Looking Out From the Garage: April 2008

... or at least I do. 

There are always a few toys I have my eye on, and here are the current toys I want... (my wife won't let me get any of them... yet).

I tend to be a "love it or hate it" kind of guy.  The first item on my wish list is one of those things that people love or hate.  There aren't many that just see it.  It evokes the fabulous Indian Chief motorcycles of the 1940 (and the more recent revivals).  It has all of the modern touches like fuel injection and shaft drive... but looks 60 years old... I love it.  This one is available on Ebay for another few hours.

The original is also available...  A 1947 Indian Chief.  Honestly, I'd rather have an original, but they are SO expensive, and not nearly as ridable.  But you do have almost a week to pony up for it.

Since we are in the 1940s, lets add a serious icon.  I don't think any other vehicle can claim to have affected the world we live in as much as the GP/GPW.  This is a beautiful example of a 1944 Ford built Jeep (GPW).  There are a couple more days to bid.  As a side note, in 2002, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) displayed a Jeep as part of their automotive design exhibit.

The next soft spot in my head is period hot rods.  Some call them rat rods.  This one is FAR from ratty.  It is a 1940 Ford truck that has been mildly massaged.  I just love the idea of a tuned flathead Ford V-8. 

To wrap up the offerings... a Prowler.  A lot of people had no idea that Plymouth went out with a bang.  While the Viper was stealing the show, the little division at Chrysler built a real street rod. 

The Prowler was built for a couple of years around 2000, and a sales flop.  But, I think that it will be a collector's item in the not too distant future.  It has love it or hate it styling.  Low production numbers. 

This one is available here.   

Of course, there are 1000 other cars and vehicles I'd love to have in my stable... let's just say that Jay Leno has made a good start.   

This week's anthology starts with Sunday's videos.  Just a couple of old favorites.  One is an award winning short film showing Pike's Peak.  The other is a kicking compilation of Kamaz and other trucks competing around the world in events like Dakar.

As I promised, I worked over del.icio.us Links are now posted... and updated, tagged and organized my link collection.  I'll be adding to it as I surf about in search of blog topics and articles for my website.  Feel free to jump into my network there.

After a conversation with a consumer, I came to the realization that if you are even thinking of Selling your house? Buy your domain!  There are just too many ways that you can be short-circuited with your homes address URL. 

I put together a simple Garage wish list that could be a great guide to builders or people that might be thinking about building an additional garage.  Many of these would incur little additional cost at the time of construction or design. 

Social Networking websites are all of the buzz.  So many places to be... so little time is my recap of where I am active and where I am just a background presence.  I'm working to keep it updated as things change.

Is Atlanta, GA good for entrepreneurs?  The Kauffman Index has an opinion...

The wrap up post this week asks the question:  What is my agent doing to sell my home?  Or at least it poses the question and gives sellers anywhere some good ideas of what their agent SHOULD be doing.   

I was lax about pictures this week... sorry.   

While coming home from ice skating with my son today, I drove by a listing.  It looked kind of interesting.  Pretty yard, nice area.  It made me a bit curious...

So, when I got home and my son was taking his nap, I looked it up on the MLS.  I'm not going to discuss the price because it is not material.  I didn't run comps to see how well priced it was for the neighborhood, but my gut tells me it is close.  

But what I saw was completely unacceptable.  I sure hope there is a reason, but I really can't come up with one.  Here are some of the issues.

• One picture for the listing.  This listing wasn't new... but there was just one picture.  No virtual tour or documents. 
  
• And the picture was lousy.  During the winter here, grass goes dormant and turns brown.  I saw a house with beautiful green grass and pink azaleas.  I saw a picture of dead grass and boring shrubs. 
  
• Did the agent try to at least make it SOUND good?  Nope.  No "Private Remarks", thus wasting that space, and the "Public Remarks" area wasn't fully utilized. 
  
• I don't think buyers are looking for "fmy rm, ldy rm and grt rm." 
• I know there weren't any flyers... because there wasn't a flyer box.
  

I wish I could say that this was a discounter.  But I can't.  This was a listing from a full service broker.  

That agent didn't do the job.  And that is unacceptable.  And I can't call the seller up and ask them what the deal is, either...  Who is that protecting?  

I had a conversation with another agent last week.  She told me that she is pulling back on the marketing of her listings because "nothing is selling, so I'm not going to spend money and time on them."  Do you think she used that in her listing presentation?  

That agent isn't doing the job.  And that is unacceptable.  And I can't call the sellers up and ask them what they think of that, either...  Who is that protecting? 

That is no way to treat a client.  That is no way to run a business.  I don't treat my clients that way.  I don't run my business that way.  It ticks me off that I get colored with the same crayon that they do.

That is one of the most frequent questions I get.  Lots of folks want a big garage, and they wonder what is available. 

I did my last update a couple of weeks ago on LaneBailey.com.  At that time, I highlighted a couple of the properties.  Of course there is a little bit of inventory change every day, so I thought I would revisit and see what might be different.  One caveat.  Because of MLS rules, I can't really promote a listing without written permission of the listing agent and seller.  So, instead I will just highlight some in a general way. 

• There are currently 142 listings in Gwinnett County that show a 4+ car garage, down from 148 on 4/10.
• The median price (half higher, half lower) is $744,500.
• The high and low prices are unchanged at $8.5m and $129,900.
• The majority of the properties have a four car capacity.
• The most common arrangement is 2 car attached and 2 car detached.

Lets also take a quick look at the distribution before hitting some of the individual properties.

• 10 homes under $200k
• 5 homes from $200k - $300k
• 13 homes from $300k - $400k
• 16 homes from $400k - $500k
• 11 homes from $500k - $600k
• 15 homes from $600k - $700k
• 5 homes from $700k - $800k
• 7 homes from $800k - $900k
• 3 homes from $900k - $1m
• 13 homes from $1m - $1.5m
• 17 homes from $1.5m - $2m
• 15 homes from $2m - $3m
• 6 homes from $3m - $4m
• 7 homes above $4m

I wrote about the very top of the line last time, so let's back down just a little. 

Priced just a touch under $7m, we have an incredible manor home built in limestone.  It has a 6 car garage as well as 7 bedrooms and 9 full baths and a half bath.  Smart Home Systems and technology abound.  Spa, gym, wine cellar, bar... Home Theater... All of the cool stuff. 

Getting a bit closer to earth for a lot more people, how about a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with a 4 car garage.  It is a possible short sale, and the seller is out.  There aren't many pictures in the MLS... just one.  It sits on about a half acre, and also has a great room with a fireplace and a sunroom and rac room. 

For just under $1.9m, you can get a brick and stone home with golf course frontage at Sugarloaf Country Club.  It is still listed as under contruction, but looks to be a magnificent home in a well established luxury community. 

Reduced from $499,900 to $450,000, we have a house with a 2 car attached and 2 car detached home in Lawrenceville.  Five bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths.   It also has a pool and a pool house/guest house.  Hardwood floors, whirlpool tub.  It looks like a great house.  

Our middle home today is priced at $739,900, but armed with a recent appraisal of $825,000.  7 bedrooms, and 5 1/2 baths, with a 4 car garage, this brick and stone home has nature trails behind it and sits on a 1.7 acre lot.  It also sits back on a long driveway, 400' from the road. 

That gives you an idea of what you can find in Gwinnett County if you are looking for a home with a 4+ car garage.  Feel free to call me with any questions. 

So, I announced a while ago that I was building a Social Networking Strategy.  Well, part of that strategy is integrating all of the various networks so that consumers can follow me from one to another.  If they find me on Twitter, I want them to know about my blog.  If they find me on YouTube, I want them to know how to catch me on Twitter.  If they find my blog, I want them to be able to catch my channel on YouTube... 

So, to that end, here are all of my Social Media outlets, with commentary:

• ActiveRain.  User: LaneBailey.  My blog is called Looking out from the garage and I am on there just about every day. 
  
• YouTube.  User: LaneOnRock.  My channel has almost nothing to do with real estate... but there are some fun videos.  I need to spend some more time surfing videos... and I'm going to call it work ;^D
• EzineArticles.  User: Lane_Bailey.  I have a few articles published.  I probably have a bunch of other blog posts that could be worked over... I haven't been active there for a while. 
  
• Squidoo.  Lens: Garage Homes.  I would recommend taking 30 minutes and setting up a lens (page) and then letting it ride.  Being more active will net more, but having the lens will generate Google Juice. 
  
• GBR 4WD Club Forum.  User: JeepOnRock.  I'm there all of the time.  I'm the President of the club and the admin for the forum.  As long as I'm hitting 4wd clubs... I'm JeepOnRock on OC4WD, SouthernJeeps, Pirate4x4, and the JCCA. 
  
• del.icio.us.  User: LaneBailey.  This is the one I am starting to dig in to.  It has a lot of potential.  I have loaded a few hundred links on here and they are all over the place from real estate to cars. 
  
• Twitter.  User: LaneBailey.  I am on here each day, but it is at odd times.  I have both of my blogs feeding public posts here.  This also holds a lot f promise...
• LaneBailey.com.  It's my blog, so I don't need a username.  It's all me. 
  
• GarageHomesUSA.  That would be my website. 
  
• WellcomeMat.  User: Lane Bailey.  I don't have any videos up here, but I will in the next few weeks. 
  
• Linked-In.  User: Lane Bailey.  This is one of the Social Networks that I will be more active in over the next few months. 
  
• MySpace.  User: Lane Bailey/GeorgiaGarageHomes.  I joined here a long time ago, and had been posting my blogs there.  Now I have a widget with my LaneBailey blog on it. 
  
• FaceBook.  Use Lane Bailey.  I joined here a few months ago, and have NOT really leveraged this site.  I do have a blog widget there.
  

If I can think of any more places that I am active, I will post them up. 

If you would like to join my networks on any of these sites, just let me know, or send me an invitation.  

***Added Linked-In and WellcomeMat.*** 

***How could I forget FaceBook and MySpace?  I did... they are added now.*** 

Since it is Earth Day, I needed to toss on an orange shirt and be as "not Green" as I could.. just for fun... 

Let's move on to oil, oil reserves and drilling.  I already did one on Anthropomorphic Global Warming...

Here are a few fun facts that we can watch get spun today.   

• The largest importer of oil to the US is Canada.  The are reputed to have 179.2B barrels of provable reserves.
• At their current rate, those reserves will hold out 182 years.  
  
  • Oddly, the same source says that 95% are in oil sand... but they don't include the oil shale in the US
• The US has 21B barrels and can pump 12 more years at current rates.
• The US uses 21M barrels a day...
  
  • We could last about 1000 DAYS if we didn't get oil from anywhere else... if we could pump the oil out fast enough.
• The US found another 3-4.5B barrels in ND/MT just this month.  That isn't included in the above number.
• Also not included in the above number is oil shale... and we have A LOT of it.  We have 2,500B barrels.  We could run the US oil supply for 110 years with no oil imports. 
  
  • Just to give you an idea, this is more oil that has been used since the discovery of oil...
    
  • Estimates say that oil needs to be at $75/barrel for it to be economically recoverable. 
    
• ANWR (also not included in the above number) contains between 5.7 and 16B barrels of oil.  The mean (10.4B barrels) would let us cut off "unfriendly" oil for a decade or two...
• China and Cuba have announced plans to drill off the south coast of FL (in the straights) for the 4.6-9.3B barrels of oil there.  Much of it actually lies in US waters, but they can use "slant drilling" to recover the oil.  Florida won't let us drill for the same oil.
• There are also a few billion barrels off the west coast of FL... that they won't let us go after. 
  

Using these data (estimated reserves: 800 billions of barrels, world consumption: 76 millions per day), it looks like planet Earth has have oil for about 10,000 days, i.e. about 27 years. Assuming that consumption does not increase... If consumption increases an average 5% a year, then we have oil for about 15 years. But the US Geological Survey estimates the amount of oil that is still to be found at about 3 trillions, three times the oil reserves known today (it is not clear if "all" that oil can actually be pumped to the surface and therefore used). The real issue is when will production be insufficient to cover demand? That largely depends on demand, not on reserves.Source

Wikipedia Oil Reserves

China Drilling 

Gulf of Mexico Reserves get a bump

ANWR Drilling Wiki

I guess that is enough picking on Earth Day... 

And it isn't pretty...

While rolling through Twitter this morning, I came across a Twit by Jay Thompson.  He is a guy I like and respect, and he was busy being VERY pissed off, so I followed it back to see what the hubbub was about...

Enter the Redfin blog and Carol Hian.  She had decided to do a whiny hatchet job on Kris Berg and her canned food drive... ostensibly because of Kris mentioning that Redfin was moving away from its original business model towards one that is more conventional.   

I don't think she really had a clue as to what she was doing.  She fired up the RE net.  

Jay Thompson's PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com post. 

Daniel Rothamel's Real Estate Zebra Blog post. 

Joseph Ferrara's Sellsius Blog post.  

Mummy Dog's Blog post.  

Sara Bonnert of Zillow writing here. 

In the comments you can see the heavy hitters of the RE.net lining up again Ms. Hian.  Greg Swan (Bloodhound Blog), Joseph Ferrara (Sellsius), Bob Stewart (Active Rain), Brad Nix (MaxSell and REtechSouth), Daniel Rothamel (Real Estate Zebra), Jay Thompson (PhoenixRealEstateGuy), Bawldguy... Now even Glenn Kelman (Redfin).  

Bad move...

Feel free to post links to other blog posts about this subject.   

Edited to add more blog post links.  

And I can't let it go unnoticed.

All day long, we are going to be bombarded by rampant environmentalism and the dangers of Anthropomorphic Global Warming (AGW). I just wanted to toss a little reality back into the discussion... just so that there would be balance.

"Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are..."

former Vice President Al Gore

(now, chairman and co-founder of Generation Investment Management--

a London-based business that sells carbon credits)

(in interview with Grist Magazine May 9, 2006, concerning his book, An Inconvenient Truth)

"No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits.... Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."

Christine Stewart, Minister of the Environment of Canada
recent quote from the Calgary Herald

Once again it is time for a re-cap of the posts for the last week. 

The traditional videos were posted on Sunday, Air Video Sunday.  This week the focus was on aerobatics and stunt flying.

On Monday, I hit my morning news and saw a story about an AOL/AP poll of consumers about their attitude towards real estate.  As much as I hate to play the media bias card, They really worked to make the story negative by having a negative title and burying the positive aspects of the story.  Here's a deal...

This might actually help... with the problem of borrowers walking away from their homes and their loans.  And it is going to make some people really mad.  Of course, I don't think that many are thinking of the unintended consequences of allowing banks to get soaked on these loans... things like increased down payments and much harder to get loans. 

I signed up to be on the front edge of a new IDX property feed a few weeks ago.  So, WooHoo... New Property Search.  It is now set up and active on the GarageHomesUSA website.   

Want coverage for your car show?  I want to come out and video the people and the cars, and post the videos and photos on my blog and website.  Call me.  Email me... whatever.   

Do you Del.icio.us?  It is a social networking site built around bookmarking websites.   There will be a lot of car and real estate ralted websites and they wil be tagged for easy searching... and I'll be inviting contributions as well. 

I am getting ready to launch A different kind of property marketing...  There are a few real estate agents across the country that are doing these things... and there is about to be one more.   

I think there is one thing that many real estate agents... and many sellers... forget when building a marketing plan for a house. 

The intended audience has a population of one... 

And that doesn't just mean the advertising and copy-writing.  It can even mean the presentation of the home.  Staging.  Decor.  

Street of Dreams v. Assimilation Acres

If you've ever been to the Street of Dreams or any of the other events where decorators have Carte Blanche to do as the wish in extravagant homes, you will notice that as the crowds wander through the homes, there is disagreement about the coolest house.  Even within the house, there will be disagreements about the coolest room. 

There are two needed ingredients for a disagreement... One person has to really like it.  Another doesn't.   

Contrast that with a model home in a subdivision full of similar homes.  No strong emotions.  This one is ok... that one isn't bad... the other one wasn't great.  What I often hear is "With a little ___, this place would be nice."

People tend to not get too bent out of shape over them... or to think they have stumbled into heaven.  

Why the difference?

In one case, the decorator is only really trying to please one person, herself.  In the other, the decorator doesn't want to offend anyone.  In one case, the desire and drive is to please.  In the other, it is to not offend.  In both cases, the decorators achieved exactly what they set out to do.  But the results are very different. 

So, I'm not selling the Street of Dreams...

But, you are looking for one person or family for your property.  Maybe that person is an auto enthusiast.  Maybe they are a cook.  That person might want a darkroom... or an incredible playset.  Maybe they hate yardwork... or maybe they don't think a house is complete without a garden.  

Each of these people is going to want something specific in a house.  No house will appeal to all of them.  No amount of neutral paint is going to overcome a one car garage...  Or a tiny kitchen.  But, putting that property in front of the people that are likely to buy it because of its uniqueness... that is a valid way to find the buyer.  

There are limits...

Sure, for someone that really wants a 6 car garage is going to make the house with the 6 car garage really stand out.  But, if the rest of the house DOES offend, it could de-rail the sale.  So, there is a balance. 

The key is to find the "unique selling proposition" of an individual property.  Play that USP up.  Write about it.  Take pictures (you can't guess how many homes with 8 car garages have zero pictures of any garage in the listing or virtual tour) of the USP.  The rest of the property needs to be properly staged to appeal to those that are interested in the USP.  The copy for ads should be written based on the USP.  

We will have a lot more information like this at our upcoming Seller Seminar.  Feel free to contact me for details.