February 2008

 Now that Kris has documented her deteriorating physical condition to the world (see previous Post), the sympathy messages are pouring in. The least I can do is pitch in around the home-front while she is swimming in the depths of self pity and feeling really icky. The really sick part about this is what she would appreciate most from me right now - A substitute blog post. Off the bench I come.

I usually don’t do well under this kind of severe pressure, but I have about 15 minutes to pull this off before she drags herself back into our office and starts another post. If I am successful, I may get her to go back to bed and have a chance at tomorrow.

So this is my opportunity to throw my hat into the ring that is already full of hats from all those who have dissed the governments economic incentive/recovery plan. Let me be the 10 millionth person to say that the rebate concept sucks and won’t work. It’s pocket change, nothing more. But it’s politically “necessary”, especially in an election year. Who would oppose it, even though it will have no more beneficial value than the Doc telling Kris to take two aspirin and call him in the morning.     

The increased conforming loan limits, now that’s another story. For San Diego it’s equivalent to an announcement that a couple of Fortune 100 companies have decided to move here (no wait, that’s nirvana). With an average sale price of over $712,000 last year (SANDICOR) it does not take a math degree to figure out that this will help a lot of people here.  Which brings me to the mortgage issue.

According to the “Average rates and indexes” (Federal Reserve Statistical Release  H-15, whatever that is) in the San Diego Union last Sunday, conforming loan rates last week were 5.51% w/1.2 points. Nonconforming loan rates were 6.53% w/1.2 points. It’s obvious that with an average savings of 1%, or more, many more buyers will be able to come off the sidelines, maybe just in time for American Homebuying Day.

What really amazed me, though, was that the FHA/VA rate was 6.58% w/1.9 points. Excuse me? Does any one else see the cruel irony? Here we have two government programs that were established first and foremost to help qualified but lower income borrowers and our veterans and they are offering loans at the highest rates around.

How about this? Maybe instead of sending $150 billion in meaningless checks out this spring, the government ought to take those funds and offer to subsidize/buy down the interest rates for the tens of thousands of veterans who have given up so much for the rest of us. BTW- In the interest of full disclosure, I proudly count myself among them. I have never been able to take advantage of my GI Bill - VA loan benefit because the rate has almost always been higher than prevailing rates. Now it’s higher than the rate for a non-conforming loan! That’s gratitude for you.

I would enjoy hearing from the mortgage experts out there who may be able to explain this. I would certainly be interested in knowing why the government is offering a “penalty” rate to our veterans. Disgraceful.  

I want to call in sick. Some days I just want to call in disinterested or buried in dirty laundry or overwhelmed by life, but today I just want to call in sick. No can do.

And I am a crummy patient. At the first sign of biological attack, my brain kicks into overdrive. Suddenly my business and personal To-Do lists take on a DEFCON 1 level of urgency. Forgetting for a moment that my baseboards haven’t been dusted since King Arthur’s rule, all I see now are layers of soil suitable for strip mining. And, forgetting that I am routinely forced to be separated from my email for, say, minutes on end, I am now certain that the human race’s long-term viability is singularly dependent on me clearing my inbox.

So, yesterday morning, I crawled to the keyboard just to tie up some loose ends. It was to be my first and last official act of the day before taking my pathetic personal germ lab back to bed where it belonged. At 3:30 in the afternoon, there I sat, still, logged on to GoogleTalk, cell phone at my side, and with twelve windows opened and email in full swing. Sick? Yes. In more ways than one, but deep down I knew that at some point I would feel better, and I would want to eat again.

Real estate waits for no one.

Sure, younger parents out there are thinking, “I can’t be sick! I have children to take care of!” But, you must remember that mine are teens, and I began ignoring them years ago - just shortly after they began ignoring me. When I do want to see them, I simply leave a trail of large-denomination bills and salty snacks leading to my whereabouts. Absent that, they have little desire to re-dock with the Mothership. Similarly, after five Presidential administrations of marriage (give or take a Bush), Steve rarely misses me unless he has a pressing need to resize a JPEG or find his wallet (in one of the girls’ rooms).

But, real estate waits for no one.

I still chortle when I hear the agents who brag about setting boundaries. “I take Thursdays off, and all calls received after 5:06 PM PDT will be returned the following business day, unless it’s a leap year.” I have found that no-nonsense, balanced approach to my business about as practical as the Chicken Soup Roll-up: A flawed delivery system.

Jeff Brown said as much this morning. As an example, Steve and I met with a couple wishing to sell their home recently. They had called another agent first (blasphemy!), but they had been offended when they got his voicemail. Hanging up on his chipper “your call is important to me” message, they called us next. And we answered. We now like to refer to this couple as “our clients.”

We know how important it is to hear a live voice, the live voice to whom one’s call is directed. That is why, if we are away from the office, our phone redirects to both Steve’s and my cell phones. Admittedly, there are times we may not be in a position to take the call; we may be in an appointment (possible), sleeping (plausible), in an area with poor cell coverage (it has happened) or in the middle of basting a tenderloin or dusting the baseboards (highly unlikely, but it could, in theory, happen). At any rate, we try to be reachable.

When I send an email, I expect a response, if not within the hour, then at least within the current lunar cycle. When I leave a message, I expect my phone call to be returned, at least before my current 2-year contract expires. And, if I am in escrow, I want my questions answered and the details attended to in a timely manner, even if my agent is channeling a Petri dish. So do my clients.

As Jeff reminds us, we are in a service industry. Read your contract: Time is of the essence. Your walk-through will happen, your loan docs will arrive, and your inspection will go on, whether or not I am feeling like a speed bump at the moment. “The” home you have been waiting for will show up on the hot sheet today, you will have showings that require feedback, and you will expect to be called when we receive confirmation of recording, as you should. Poor service shouldn’t be symptomatic of the way we conduct our business; great service should be viral.

Tomorrow, more real estate chatter. But, today, the mainstream media gives us a nod.

Bloggers wield a heavy hammer indeed.

Ann Brenoff writes this morning about bloggers in the Los Angeles Times.  In her article, she mentions a bevy of real estate blogs, and it appears I just made the cut. Page two, last paragraph - I’m the closer. Either I’m Trevor Hoffman or an afterthought. Let’s go with the baseball analogy.

Even some agents have caught the “amuse them and they will come” fever. Kris Berg’s San Diego Home Blog is a “must read” because of her Erma Bombeck-like voice.

Erma Bombeck? How funny that our little “educate and get educated project” has found this voice. My children, however, aren’t laughing.

If blogs had been around 18 years ago when I spawned my first tax deduction, I would have been a much more effective parent. Where over the years I had come to rely on tired parenting tricks to shame my children into submission, such as singing “I’m Too Sexy” very loudly in the produce aisle or threatening to wear their clothes to Back to School Night, now I just play the blog card. “Clean your room, or I will post about it!” “No, Mom, Puleeeease!”

The power is intoxicating.

Yet, as cool as the Los Angeles Times thinks I am, my own IRA-siphons think I am yesterday’s newspaper. When I proudly announced that I had finally signed up for Facebook, one daughter (with a quizzical look similar to the one she flashed when I suggested she get one of those job-thingies) wondered aloud, “Why?” When I sent my two satellites-in-perpetual-orbit-around-the-dinner-table the recent invitation to be my GoogleTalk friends, they ignored me. That is, once they had quit howling with riotous laughter.

Who needs a rubber chicken? Unless, of course, it’s the entree.

“Realtor blogs help reel in clients, boost sales” is the title of the LA Times piece. Clients? Boost sales? Now, there’s an interesting angle I hadn’t thought of!

Call me for all of your real estate needs… or I might blog about it.

Yeah - That works. (Just kidding!)

Just a brief note to my three anonymous vistors who were trying to chat with me in the past hour.  I got hungry, which necessitated a trip to the local take-out joint for a Rolled Taco Special.

I am still trying to condition myself to update my chat status when my status in fact changes. I vow to do better. Oh, and to the last guest: I am not wearing the gray sweater.

From the Associated Press as reported in the San Diego Union Tribune this morning:

LOS ANGELES  - Two California couples are suing KB Home and mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp., claiming the companies schemed with real estate appraisers to inflate prices paid for homes as the housing market began to tank… People like (these) lost up to 15 percent before they ever opened their front doors.

Honey, honey mo money.

SAN DIEGO (February 8, 2008) - Kris Berg is suing Nordstrom, claiming that the gray sweater dress she purchased in November for $68 has since been moved to the sale rack and is now offered for only $39. Berg contends that Nordstrom knew at the time of sale that this merchandise would be offered at a discount when seasonal weather patterns shifted. By the time Berg tore the price tag from the sleeve and donned the trendy item for the first time, the value, both in terms of money and fashion relevance, had diminished significantly.

But if the first two letters are ever the same, I drop them both and say the name. Like “Buck, buck drop the B’s bo uck.”

SAN DIEGO (February 8, 2006) - In a class action, the 25,294 people who sold San Diego homes in 2005, the peak of the most recent real estate boom, are suing everyone in sight, claiming that they simply made too much money.  Many, in fact, purchased their homes in 2000 with little or no down payment, and subsequently realized returns on their investments approaching infinity. Said one victim of the price run-ups, who sold his home and paid cash for a 50 acre ranch in Idaho, “It’s just not right. Who could let a thing like this happen to ordinary, hard-working people? I’m just glad I didn’t see it coming. I might have bought multiple properties.”

And that’s the only rule that is contrary.

Sunny, sunny fo funny.

And then I say the name again with an M this time, and there isn’t any name that I can’t rhyme.

President proposes $3 trillion budget.

That is this morning’s headline. I did this once, and Steve threatened to take away my credit cards.  “But I need stuff, and stuff costs a lot!” I emphatically reminded him. The harsh reality is that my life has not been measurably richer as a result of the pretty appetizer platter I most recently purchased. And the nachos, it turns out, are no happier.

Need versus want: It is a curious conundrum. Sometimes I need something because it will indisputably enhance my life (Tivo), yet most of the time the need is in fact a want driven by some primal desire to not be left out (black skinny jeans). As in the case of my questionable fashion choices, be careful what you wish for.

Web 2.0 proposes 3 trillion social networking tools.

I am currently subscribed to so many social networking sites that I have to keep a score sheet tacked to my office wall. I am LinkedIn and Plaxo-approved. I am a member of several Meet-up Groups with whom I have yet to actually meet up. I am Twitter enabled, and I have found that Twittering, like sitting around the dinner table with my children, is yet another opportunity to be affirmatively ignored. I have a Facebook account, even though I haven’t exactly gotten around to creating my page, and I GoogleTalk. I have essentially dormant accounts at YouTube, BlogTalkRadio, WellcomeMat, Zipvo, and dozens of others I can’t even remember. I was even a Trulia Voice once or twice, but it was more of a whisper.

Michael Wurzer wrote about this multi-tasking heartburn. I increasingly find myself sitting at a big old buffet with too many choices. I try them all but, in doing so, find that I am unable to savor any one offering fully. They all start to taste the same.

We maintain this blog, we contribute on others, and we still have the Scripps Ranch Home Blog, our weak attempt at hyper-local blogging, still floating around out there. All but forgotten, it still generates a comment now and then, taunting us like the middle child to pay it just some attention. Not too long ago, Steve said we should have secured the simpler ScrippsRanchBlog.com domain. “Too late,” I said. “It’s taken.” A quick trip to the Whois registry confirmed this fact. I own it. I forgot.

So, as I found myself at my keyboard yesterday simultaneously researching comps for a client, talking on the phone with one our Buyers’ Agents and carrying on an IM conversation with a blog visitor, it occurred to me that it may be time to reel it in a bit, and to regain the ability to focus on one part at a time.

Where is my pottery?

My youngest daughter told me yesterday afternoon that she was going to a sculpting class with a friend and would be home in an hour. Cool! Who knew Emily was in to the arts? I had a brief mental image of my youngest seated at a pottery wheel throwing a vase as I waved goodbye and told her to have fun.

Emily returned home in time for dinner drenched in sweat, and only when she failed to produce the much-anticipated warped ceramic bowl, did I realize that her sculpting class was in fact an exercise class. Body sculpting. Isolating the various areas of the overall body. Now I get it. I must be stretched a little thin.