, why do we have a Seller's Market in the first place?  Well, there can be a lot of contributing factors.  Some of them would include:

• coming off of a buyer's market, the release of "pent up demand" triggers a lot of buyers hitting the market at the same time
  
• local jobs increases, large employer relocating to the area or opening a new facility
  
• loosening mortgage market
• falling mortgage rates

Of course, that list isn't complete, there will always be new and unique factors that will present to launch the market into a hot market.  Sometimes it seems that nothing triggers it and it just happens, but generally there are factors listed above that moved the market. 

So, Lane, I'm selling my house... what does all of this mean?

What it means to a buyer is that you may be in the driver's seat.  Assuming your house is in good condition, staged well, and is desirable, marketing is easier, and pricing will be higher than it might be otherwise.  Of course, if the property is priced too high, there will be less activity, and you might have your own little bad market.  You can be sure that if your house is sitting in a strong Seller's Market, buyers will wonder why.  They may even steer away from it.  Going for the throat with aggressive (high) pricing may actually hurt you.  

Ok, Lane, I'm a buyer and this is a tough market.  What can I do?

Be ready to buy.  Get your financing in order.  Mentally and financially prepare yourself to offer on a home that you like.  It really is that simple.  In a strong Seller's Market, many desirable properties will sell in days.  If you have a good search set up with your agent, you will know about the property quickly, but so will other prospective buyers.  Beat them to the table and present a strong offer.  Strength isn't always price (although that is a definite factor).  It can also be the solidity of financing, as well as (lack of) other contingencies.