[SD Realtor]

Ok guys – TRUE STORY…

So I had a client last year and she had a condo down in the South Bay right off of Sweetwater Road. At first she priced it a bit to high…. no activity… then she priced it in line with comps… sparse activity for about 7 weeks… maybe 1 person every week… just shoppers… she buried one of these statues… she even told me about it and I kind of laughed a bit…

so 3 days later she got a full price offer…

I don’t believe in any of this stuff but I can honestly say she did it and it worked.

[SD Realtor]

bgates you stated it well… you may not be interested in war but it is interested in you.

I to do not think our president is that bright, and I certainly do not agree with many of his policies. I also fear for the well being of our country as I believe the illegal immigration issue has seriously and will continue to seriously erode our infrastructure.

I really do believe that there are many people who want to see our country in ruins, and who do want to see Isreal wiped off the map of this planet. These are the same people who cheered when our nation was attacked on September 11th.

I agree with PS that more people die in the name of religion then for any other reason, however in my opinion it is our country AND ONLY OUR COUNTRY that will continue to stand up for the religous freedom that not only we enjoy, but others enjoy all over the world.

Again, I do not agree with people killed in Lebanon, or in Gaza, I have been to Isreal and visited both places. Yet I can not or will never ever sympathize with groups of people who celebrate our pain from September 11th, or deny the Holocaust, or want to wipe a race off of the map.

Even if it does mean I have to support an idiot (and yes I did vote for him) like Bush.

I also turned off the 60 minutes interview.

Why interview someone if you are going to kiss thier *ss.

[SD Realtor]

bgates you stated it well… you may not be interested in war but it is interested in you.

I to do not think our president is that bright, and I certainly do not agree with many of his policies. I also fear for the well being of our country as I believe the illegal immigration issue has seriously and will continue to seriously erode our infrastructure.

I really do believe that there are many people who want to see our country in ruins, and who do want to see Isreal wiped off the map of this planet. These are the same people who cheered when our nation was attacked on September 11th.

I agree with PS that more people die in the name of religion then for any other reason, however in my opinion it is our country AND ONLY OUR COUNTRY that will continue to stand up for the religous freedom that not only we enjoy, but others enjoy all over the world.

Again, I do not agree with people killed in Lebanon, or in Gaza, I have been to Isreal and visited both places. Yet I can not or will never ever sympathize with groups of people who celebrate our pain from September 11th, or deny the Holocaust, or want to wipe a race off of the map.

Even if it does mean I have to support an idiot (and yes I did vote for him) like Bush.

I also turned off the 60 minutes interview.

Why interview someone if you are going to kiss thier *ss.

[SD Realtor]

waiting hawk you are awesome!!! I have always hoped someone would actually start chasing down some of the homes that flip this house features to see how they actually did. This is the craftsman in No Hollywood correct?

How bout that Realtor… is she not the prototypical agent? I love the comp analysis that was done. Here are the comps in your area. She didn’t talk about expireds, cancelled, days on market, months of inventory or anything like that. Of course in these shows they NEVER do.

The guy that did the flip seems like a pretty seasoned veteran though. He did do a great job and he stuck to his schedule which you rarely see. The work is great work but I will be quite eager to see how it pans out for him.

I know there was another episode that I didn’t catch last night cuz we were on the way out with the kids. It was a home in Santa Barbara. Looked like a plane crash waiting to happen, 2 couples, each had kids, the home was like a million bucks to buy and they were gonna flip it. They seemed much less experienced then the No Hollywood guy. I didn’t know if you caught it or not.

IMO this show and others like it should have the same labelling as a pack of smokes. TLC should really think about how many people they are affecting by these types of shows.

[SD Realtor]

It was a sad day but I sold my Mammoth condo a few years back in order to help my wife put money down for her biz…We ended up taking out a business loan for the rest of it. That was back in 02 and she paid that loan off a few months ago. We thought about a home equity line for about 30 seconds.

[SD Realtor]

PS I have read the same thing that bugs elaborated on. The deal with alot of the modular homes that are factory built is that everything is built in then factory then shipped and built. So walls are all built with insulation, conduit, even plumbed. Since they are on an assembly line they are all built to a standard process that has a higher level of QA then a home built on site by construction workers. I am not saying that the construction workers to a bad job. I am saying though that assembly line construction in general has lower tolerances for error. All the walls come out the exact same size, etc… So if the slab is even then the modular house will be built in a fraction of time, generally two weeks, and yes it very often fits together better so to speak.

Also I saw the special on the architect who was designing homes out of shipping containers. Very interesting stuff.

Last but not least, lending criterion has been much more strict on manufactured homes so I believe that you will not see many foreclosures at all on manufactured housing.

My only qualm about manufactured housing as an investment is that I think it is a better investment in a ROBUST housing market so you can tap into the buyers who cannot afford the market. Now that the market is declining I feel that the entire market psychology will even extend to even touch this market as well.

Just my guess.

[SD Realtor]

irvinesinglemom do not despair. 18 months ago developers would laugh at me when I would go by and ask if they would pay a coop fee to realtors who represented buyers. Now they beg us to bring people by thier developments. I would agree with the other posts that it is simply a matter of time. The only hitch may be that Irvine may have a master plan that severely limits new development. However even with that in place, you will have your pick of the litter once the people who just bought start to get shaky. I know a young couple who bought a huge new home up there and have spent over 900k. They financed 100% and it is sad to say but they are a foreclosure waiting to happen. I am sure they will not be the only ones.

Don’t despair, just try to hang in and be patient.

[SD Realtor]

hehehehe –

Actually the confidential remarks don’t give out much. Yeah you may disclose things like, “subject to short sale” or you may disclose things like unpermitted work. You may put in special showing instructions because you don’t want to take up precious marketing space in the remarks or supplements section. You never really say will accept 50k under list price, if that is what you are implying. However you may put in remarks like “motivated seller” or “will entertain all offers”.

Also yeah if tenants had occupied the home you may put in something like, “tenants occupying so ignore the clutter” or you can put in 10k allowance for new carpet. I have some San Carlos people who have kids who have REALLY thrashed the home so I put in a little ditty about that.

Now I am not sure how much SDAR or Sandicor scrutinizes the listings but I have seen comments in the confidential remarks that discuss CBB bonus money if the property is in escrow by a certain date.

[SD Realtor]

Perry –

When a Realtor enters a listing onto the MLS most of the data is entered via pulldowns. However there are 3 fields where we actually type text. One is the remarks, the second is the confidential remarks, the third is in the supplement section.

The remarks holds about oh… a few lines of text, perhaps 1000 characters… that is a guess by the way. However many times homes have many more features that you wish to describe. So at the bottom of the listing there is a data entry field marked supplements. This field allows for a few thousand characters.

If you had an agent email you the true MLS listings then you would see the supplemental information. Recall that online MLS providers like zip and realtor.com all get thier database from every local MLS. The MLS distills some of the information that is released, for sure the CBB, the confidential remarks, as well as a few other minor things. I don’t know if the MLS distills out the supplemental information or Zip just cuts it. I know Realtor.com doesn’t list the supplemental information either. However on Realtor.com I know that I the listing agent can go into the listing and MANUALLY paste in the supplemental information so that buyers can see it.

So as a realtor when you fill in the remarks section, if you have more features you want to discuss or present to the buyer you typically type in See Supplement at the end of the Remarks entry.

[SD Realtor]

Chris thanks for your information….

I may have asked this in another post but I am lax on keeping track of my posts…how do I signup for your newsletter?

[SD Realtor]

heheheheh –

Well my wife is a huge believer in holding real estate… like forever… Many of her clients have holdings in real estate and they have simply never sold… just bought and lived in it and then when they move they rented it out…

My personal preference would have been to sell all of my properties in 2004 but well…it didn’t happen. Plus I would have taken a tax hit on the rentals… Still I think financially I would have been way better off… but maybe would have been relegated to sleeping on the couch…

Anyways, she lets me get away with murder on other fronts so I cannot complain.

[SD Realtor]

Poway I agree with your statements.

However my job is to give people my opinion, and the honest truth.

So it is my opinion that you are 100% correct. I do think there will be an inventory explosion, and I do not think buyer psychology will change.

That is my opinion but not fact.

Now what is a true fact is that real estate has cyclical trends within secular trends like any other market. So yes it is absolutely in a secular downtrend however, the strongest cyclical component in real estate is the spring.

It is backed up with hard data and it is my job to point that out.

Now I DO BELIEVE that slashing pricing now and getting out sooner then later is better. However it is only my opinion but I do tell them that. Also they get lots of other information from other Realtors who may be more optimistic about the spring then I am.

[SD Realtor]

I understand your point completely. Additionally this is something that is more evident to Realtors then anyone else on this site because we see it first hand. I have a few sellers that will behave in this manner. One homeowner in Serra Mesa has a home that she absolutely will not price under 600k. It is a larger home and it is in good condition. However upon hitting the market back in the late spring my recommendation was in the 560-575k range. She said if she couldn’t get over 600k she would simply hold onto the home and let her brother live there. She has moved to Oregon. Again, this home has listed, expired, and listed again. It will expire soon and she will let her brother live there after it expires. Even though she knows it will not sell at that price, and she is likely to not see that level of desired pricing for many years, she is set to hold onto the home for the next several years until she can get what she really wants for it. So I would classify her as the type of homeowner you mentioned above. She has a ton of equity in the home and has owned it forever.

I think alot of people posting here do not have alot of face time with people like this…thus it is hard for them to understand that psychology. However you and I meet them and deal with them on a daily basis.

Still IMO, I think that people like her, and even myself will hold and be fine. However, fiscally I don’t agree with the decision (hers or mine). I do believe that selling now, and buying in a few years will yield better results for sellers and buyers of all types.

[SD Realtor]

I know of 3 sellers who will be relisting in the spring.

[SD Realtor]

Generally the department of building and safety will have zoning manuals for the city in question. I went to the los angeles dept of building and safety and I saw this link which was to a pdf file that had the zoning designations:

Try this link:

http://www.ladbs.org/zoning/zoning.htm

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