Author Archives: ARDELL

About ARDELL

ARDELL is a Managing Broker with Better Properties METRO King County. ARDELL was named one of the Most Influential Real Estate Bloggers in the U.S. by Inman News and has 34+ years experience in Real Estate up and down both Coasts, representing both buyers and sellers of homes in Seattle and on The Eastside. email: ardelld@gmail.com cell: 206-910-1000

Glenn Kelman and Allan Dalton

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[photopress:thumb_glenn_1_2_1.jpg,thumb,alignright]I was ROTFLMAO reading Glenn’s rendition of what happened at the Inman Conference where Glenn shared the stage with Allan Dalton…and apparently Zillow was there “didling with a microphone” when Glenn was looking for moral support. LOL Read Glenn’s article, it is a HOOT!!

[photopress:dalton_allan_1.jpg,thumb,alignleft]Allan Dalton is a fabulous speaker. If you’ve never had the honor, I highly recommend it. But let’s face it. Allan is as talented as David Letterman, and watching Glenn and Alan must be like watching Richard Simmons as a guest on the David Letterman show…PAINFUL!

Glenn says , “Many people afterwards congratulated me, for nothing in particular, which was very kind.” They were congratulating you for having the chutzpah to get up there in the first place and for going the whole Ten Rounds! And so do WE! But you have to ask yourself, what do you have to gain to stand in front of the a roomful of Realtors going toe to toe with their fearless leader? And as for “desk fees”, you were in NY for crissakes…they’re still paying splits out there. You’re lucky they didn’t drag you in the back and leave you for dead LOL Well, I for one am very glad they didn’t, and that you made it back in one piece.

Now I really do think it is time for Allan Dalton to have to face Zillow and Redfin in front of a crowd of Microsoft and Google employees! Come on! Let’s start selling tickets to that one. Allan’s a sport…he’s probably game. We’ll donate the proceeds to free Realtor.com Virtual Tours.

As for the Title of the Smackdown…”High Touch vs. High Tech”, ain’t too many people more “High Touch” than Glenn Kelman. Now stop going “nose to nose and toes to toes” with the wrong people! Go give a guest lecture at Microsoft. I’ll go on stage with you. They can throw tomatos at me 🙂 Little cherry ones though.

Our 100 Year Old Seller Closes Escrow Today

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[photopress:tudor.jpg,thumb,alignright]Some of you will remember this photo from Halloween when I was trying to do a “night shot” and it came out a bit “spooky” with the moon glowing ominously in the background.  I know Galen will.  Now that I know you are a photographer at gallery level quality, Galen, I’ll be listening more closely when you tell me what to do.  Not my forte…as you well know 🙂

There’s a first time for everything, as they say, and this was my first ever experience with a 100 year old client.  Even back in my Trust and Estate days when many of my clients were deceased, and the living ones were pretty old, I never had a 100 year old client before now.

The house was also so old, no one knew how old it was!  It was built before 1900 when King County started keeping records.  Title Company figured it was built some time between 1888 and 1900, so we know this owner was not the original owner, he was too young at only 100 years old 🙂  I’m sure he just loves being too young for something.

The lovely story of this real estate relationship, is really about his daughters, and specifically the one who had the responsibility of P/A for the sale.  In between going all the way across the ferry to take Dad to the doctor, and back to take her husband and his oxygen to his doctor and with her most everywhere, and the sister that fell off her patio while gardening in Denny Blaine to the doctor with her walker…  Holding communion services at her home, for the invalid…  We prayed and held our breath on this one to the very end…which is today.

The buyers are very, very happy to have this lovely grand old home, and are trying to get more info on exactly when this house was really built.  So if anyone knows where we might find more research about homes in the Mt. Baker/Leschi area, that were built prior to 1900, please give us a heads up.

It’s a good day…and all’s well that ends well.

 

Survivor! – The Active Rain Edition

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[photopress:survivor.jpg,thumb,alignright]I have spent the last seven days in the Alter-Blogosphere known as the Active Rain Network. Dustin had a few days off and “knocked on my door” and said “Mr. Harris, Can ARDELL come out and play?” and off we went, hand in hand to Active Rain.

Now I am not a big fan of the Survivor TV show, and so I need some help here from those who are. Basically the “Active Rain Island” permits participants to knock out their “competitors”, and I am stumped at what to do about it. I can’t seem to get any good advices from within, because the sabotaging of my efforts is not transparent enough for me to deal with on my own, and the kind people who are trying to help me have never seen this kind of behavior enacted toward them. So I’m at a Crossroads.

When Dustin and I started out over there, we studied the “rules”. OK you post five articles a day. You get 200 points for each article, 25 points for up to 10 comments on other people’s blogs per day, so forth and so on.

OH, and before I forget, I got 600 starter points for putting a message in my own blog’s sidebar saying “I am a PROUD MEMBER of the ActiveRain Real Estate Network.” Time to pop that baby out of my sidebar, unless someone can explain to me what is going on in better definitive terms.

For seven days I jumped through all the hoops, as far as I could ascertain what and where the hoops were, like a video game. I climbed from #11863 in the Network to #227 in just 7 days. From #644 in the State of Washington to #19 and in King County from #264 to #9. In an other than straight points format, I was up to NUMBER 4 in the State! I was a proud member, I was happy, I was working my butt off in true Survivor Style!

And then the other participants, or a few of them, can’t tell who or how many (though the administrators of the site can apparently see who is doing it and what they are doing) started whacking down my points! Holy Crap, Batman. What is THAT! Now I wish I had watched the Survivor show…I’m more like a Trump’s Apprentice type where you give it your best and the chips fall where they may. You try different images, different article styles, spent the week experimenting when all of a sudden I noticed something.

Twice I read “You get 200 points per article and that score rarely goes down, but it does grow upward based on poplularity and comments”. I’m looking at the hard work I put into my five articles a day and watching the points on most of them drop from 200 to 179 to 142 to 128…what the $*^%$)(*% is that! It’s Survivor tactics. Apparently “the system” permits some mean spirited people or some overly competitive people the opportunity to steal away my points. Not quite sure how, and I was assured they were being warned not to do that, and was further assured it would be corrected the next day…but, I wouldn’t be writing this if that were the case.

Not really sure what all this point stuff is about. But I am sure that I am NOT a PROUD member today. Question is, “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” I hate to give them the satisfaction that they got the better of me. But by the same token it is almost as much work as the freakin’ Sellsius 101, and in many ways even harder, especially with people pushing me down while I am climbing up. Do I want to be involved with a group that permits such petty and nasty activity?

Not sure what to do. Maybe a show of hands will help me here. Thanks.

Please review the Resale Certificate

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[photopress:cancelled.jpg,thumb,alignright]My client and I reviewed the Resale Certificate and cancelled his purchase today.

When you buy a condo, or condo-townhome, you do not know everything there is to know before you make an offer.

After you are in escrow, after the contract is “signed around”, you get a resale certificate within ten days. I’m not talking about new properties here, but resale properties. It’s amazing how many agents just hand that big packet over to the buyer and then hope and pray for five days that the buyer won’t open it.

Sit down with your agent and go through that resale certificate. Don’t rely on verbal representations made prior to receiving the resale certificate. I was told by the listing agent that the Association had money in reserves. She volunteered that information, as I would never expect an agent to know that. The Resale Certificate comes and it says ZERO in reserves.

How could anyone have a balance of Zero anyway? Did you ever have a Zero Balance in your bank account? It’s either $2.00 or it’s overdrawn…but flat out ZERO?! Is that even possible? Oh and the “Good News” is that the monthly HOA dues were being decreased beginning 1/1/07. No reserves, so let’s reduce the monthy dues…that’s ripe!

Maybe the lawyers can answer this one. I haven’t seen the Reserve Study Summary in many of these packets and have to hunt it down. It really is not possible to know if the monthly dues are adequate, or if the amount in reserves are adequate, without having a copy of the Reserve Study Summary page. Is that not required here in Washington? If not, someone needs to fix that. How do I help make it mandatory that this vital info be included with/in the Resale Certificate? Who do I call? Who do I write?

Well luckily, in this case, I didn’t need to look at the Reserve Study to know that ZERO wasn’t good enough. The agent kept telling me how much BETTER things were NOW than they USED TO BE. That may in fact be true. But better than it used to be is not necessarily, good enough.

We interrupt your regular programming…

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[photopress:tin_soch_1.jpg,full,alignright]First, my sincere apologies for those not “into” this kind of thing, but I just got these in the mail and had to share.[photopress:cowgirl.jpg,full,alignright]

The little “cowgirl” lives at the beach in L.A. Mom as shown, is my eldest daughter, Tina.

Well, I know Anna will like them 🙂

Maybe we can get Anna to say a few words.

Danger Will Robinson!

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[photopress:lis_robot.jpg,thumb,alignright]The MLS data is already “Garbage IN” today, before noon on the first day of the new year.

Not only is garbage going in, but it is also coming out, with some VERY popular public search sites showing properties as “ZERO days on market” that are NOT new listings.

Well, at least those trying to fool the public ended up the fools.  Yes folks, same glitch this year as last year.  Agents who jumped in without testing the water first, thinking they would get that NEW mls sequence of 27xxxxxx…failed in their efforts.  The clock didn’t start over and so re-entering their old listing to get a 2007 number didn’t work.  Kind of falls into that “You can’t kid a kidder” arena.

Yes an agent IS allowed to “get a new number” IF there is a huge price change, or the owner takes the property off and puts in a brand new kitchen.  In other words there are some exceptions to the rule.  But most of the ones who tried to “grab the brass ring” today, did so against the rules.  Same price.  Same old listing.  Just trying to get a new number. 

But the real “DANGER, WILL ROBINSON” message here is to the consumer’s seeing ZERO days on market!  Do NOT run over there to be the first to see it, and the first to get an offer in, without first checking the REAL property history on “purported to be new” listings.

First Sunny Day Since Halloween?

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[photopress:sunny.jpg,thumb,alignright]We ARE having a gorgeous, sunny day here in Seattle.  But really, the FIRST SUNNY DAY since Halloween?

According to the King County Journal and the National Weather Service, it is. 

“Today the National Weather Service is predicting clear skies and a high of 40. If that prediction holds, today will qualify as the first official sunny day since Halloween, nearly two months ago. The National Weather Service defines a sunny day as one in which the sky was less than 30 percent covered in clouds.”

I swear I have seen the sun PLENTY since Halloween, but as I say…”It’s always sunnier in Kirland” for some reason”.  Anyone know why it would be sunnier in Kirkland?

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag!

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[photopress:james.jpg,thumb,alignright]I’m writing “in code”!  Sometimes the light bulb just goes on, and we can do things today and tomorrow, that we just couldn’t seem to “get” yesterday.

I’m editing the template, changing the categories, flipping the position of things in the sidebar and if I don’t blow up the blog in the process, I’ll be getting things “in order” and ready for 2007 this week.  One of the reasons I change out my categories, even though it is a lot of work to fill the new categories, is that my stats register by category.  It’s a good way to start the stat counter over, without losing the old stat data.  It also gives me a chance to update the info for my readers, without “throwing away the baby with the bathwater.  I can pull in some of the older posts that are still relevant, leave behind some that are no longer relevant to be accessed in “archives”, and add some new articles in each category, based on my most recent experiences.

Blogging in 2007 will be a challenge, to go beyond yesterday’s “blog rules”, to invent that which will transcend the Blogosphere’s commonly closed mindset.   My culture insists that I add an ingredient to everything, that wasn’t there before, in a “no holds barred” kind of way.  Keeps life interesting.

On a sadder note.  The Title of this post and photo are inspired by the News that James Brown, “The Godfather of Soul” has passed away.  Kim and I are hoping that in the months and years to come, some of his original music, from his King Federal days with the Famous Flames, in the mid-fifties through early sixties, will be released.  God Bless Us…Every One…

My funniest ever sale

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[photopress:legs.jpg,thumb,alignright]Talking about “covering for another agent” reminded me of my funniest ever sale of a house.  I was getting my first ever leg waxing when the phone rang and an agent asked me to show a house to one of his buyer clients.  He was “down the shore” (Jersey) with his family.  I said no problem.

I rushed to the house to meet his clients straight from my first ever leg waxing appointment.  Apparently I rushed the leg waxing lady so much that she didn’t get all of the wax off of my legs.

Jim’s buyer clients wanted to write an offer, so off to the office we went.  It is no easy feat to write an offer for people you barely know, by the way.  But I had them laughing so hard, that we got through it in great humor.

My legs kept sticking together!  I crossed my legs, and when I tried to stand up to go to the copy machine, one of my legs was wax stuck on to my other leg and I couldn’t move.  Except to hop on one leg.  I had to take my hands and pull one leg off the other which really hurt!  Writing the contract took forever, many addendums, etc… and I kept forgetting NOT to cross my legs!  So every time I stood up to get something or go to the copy machine…the hilarious ripping my legs apart from one another kept repeating.

Finally I was so sore from ripping my legs apart, I just hopped around till we got finished, which had the buyers rolling on the floor.  Honestly, if they were my clients, I probably would have been humiliated.  But what the hell…they were Jim’s clients…I wasn’t getting paid a dime and the buyers were happy as pie.  So, it’s just a funny memory and not an embarassing one.

Every single time Jim went on vacation and I covered for him, I sold a house for him.  He decided to take vacations more often 🙂