Flip This House on A&E
Once again the Producers of Flip This House have asked us to announce that they are looking for people in the Seattle Area who have flipped 10-12 houses. I expect that can be over any period of time. I don’t know all of the selection criteria, but if you want to be on the show, email your contact info to flipthishouse.casting@gmail.com and they will send you an application.
DEADLINE for applications for this season is October 1, 2008.
I thought it was fun that the casting company is using “gmail” 🙂 From what I am seeing, gmail is as acceptable in business applications as a private domain email address. Why is this “free” email more accepted than all the free hotmails and yahoos before it? Even more acceptable than most paid for email addresses like AOL. Why is gmail so acceptable and accepted?
Ardell,
You can also use Gmail, but without the “Gmail” ending. For example, when you e-mail Lynlee at lynlee@legacyescrow.net, you may never know it is Gmail. I was exceptionally frustrated with our prior e-mail service and fortunately our office is next door to another small business that is in the technology field and they suggested Google Apps for small business. Since then, I’ve never looked back. Very stable.
For small businesses such as ours, we use Google Apps Premier Edition for communication, sharing documents, scheduling clients, etc…a great platform for internal collaboration.
For more information, just Google, “Google Apps”.
aol = i am a newbie
hotmail = not acceptable name for business acct
yahoo = sounds like you work at yahoo
gmail = neutral name even though we all know its google
I’m still surprised when someone uses an account like any mentioned at comment 2…to me gmail sounds like “I just need a temporary email address” if it’s a business. If it’s masked, like Legacy’s, then who knows? 😉 At least make the effort to mask your email.
How about seattle eric? I’m sure he has a good story to tell.
I was recently in Indonesia, where, believe it or not, the housing bubble is in its later stages of euphoria. Maybe I can recommend some of my friends in Jakarta for the show?
People still watch house flipping shows?
Hi Eric! How’s tricks?
I was asked to be on one again, and declined again. I don’t know why I keep turning down TV. The concept never makes sense to me.
It was a show where I was supposed to be filmed showing my clients three homes and then they pick one and the end is, I forget, maybe them moving into it. I thought it was a poor representation of what the home buying process is really like today.
They would pay me nothing. They would pay the buyer a measly $500 to air their emotions on TV. And what about the two sellers whose homes were not chosen? Would we air the comments of the buyers as to why not?
Just didn’t seem like there was anything in it for anyone except the people whose show it was.
In reading up a bit about gmail it seems that when you use their service Goggle gains the ability to track the activity on your computer. I’m not the paranoid type, and probably not very interesting to anyone who tracks my activity, but I do feel that privacy concerns are taking a back seat to the more capitalistic motivations of the tech sector. For me, it’s worth the ten bucks a month to keep a more private and controlled net/email portal.
not a fan of the show. the show contains lots of misinformation on tax treatment and the calculation of return on capital calculation that result in viewers believing the shows homes are more profitable than reality.
Michael, I haven’t seen that show, but I have seen a HGTV show that’s even worse! I don’t know it’s name. The owner makes improvements to a house they’re living in, a real estate agent comes by to look at the changes, makes a pronouncement of value, and wow–you have a return! 😀
Kary,
That was the show I turned down last year! But I think I was to be on a panel of 3 agents who gave opinions of after value.
I did see a show recently where buyers were shown three houses in Oregon and then a virtual makeover on a laptop screen with costs. The buyers chose the house based on the virtual makeover and cost after improvements. I found that interesting. They picked the worst house of the three in terms of current condition, based on total cost of home plus improvements.
It would have been more valid in my opinion, if someone came to to an actual transformation at the cost they identified, so that the buyer actual got what they saw on that laptop screen.
I think there’s something to be said for getting what you want. Although you have to balance that against the pain of actually making it that way.
Assume two condos, one with new carpet and paint, and one that needs both. Assume carpet and paint would cost $5,000 and take a week to do.
I could see that if a buyer wasn’t totally pleased with the new carpet and paint, that they’d be willing to pay something more than $5,000 less for the one that needs work. (E.g. if the fixed up condo could be had for $300,000, they’d be willing to pay more than $295,000 for the condo that needs the work.)
Adell said “The buyers chose the house based on the virtual makeover and cost after improvements. I found that interesting. They picked the worst house of the three in terms of current condition, based on total cost of home plus improvements.”
Now there’s a darned good example of why buyers should consider using a good real estate agent to represent them. Good agents definitely will have an opinion on which house to buy, and buyers would do well to listen to that sage advice.
I recently turned down a listing from a potential seller who had bought a FSBO, and totally remodeled the house. She put in over $150,000 worth of very expensive things, made it quite pretty, but it’s on the corner of two extremely busy streets, and wasn’t worth what she paid for it a bit more than a year ago, let alone what she’s spent on ‘improving’ it.
She told me she watched all the TV flip shows, and just loved them!
I should have told her to turn her TV off … :-)!
typo. ARdell! 🙂
Leanne wrote: “I recently turned down a listing from a potential seller who had bought a FSBO, and totally remodeled the house. She put in over $150,000 worth of very expensive things, made it quite pretty, but it’s on the corner of two extremely busy streets, and wasn’t worth what she paid for it a bit more than a year ago, let alone what she’s spent on ‘improving’ it.”
I’ve told this story before, but sometime before August, 2007 I looked at a house and concluded it wasn’t worth what was paid roughly a year before, even though at the time values in that area had gone up something like 15-20% in the interim. Looking at the history of the property, the buyer bought it from a FSBO, who took the property FSBO after an unsuccessful listing at a MUCH LOWER price! I didn’t ask, but I assumed the buyer wasn’t represented and just well for the prior owner’s sales pitch.
But Leanne’s post does show another important point on flipping. They have to pick the property carefully. There was a recent successful flip in our neighborhood, but the house did have considerable appeal.
They approached me about doing a show here in Boise a couple of years ago and I immediately declined.
One of the problems in our market was all of the absentee flippers and speculators flooding in, buying properties with massive negative cashflow, turning them into rentals, etc.
Many of those homes are now short sales or foreclosures.
It’s very difficult to buy a home at a low enough price to ensure a profit after acquisition, holding, repairs, and sales costs.
Then, you get to pay taxes on what’s left?
Then, there’s this little problem called a soft market.
“I recently turned down a listing from a potential seller who had bought a FSBO…”
Now tell me the 50 stories that are the same result but NOT a FSBO. It is so annoying when agents act like every buyer or seller who ever screwed up, didn’t have an agent at their side at the time of the screw up.
Ardell, since when are we supposed to only talk about bad situations that involved agents?
A real life example of a buyer picking a poor house to redo & flip fit in well with the Flip This House A & E that you were writing about. This particular person lived and breathed those TV shows, and is one reason I hope those TV shows end.
I’m a real estate agent. I happen to believe I am a very good one, and that my skills help my clients. If people want to go it alone, fine, but at least read the stories of risk.
Ardell wrote: “Now tell me the 50 stories that are the same result but NOT a FSBO. It is so annoying when agents act like every buyer or seller who ever screwed up, didn’t have an agent at their side at the time of the screw up.”
Well in the example I gave, since the property was listed at a signficantly lower price, and didn’t sell, presumably the agents advised clients not to buy at that price.
But admittedly, you can have situations where a property is listed too high, and it sells for too much, with an agent on both sides. But that’s why you need a good agent, not just an agent.
I was just doing stats for my farm area, and an interesting thing popped up. For the prior four month period both prices and volume are relatively stable compared to the same four month period last year. The median is down 6k, mean down 1.5k, and the sales up 1. All relatively insignificant changes.
But what’s a huge difference is the percentage selling within 30 days. For the period in 2007 it was over 50%. This year 12%. I looked at some of the listings from last year, and the first two were purchased and flipped, and neither has sold after being re-listed. And unless they flipped the things on the cheap, I doubt they’re coming close to breaking even. That was two out of 23, and I only checked three. I wonder how many of the others were purchased to flip?
Leanne,
Basically you are breaking our rules when you keep advertising for agents. RCG does not allow blatant advertising be it for a specific agent or agents generally.
We are a popular site becasue we DON’T do that ,and so your coming here and doing it fcks up our blog 🙂
I’m talking about statements like this:
“Now there’s a darned good example of why buyers should consider using a good real estate agent”.
Doesn’t that sound like a commercial for agents to you?
There are plenty of places for agents who use blogs to advertise to go. We are different because we don’t do that, and if 100 agents came here and did that…we would have to close down.
I know you don’t want to hurt our site and that is not your intention, so I simply ask that you be aware of what is a “commercial” for agents and try not to cross the line.
“
Ardell, here are some agent “advertising” quotes right from the intros to the RCG site:
“Despite all the fun and enjoyment we get out of blogging, we pay the hosting fees by giving out the best agent recommendations around. If you’re at the point where you want to talk to an agent, but not sure if you have the “right
Had it been compared to a TV show instead of “a FSBO”, it wouldn’t have gone sideways.
Do you know that people really don’t like being called “leads” or “FSBO’s” Why aren’t all sellers just “sellers”. Are other properties called FSBAs? Why do we have a name for owners who are selling their homes who didn’t hire agents to assist them? Aren’t they all just “sellers of homes”.
There’s a difference between your “linked to” page and your blogging. When I click on your link, Leanne, I fully expect ot see an advertisement there. But not in the blog posts or comments. It’s just a blog thing. That’s how blogs function.
Going to the link to page or main page to find an “advertisement” is something someone will do if they want to find out more about you after reading your thoughts on the blog. One is a good place for advertising, there other is not. It’s a little complicated. I think Dustin teaches a class on it.
Real Estate people did not create the blog culture. Blogs existed and functioned this way before agents got into the act.
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Gmail is acceptable cause its lightweight , has massive amounts of storage and is easier to use. Not to mention its spam filter is better than any of the aforementioned (Remember how hotmail subsidized itself by sending you spam oops, i mean marketing advertisements).