Open House

Blogging about real estate can be challenging these days. There is so much negativity in the press and in our daily dealings that the temptation is to dwell on the stuff that ires. The “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” post is not only more elusive this year, but on the entertainment scale of zero to tell-me-more, rants are both more fun to write and to read.

I have made a personal decision to limit my trips to Downer Town here.

But, there are some things that just must be said, which is why this morning we introduce and welcome a new guest writer - Brek Rigs.

Why are some people just so mean? by Brek Rigs

Why are some people just so mean? While I will go out on a limb and hold to my belief that most people are genuinely honest and decent and caring of their fellow man, two stories were related to me recently which reminded me that I need to get out more.

Last weekend, one of our buyers’ agents a buyers’ agent was putting up her Open House signs in preparation for the Sunday ritual event. This is a hard-working agent who is simply trying to make a living, and for the pleasure of working on this beautiful day (the Sabbath for many) while others were enjoying family and leisure activities, one lucky babysitter was being paid handsomely.

As a refresher, there is nothing glamorous about life as the Open House host or hostess. People breeze in and out for three hours, a large number of whom are as happy to see the Greeter as they were to get the audit letter from the IRS. We Agents understand this. Anyone who has had to tell their eighteenth Nordstrom sales associate within a sixteen-second span that they are “just looking” can relate. Open House guests can be a battle-weary bunch. Having signed in to dozens of guest registers and recounted their story (”We are thinking about moving to San Diego in 2027 if we get the job”) to dozens of agents within their first hour on tour, they can quickly become a testy bunch.

But, we the agent holding the open house is simply trying to do their job, and part of that job is getting the directional signs in place prior to the sounding bell. Nothing says ”sexy” like hopping in and out of a 90-degree idling car, dressed in your big girl (or boy) business clothes, while attempting to relocate dozens of unwieldy signs and sharp, poke-y metal stakes from your backseat to various street corners and to sounds of car horns and screeching brakes with the rush of the wind from oncoming traffic in your previously perfect but now, sweat-soaked hair. Agents leave their homes looking like a billboard for John Frieda and arrive at the Open House looking like Bob Marley.

Back to the signs themselves. We utilize I am told that there are two varieties of Open House signs. One is the traditional stake sign, and they simply need be stuck into the ground.  In Scripps Ranch, “ground” is best pictured as Mr. Slate’s rock quarry, only harder. There is a horizontal metal area at the base of the stake (just above the sharp, poke-y things now credited with having scratched all interior sides of your Agent-Mobile and having ripped the several holes in your plush leather seats); this is where the agent stands on the ball of her stiletto-clad foot and teeters with all her weight in the off chance that this will be the spot where the stake penetrates Mars. She will repeat this process until the parkway looks like a scene from Caddyshack.

The other type of sign is gaining in popularity, this being the sandwich, or A-frame, sign. You can fit exactly one of these in your backseat. I One agent who drives a Volkswagen Beetle has found that the only way to deliver these to their destination is to put the top down on her convertible, which brings us back to Bob Marley, only now we are talking more Don King.

So it was that our this buyers’ agent was attempting to place the A-frame sign at a busy but critical intersection prior to her Open House last Sunday. She parked, engine running, in a bike lane for the eight seconds it would take her to avoid being killed dead (Cause of death: Runned-overness) and off-load the sign. Enter biker. Now, granted, she was temporarily stopped in a bike lane which, technically, is illegal. But, then, so is jaywalking, yet I suspect we have all been a one-man crime wave in this regard at some point. For her to have parked legally and accomplish the task would have required a bus pass and at least one transfer.

Biker (in a very loud voice): “You are parked in a bike lane. That is illegal!”
Agent: “I am sorry.”
Biker (in her face): “You are not!”
Agent: “Yes, I am! I am sorry, but I am just here for a minute, and I had no place else to stop (except Tucson).”
Biker: “No, you’re not!”

Well, you get it. The end of the story is that she returned three hours later to retrieve her sign only to find that it had be ripped from the A-frame and thrown in the southbound lanes of what Traffic Engineers refer to as a Four-Lane Primary Arterial. It had been run over multiple times and trashed beyond recognition. Now she had to pay a babysitter and pay for a new sign. While being mean is not a crime, destruction of property is, at least the last time I checked.

My parents were married on April 15th. My father always said this about their choice: “The day was already shot, so we figured we might as well get married.” This is how I one agent felt when she checked her voice mail this Sunday evening. She would have taken the call directly, but she had been on another call and has found it generally poor form to hang up on one person on the off chance that the new caller will be a better conversationalist.

Caller: ” I was interested in one of your properties, but I don’t have time for this sh*&.” Click.

Note to mean person: That was mean.

photo credit: MoBikeFed

SAN DIEGO - Several unconfirmed reports were received Sunday of an open house visitor posing as a genuine, qualified home buyer. This man, claiming to be “unrepresented”, allegedly approached agents at several homes in one inland neighborhood inquiring about schools, property taxes and jumbo loan interest rates.

While the typical open house attendee is “just looking” or “has a friend”, this individual claimed to have actual interest in making a purchase and in finding an agent to represent him, thereby raising the suspicions of the open house greeters he encountered.

“Sure, he wants to buy a home”, said one agent as she removed her cinnamon rolls from the oven. “And, I am Mary, Queen of Scots. What does he take me for, a chump?”

“He said that he doesn’t have an agent. Naturally, my radar immediately went up”, said another alert Neighborhood Specialist. “Are you telling me that this guy didn’t trip over three licensed relatives on the way out the door this morning? I told him to get lost.”

One subdivision’s Realtor for Life wasn’t fooled. “If he was who he said he was, he wouldn’t have asked a bunch of stupid questions. No serious buyer tries to engage me in a trivial conversation about the process. No serious buyer cares about the price. Ask me how long the home has been on the market, ask me if the seller is motivated, or ask me if the ”faux finnish paint” I wrote about on the flyer was applied by actual Finns. Then, I know you are serious. By the way, I heart referrals!”

“While he stopped short of acknowledging my existence, he was brazen enough to make actual eye contact”, said one Top Producer who is also a member of the Plutonium Exalted Order of the Reverent Divine President’s Legacy Circle Club. “I shoved a free list of homes and a calendar magnet in his clinched fists and sent him on his way.”

The local Rookie of the Year said she felt victimized and utterly defenseless. “When I dutifully executed the body block maneuver at the front stoop as I was taught, knocking him to the ground while simultaneously thrusting a pen and contract into his hands, I could tell I was dealing with a professional. When I asked if he was working with an agent, he said “No”. There are some things your training simply does not prepare you for!”

Witnesses describe the man as of medium height and build. He was last seen driving a mini-van sporting a “My Child Was Student of the Month” sticker and is possibly armed with a Zestimate and the Sunday paper. Police are advising homeowners and agents to take routine safety precautions. “If a visitor fails to show utter contempt for the agent or begins to speak positively about a home’s features, it is likely a ruse. Contact authorities immediately”.

Why is that strange family in my master bedroom?

This quote from Leslie Appleton-Young, CAR’s chief economist, in this morning’s San Diego Union Tribune:

For sellers, because inventory is so much higher than it was a couple of years ago, the advice is don’t list your home for sale unless you are really interested in selling your home.

This is a highly complex economic strategy written in technical economist speak, so let’s summarize in lay-terms. Take this simple test to determine if the time is right for you to list your home for sale.

• I want to sell my home. a)True b)False

If you answered (a), “True”, you should offer your home for sale.

Tomorrow, Ms. Appleton-Young will be addressing the tricky business of the home purchase. “Do not buy a home unless you want to buy a home.”

Real estate forensics

There is more from our paper’s Currents section this morning:

Hair shafts taken from 10 of the giant beasts yielded a surprising amount of undamaged genetic material, even from one specimen that had been sitting in a room-temperature museum exhibit for 200 years.

Those open houses just seem to drag on forever! If the owners were only really interested in selling, the woolly mammoth could have closed up early and caught the end of the Chargers game. Or, maybe it was the buyers who were the problem.

Long in the tusk

Speaking of the open house, while I have flopped like a bad comb-over on this issue, I am now convinced that this timeworn tradition has seen its finest hour. My strongest argument in defense of the prehistoric ritual has been that the Internet has given the home buyer not the tools to render the agent extinct, but certainly the tools to get a jump-start on the process. We know that buyers are doing more research on their own and finding the need to personally view fewer homes before making a purchase as a result. Consequently, I am also seeing buyers wait until they are much further into the process before establishing a relationship with an agent. Therefore, the open house provides access to the uncommitted, but it is often the blind date.

The counter argument is much stronger. If the open house buyer has not committed to representation, how serious are they about making a purchase? At this point in time, not very. The motivated buyer and the buyer with agent representation will see the homes they want to see with or without a Sunday open door policy. Just maybe, by virtue of the buyer taking a few extra, inconvenient steps to secure a viewing (like making a phone call and scheduling an appointment), they will be demonstrating sincerity and commitment.

Extending courtesies

This, from a phone call to one of our buyer’s agents recently:

Buyer: “I would like to see the house.”
Agent: “Are you working with an agent?”
Buyer: “Yes, I have an agent.”
Agent: “Then why don’t you have your agent show you the home?”
Buyer: “I’m not that serious yet. I don’t want to bother her.”

So, my advice (and since Ms. Appleton-Young just may have the makings of a book, I authorize reprint without permission) is this:

If you don’t want to be a museum exhibit for the next 200 years, do not sentence yourself to open houses. If the buyer wants to see your home, it has been exposed to the world on the Internet and through the Multiple Listing Service, you have a yard sign and shiny brochures detailing every feature to attract attention, you have a website linking photos and tours and your floor plan, and you have an agent aggressively promoting to those who want to purchase a home like yours.

That is, unless you hired the giant beast.