My Real Estate Weekend in Review

Hitting rewind…

Martinis contain alcohol.

Saturday night was the annual Taste of the Ranch event to benefit Scripps Ranch High School. Did I remember to take a photo to memorialize the festivities? No. That is because Lisa Yates, one of our Buyers’ Specialists, and I were assigned the late shift duties at the Prudential-sponsored Martini Bar. At 9:00 pm it became painfully obvious that the agent charged with securing the ingredients had over-purchased. What are two charming and perky bartenders to do? Answer: Consume the overage. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly a blur of Mach-speed productivity on Sunday. A younger girl could have rallied.

I would really like to write an offer but…

A client this weekend expressed interest in writing an offer on a property. Like any good agent, the first thing I did was call the listing agent. Are there any other offers? What are the possession considerations? Are there any disclosure issues we should be aware of? What’s up with that assessment? These were my thoughts which, unfortunately, remain unspoken. And the offer remains unwritten.

A phone call to the listing agent (I got voice mail) revealed that any inquiries should be directed to “Agent #2″ as shown in the MLS. Fair enough. This is a busy, busy agent. It is 24 hours later, and I am still waiting on a call from Agent #2, who apparently is also a very busy, busy agent. Now that I think about it, I might have seen them both at my martini bar.

I would like to sell my home but…

I attempted to schedule appointments Friday afternoon in anticipation of showing an out-of-town client homes on Saturday. Simple enough.

Six homes, and three were listed as “shown by appointment only.” Good grief. The average market time for homes offered for sale in San Diego County this morning is 103 days, according to the Sandicor Multiple Listing Service. We know it is actually much longer, as this does not reflect the churning that takes place in a sluggish selling environment. Each time a home is canceled, withdrawn or expired and relisted, the odometer resets to zero.

Home #1: Saturday, it turns out, is not a good day. Market time = 119 days.
Home #2: Two calls to the agent and no return call (still), thus no appointment. We drove by, and my client really thought it looked appealing. She is now on a plane back to Seattle, and this property is still on the market. Market time = 87 days.
Home #3: Success! Owner sat on sofa and watched television while we took the self-guided tour. Market time = 92 days.

Of the three homes which subscribed to the more traditional method of allowing access, “call first/use lockbox,” the average market time is 14 days. A coincidence? Nah.

It never rains in Southern California.

It never rains unless you have a new listing to photograph. Turn-me-sideways wind and torrential downpours ensued late last week and continue. Marketing waits for no one, so the professional photographer did her thing while I dutifully held her umbrella, the result being exterior photos which look as if we were knee-deep in nuclear winter. Can I amend the property description to read, “Light and Bright - I SWEAR!”?

Have you seen this sign?

We are going green-er. This month we began using (more expensive) recycled paper on all of our brochures. This month we also rolled out our “Going Green” program in which all yard signs will carry a supplemental placard explaining the option of foregoing the big tree-killing brochure in favor of a “web card” containing the property vitals and the link to the property web site.

Great plan. Exciting plan. Environmentally responsible plan. The problem is that the signs I ordered in November have still not arrived. Well, they did arrive once, but they lacked the necessary holes whereby they could actually be affixed to the sign post. Not wanting to carry a nail gun, or even a glue gun, in my trunk for the remainder of my career, I insisted that they be reproduced. The second batch, it seems, was loaded onto the delivery truck “some time last month” but “got lost somewhere” during the five-mile trip to my office.

I am mounting a public awareness campaign involving milk cartons and leaflets, and perhaps the Today Show. I want my signs back!

 Fast forward…

So, it’s Monday morning, and a new week full of new opportunities awaits me. It’s still raining. The link to my digital monsoon-day photos has finally arrived. 404 Error. Aargh!

I miss the martini bar already.