Beware No Trespassing (even if you do have a keybox)

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Learn something new every day. Can an agent access a vacant home with a keybox, without an appointment? What if that agent represents a buyer under contract on that home?[photopress:no_trespassing.jpg,thumb,alignright]

I had to learn this answer the hard way a couple of years ago. Here’s what happened:

I sold a vacant home in Issaquah to clients subject to inspection. During the inspection, it was noted that the furnace had a very high level of CO (92%) and needed to be replaced. Seller (an attorney) would not replace the furnace. Buyers decided to replace it themselves before they move in and waived the inspection contingency.

Given that it takes a few weeks after ordering a furnace to get it installed, I, knowing that the house was vacant, met the furnace installer (call him Bob) at the home for measurements. No, I did not make an appointment. During the measuring, the furnace guy TAKES THE FURNACE OUT OF COMMISSION! Of course, it was in the dead of winter and the weather was below freezing. Furnace guy says that by state law, he is required to decommission a furnace if it is a safety issue and considering that the furnace was burning outside of the combustion chamber, it quite obviously was a safety issue.

Now we have a vacant house with no heat, with a seller who refused to pay for a new furnace with the inspection period waived and with me and my furnace guy Bob having entered the home without an appointment. Listing agent is furious with me and calls his broker who calls his attorney who calls my broker who calls me and says that, Guess what, technically it IS considered trespassing to re-enter a home that is pending even with the pending buyers or buyer’s agent.

The solution was simple enough. Seller had the furnace installed (immediate when in an emergency situation) and buyers paid for it at escrow. And I learned a new lesson. The hard way.

Agent FIRED! – Lender Fraud

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[photopress:fired.jpg,full,alignright]Has Lender Fraud become the standard?

Very sad, but very true story. I received an email from a Rain City Guide reader yesterday. The reader happens to be a local agent who was fired, because of her efforts to both accommodate her Buyer Client, without committing Lender Fraud.

The buyer fired her for not wholeheartedly complying with their WANTS, and for even considering for a moment, the Lender fraud implications of their WANTS.

Reason given..ALL OF OUR FRIENDS HAVE AGENTS AND LENDERS DOING THIS, AND WE FEEL YOUR SERVICES ARE THEREFORE COMPARATIVELY INADEQUATE. YOU DIDN’T FIGHT HARD TO GET US WHAT WE WANTED…

Suffice it to say, what they WANTED was cash back at closing under the table.

Apparently this has become so commonplace, that it is now the standard to which she was held. Money “off the sheet”. I can name more examples of commonplace Lender Fraud…but that is not the question here.

Sadly many told her she was being “a goody two shoes” about it. Very sad indeed.

Rain City Guide on Your Mobile Phone!

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The other day someone emailed to ask me to fix Rain City Guide so that the site wouldn’t break when they tried to visit via their mobile phone. I gave a LOL and told them that RCG already works on a mobile phone!

Here is how I read Rain City Guide (and or the other 250 blogs in my feed reader) when I’m on the go.

Using your PC or Mac:

  1. Go to Google Reader on your PC (not the Pocket PC): http://www.google.com/reader/view/ (You will likely need to sign in using a free Google account. Let me know if you don’t have one and I’ll send you an invite)
  2. Click on the “+ Add Subscription” button
  3. Copy and paste this feed into the empty field and click “Add”:
  • http://raincityguide.com/feed/

Repeat steps 2 and 3 with the comment feed:

  • http://raincityguide.com/comments/feed/

Now, you’ll have all the posts and comments send to your Google Reader where you can check them using the browser on just about any handheld phone (assuming you get an internet connection on your phone!).

However, note that the URL for the Mobile Google Reader is a little different. So on the browser of your phone, you’ll need to go to this address to check the blog:

  • http://www.google.com/reader/m

I recommend typing this in once on your phone and then saving it as a bookmark! (or better yet, email it to an address you can check with your phone and then just click on the link!)

These same instructions will work with just about any blog on the planet… Just replace the RCG feed with the appropriate feed!

UPDATE:

I just remembered that there is one other Google Reader-related item you may be interested in subscribing to and that is the list of articles that I “share” using my feed reader. The idea is that as I’m reading articles using Google Reader, I often click on a share button to share items that I think are interesting. I watch a few other people shared items and I’ve found this to be a great resource for finding new and interesting bloggers. Similar to the other feeds listed above, simply subscribe using this URL to add this item to your feed reader:

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/12864365649340148034

BTW, if you are also sharing or staring items in either Google Reader, del.icio.us or any other service and think that others might be interested, definitely leave a comment to let me know about it!

DRIP DRIP DRIP

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The snow is[photopress:snow_picture.jpg,thumb,alignright] finally melting off the tree branches in my yard today. One foot of snow fell last Wednesday afternoon turning my normal 45 min commute to Issaquah into 4 hours. I’m really impressed with how well the agents are doing maneuver on these slick streets. I had a showing Friday night, Saturday and Sunday on one listing, even though the roads are still slick and hard to navigate out here in Issaquah.

Nice to be back to RCG. I’ve been buried in an investment class for the last 3-4 months and haven’t been keeping up with the post reading or writing. Came up for breath today and I see that a Welcome to all the new contributors is in order! We’re honored to have you on board. 

Given that it’s tax time, I want to remind everyone to be sure you’re aware of all the tax advantaged investment programs out there for real estate. Who knows how long these will last. There’s a great new program called a solo 401K to go along with the Roth IRA programs investing in real estate.  I’ve blogged about this before and hope you check it out especially if you’re paying taxes on any real estate gains this year. 

I’m building a good retirment by investing this way and it will all be tax free.  A key player in the IRA game is the custodian.  I’ve been waiting for the new custodian in Seattle, Viking Bank with Jim Winder in charge of the Self Directed IRA department to get their website up and running so that RCG readers can get information on line. Jim Winder is a well known guru of self-directed IRA’s and he is respected local celebrity and has taught many many classes in the past.  He promises the Viking Bank site will be functional soon.  But it is tax time so until then, I’ll direct you to Pensco Trust to learn all you need to know about some really great tax strategies using some of the money you’ve already socked in retirement plans. Pensco Trust is a national leader in IRA education so I hope you find these articles helpful.  

Once Jim’s fully in the game I’ll post you his site and when he’ll be teaching live classes.  LTD will be hosting one, soon, I hope, and by the way, I met Jim here on RCG!

Let me get this straight, you will pay me if it rains???

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If you live in Seattle you will understand what I am talking about here. We had a client flying in to relocate to Seattle and with the weather we have been having, they have already had to cancel a home buying trip already. So watching the forecast the past week we decided this would be a good weekend to come buy a home in our beautiful city.

They flew in Friday night and we double checked with our local weather hero Walter Kelly (Q13) to make sure it would be ok for Saturday. About noon on Saturday we came to find out the 1000s of web sites out there that were predicting for mostly sunny skies all weekend were WRONG. Not only did we not have mostly sunny skies (like we did on Sunday) we had snow. That combined with the cold snap, our roads were not incredibly safe for driving all over the city. We did make it around and were able to make a joke out of it and were laughing about the fact that the weather ‘pros’ may very well be for pure entertainment. No matter what anyone says, it seems like there is never a 100% guarantee (actually, not even 75%).

Not only was it difficult for us to get around, but some the houses we were showing had tenants who had to leave while we showed. I started to think about my obligation to the client if we would have been snowed in and could not drive around. Of course I could not be held liable for what WE all felt was a good weekend, but you want to keep your customers as happy as you can.

[photopress:weatherbilllogo_sml.jpg,full,alignright]Then came as an answer to any agents prayers (or person with a wedding, outdoor BBQ, garage sale, etc), Weatherbill; a Web 2.0 launched today. They essentially are creating a market for that which cannot be controlled… weather. Their site puts it best and says, “WeatherBill sells Weather Contracts to eligible buyers. Weather Contracts can be used to protect your business from adverse weather conditions, by paying you when those adverse conditions occur.

Whose priority is it?

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During the local evening news, I’ve been seeing what appear to be political ads. What’s strange is that the election ended months ago, so the timing of this multi-media blitz is rather curious. The ads in question, are part of the It’s A Priority media campaign paid for by the Washington Association of Realtors. The ads encourage folks to contact their lawmakers to address the housing crisis in Washington state.

[photopress:ItsAPriority.jpg,full,alignright] At first, I thought it was a public relations / branding effort by the WAR, but I’m seeing the ad way too often for that to be feasible reason. Oddly enough, like our friends in Seattle Bubble land, I can’t help but wonder what the ulterior motive is. Perhaps, I’m confused because the ads don’t really have a clear “call to action”, other than contact your legislator. Most political ads have a clear and simple message (vote No or Yes on this initiative or that candidate) and these ads are rather vague on what they want me to do (other than make this cause a priority).

Here I am thinking the local economy and housing market is healthy, and now I’m seeing ads paid for by Realtors telling me that home prices have gone up too much and that’s not good. I’m confused here, aren’t housing prices supposed to go up? Microsoft, Boeing, and a cast of a hundred start ups are hiring and growing, so by all appearances the local economy doing well enough. Why don’t I see these kinds of ads when I visit California (which would seem to be a more logical place for a housing bubble that might occur)? What’s the real purpose of the ads?

The folks in bubble land believe it’s a ploy to loosen land use restrictions to allow greater density of smaller (i.e., “more affordable”) homes. I suppose that makes as much sense as anything else I’ve heard, but I wanted to get a second opinion before I form my own conclusions.

Interview with Ardell DellaLoggia of the Searching Seattle Blog

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[photopress:ardell_mlsphoto.jpg,full,alignright]There is only one Ardell. She’s a top-notch blogger that shows up all over the place in the blogging world. In addition to RCG, she keeps up an ActiveRain blog and her solo blog at Searching Seattle. And while it might seem somewhat self-serving to interview one of our own contributors, I couldn’t resist the curiosity to unleash this interview on Ardell! 🙂

However, before I begin the interview, I have a HUGE announcement! Today marks Ardell’s one year anniversary as a Rain City Guide contributor. Her first words may have been “be gentle” but she has been much more disruptive than gentle on the real estate blogging world! Let me be the first to say thank for for giving us such a fabulous, fun, and fantastic year!

What inspired you to start blogging?

I wouldn’t call it an inspiration. I honestly was just doing my “good deed for the day”. A Microsoft employee named Noor, explained to me in his Toastmaster’s International speech at our club in Redmond/Bellevue, that a blog was a personal online journal, a web log, a log on the web. So when John Reilly of Internet Crusade emailed me on 1/1/07 and asked me to be one of the people to test their blog product, I had a basic idea of what he was asking. I said yes and just started typing away. I wasn’t really realizing others would read it, except John. I look back at those first articles and wonder why I chose to write on those topics. I mean, who is sitting around on New Year’s Day writing on such intense topics? I’m not a techie geek for sure, as you can tell by my huge print, color text, etc. But I am a real estate nerd.

Unlike other people who decided to blog, or who had an urge to be a writer, I was just typing out whatever I was thinking about. Just turned out to be TMI about real estate 🙂

Are there any special topics or issues that you enjoy covering?

I like to talk about the real estate process, real estate commissions especially the buyer agent fee, and how people and agents interact differently using technology and why that will make things easier and cheaper. I think people want to know a whole lot more about what they are getting themselves into. They may still want to hire someone to do “it” for them, but they want to know a whole lot more about what that “it” is, and why it costs so much and does it have to cost so much. I think talking about these things angers a lot of people, so I mix up other things in between. If I could, I’d only talk about those three things.

What have you done to personalize your blog?

Personalize my blog? LOL That’s an oxymoron…I’m all over it. To read me is to know me. I think I need to learn how to DE-personalize it 🙂

[photopress:ardell_at_computer_small.jpg,full,alignright]Do you have any favorite posts?

I loved this post and I especially loved when the client commented. It totally surprised me. This was my favorite, but it just slid by. I must have been the only one who liked it…oh, and my sister loved it. Most people, like “Jack” in that first linked article, came to me from this one. So I’d have to say that is one of my favorites as well.

What are some of your favorite blogs (real estate or otherwise)?

My first instinct in answering this question would be to link to the Who’s Who of the Blogosphere and the Usual Suspects, but honestly I don’t like blogs…I like people. To me Sellsius is Joe and Rudy, Urban Digs is Noah, Urbnlivn is Matt and Property Monger is Jon. I like those people via their blog. The only blog I used to read regularly was Bloodhound, but it has gotten too confusing for me. Too many people with too many different viewpoints. If I could click on Kris and read all her stuff in sequence, and then click on Greg, etc , the way RainCityGuide functions when you click our pictures, I’d still read it. But I can’t keep up with all the people, and I like the people, not the blogs. If I read the blog and don’t like the person…I leave. If the blog doesn’t have a personality, I don’t read it.

How does blogging fit into the overall marketing of your business?

It’s turned it upside down, as you know. Most of my clients come from my writings now. It’s nice that they already “know me” when we first meet and there doesn’t seem to be much difference from “me on blog” to “me in person”. I like when they say “Oh, now I know what Dustin meant when he said he can see your hands moving in your writings”. I think Glenn Kelman was one of the ones who said that when we met. I am in person as I am on the blog…one of the benefits of “stream of consciousness” blogging.

What plans do you have to improve your blog over this next year?

I added the podcast. Other than mispronouncing my name and calling me Ardle, I like it. I also want to make it easier for people to find specific topics of interest. More like an encyclopedia of real estate topics. Oops I mean wiki 😉 Right now you have to go to the archives, but I think that is one of the problems with a blog. The older it is the more you bury what people want to read. I indexed it last year, but I changed my categories so I have to get the index back up and linked. It’s a lot of work.

What is the one tool or feature that you wish your site had?

I actually like it the way it is. I’ve tried a lot of different platforms to test them. My Bloglines went caput the other day and I lost my entire Family Blog. It’s still there but it’s totally blank, so I’m never writing there again. Blogger is OK, but it bores me for some reason. I’ve tried it two or three times and can’t seem to be consistent there. I like having both WordPress and RealTown blogs. Word Press for Rain City Guide is THE best, but that’s because of what you, Dustin, have done to it. My other Word Press blog is not nearly as easy as this one. So best is Word Press after Dustin modifies it!

What do you think real estate blogging will look like 3 years from now?

I think you will see some lawsuits, actually. A lot of people are writing like they are 12 year olds on My Space and ranting about things that border on slander. Making negative comments about competitors, badmouthing those who “discount”, some even say nasty things about their own clients. Of course after a law suit or two the blogs will become less colorful and will be “bought” from news sources. So enjoy reading the colorful ones while you still can!

Thank you Ardell for taking the time to answer these questions!

Interviews, interviews interviews:

The Ethics of Ambiguity

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Lowermybills.com has a new banner ad. I thought the couple dancing in the moonlight on the rooftop was bad. Then there was the much improved version: two male cowboys dancing together. I wonder if they released that banner just on the coastal states and avoided the Midwest; Brokeback Mortgage! Right around the holidays a hideous arm tattoo ad showed up. Look what they’re up to today:[photopress:Lowermybills1.jpg,thumb,alignright]
Is this ad predatory?  A $510,000 mortgage for as low as $1698 per month. That sure sounds like an interest only, pay-option, adjustable rate mortgage with the potential for negative am.  Fully amortized payments would probably be around $3,000 depending on the interest rate.  When you click through, the fine print explains it all. I’m comforted knowing they used Arial 9 point font instead of something much smaller.

Here’s Section 226.24 (which addresses advertising) of Regulation Z in our Federal Truth in Lending law, which is part of the Federal Consumer Protection Act.

In Lowermybills.com banner ads, why isn’t the annual percentage rate (APR) shown along side of the payment, along with a notice that the interest rate may (well, WILL) increase upon consummation of the loan?   At least some institutional banner ads show an *asterisk and offer the phrase “terms and conditions apply.

Group-Blog Etiquette

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[photopress:e.jpg,full,alignright]Will the Emily Post Institute add a section on Group-Blog Etiquette someday? Maybe. But in the meantime, we all are creating that which future generations will write, and possibly adhere to, so let’s “have at it”. I will post my views on the topic, and maybe we can all pick this apart and come up with some acceptable norms for others.

Just like the other “blog rules” like no deleting, and striking out instead of straight editing…and other Blogosphere Guidelines (vs. Rules), the Group Blog introduces a whole new bailiwick of issues to be struggled with and ironed out.

For those not in a Group Blog, some of these issues still exist for you. As in when do you or do you not go into someone else’s blog and start disagreeing with the “host” of that blog? Do you jump in with your opposing view, different view, or do you read and lurk?

So while I am tackling this from a Group-Blog standpoint, there are ramifications for all bloggers in “the Blogosphere”. Dustin and I have discussed this topic from time to time and our feeling, generally, is let it run its course so we all learn from the experience. “All” being “The Blogosphere” generally. So while I am touching on it here…this is a scenario that will play out differently in different places.

My thoughts are that a Group-Blog should avoid Fellow Writers tripping over each other by the structure of the blog itself. I’ve used this analogy with Dustin, “Would you rent three stores in a 10 store shopping strip to three different Pizza Places?” But then, everything goes back to real estate for me, so maybe that’s not a reasonable analogy 🙂

We have two attorneys. But Craig and Russ pretty much have different areas of interest. I never see them tripping over each other. So that’s a good mix, and in my opinion, two attorneys in a room is always the limit, though I have had three at once, but only once.

I think the same theory applies to lenders and agents. A commercial and a residential agent…good…no tripping. I’m not going to tell a commercial real estate agent how to do his business, and he’s not going to tell me how to do residential. Elaine’s focus was not the same as mine for the most part…so not much tripping.

The mix of people, I think is the main key, as it will keep blog etiquette issues to a minimum. With two commercial agents or two residential agents, that they work in different areas is not sufficient, but helps. When Greg Swann first added agents from different states, I have to admit I thought it was strange. But at least if they disagree on strategy or principle, they can say “Well here in San Diego things work differently. So in hindsight, Kudos to Greg on that one. (though I do not mean to suggest that is WHY they did that) Greg’s having come from the writing industry, I think, gave him the foresight to consider this the way one might divvy up the topics in a writing establishment. She’s gardening tips, he’s sports, etc… Though he has a mindset mix in AZ mixed in, they understand “their space” as far as I can tell. Whether it’s because they are just sharp dudes about it, or had an actual undertanding? I think they are just “sharp dudes about it” 🙂 Maybe a little of each.

However, we cannot do that nor do I suggest we do that, because we are Seattle. We are “Rain City”. So as much as I admire BloodhoundBlog’s format, I don’t think we can handle our blog etiquette issues in similar fashion. Having 12 real estate agents in the same marketplace, coming from all different directions, can turn into a very interesting thing to watch, along the lines of mud-wrestling in bikinis or a constant smack-down. Exciting, I guess to some, but…hmmmm.

I have been asked by some hefty blog sites out there in the Blogosphere to be interviewed on this issue, and have declined, as I think we need to talk it out here, where it happens. And not there, where they want to discuss it for other reasons. So this is just a beginning point, as I know for sure that “The Blogosphere” is inquiring into this issue.

In fact if anyone knows of any articles already written on Group-Blogs, please provide the links in the comments.

My thoughts are this. You run it like a combination of a Newspaper and an Agent Office Meeting. You try to keep the “group” going as cohesively as possible by keeping the mix a true mix, as in no “three pizza parlors”. We’ve already, though recently, stepped out of that advice/mindset, so obviously not all agree 🙂 I won’t go into what you do when you already have three pizza parlors in the shopping center, other than my comments to this scenario in comment #35.

Hashing out industry issues like Redfin’s treatment of the Buyer Agent Fee, whether or not to use written contracts with buyers and a host of other industry wide topics, is great.

But to give the consumer the transparency of strategy and procedure and detail, that they want, and not always be wishy-washy generic BS, will create a lot of differences of opinion. So if we are going to stop tripping on each other by not raising the topics the consumer yearns for…well, let’s just say that is my worst fear.

Ok Blog Etiquette Junkies! “Have “At It”!