A San Diego Real Estate Web Log

I had to post something this morning just to get the picture of the ugly cat off the top of the page. It amused me for about ten minutes, and then I just found it annoying. So, here we go…

For me, today is New Year’s Day for me. The little soldiers of learning who are a part of the San Diego Unified School District (and this includes Scripps Ranch) are back to heavy books, sack lunches and social drama. I love the first day of school, and not for the reasons you might think. On the one hand, I find it a lot less stressful to have the short people home all day during the summer months than to be faced with an early morning deployment each school day. We have girls, so “getting ready” for school is reminiscent of the Battle of Waterloo. By the time I push them out the door, I am spent, a marathoner who has already run her race. Granted, I am down to one resident hormonal basket case, but thanks to the miracle of Skype, my oldest collegiate daughter can torment me from afar. (Just kidding, Becky. Call home soon!)

That’s the bad news. The good news is that my real estate year begins today. September is a time for planning and for getting back to full-throttle after an August where most civilians (and our would-be clients) have been mostly absentee. From a seasonal standpoint, the tempo starts to slowly build this month. We won’t see it in the numbers until January, but this is when parents everywhere begin to breathe a little easier. We all have the onslaught of holidays to conquer yet for many, the seed of moving is beginning to germinate, and they will be starting their investigative period over the next several months. And we have to be ready.

Each September, or as we like to call it, Third Quarter Estimated Tax Time, Steve and I begin the business planning thought process. It won’t materialize on paper until December, but this is the time we start stepping back to critically assess our business. We can always do better, and the minute we are finished trying, we are finished.

Every year, we reevaluate our efforts in the areas of marketing (for our listings and, yes, for ourselves), systems (this is not the sexy part, but it is necessary), and general practices. Some things I think we do very well. On the techie side, I am mostly if not entirely satisfied that we are offering more tools and superior reach than our counterparts. I have been on a one-woman mission to realize the perfect, paperless transaction and, while I am not there yet, I am closing in. We continue to promote our listings on as many on-line sites as possible. That has been the easy part. Making sure all roads lead back to us has been more challenging, and those challenges will continue.

As our business gets more complex, the systems become more important, and working on my organizational skills is high on my hit list. I believe we are extremely good with client communications and follow-up, but systems breed consistency, and I am the first to admit that you can’t exactly set your clock by our next marketing and market update. Yet.

Marketing ourselves is always the Big Kahauna of undertakings. This is because to eat, we must have business, and to have business, we must have clients. The idea of self-promotion tends to be as distasteful as the pasta I served last night, but for anyone (and I do mean “anyone”) in a service industry, it is a necessary evil. Until the majority of buyers and sellers are finding their representation from the 1-800-Psychic hotline, we must be visible. Satisfied past clients and their referrals are the life-blood of our business, but there are many more customers who will not already have a designated “agent for life” when it comes time to move. This is the tricky part, because to appeal to the uncommitted, you have to predict human behavior.

By virtue of a lot of blog reading, I am coming to the conclusion that we need to rethink our presentation. I could be wrong, but this will be the year Steve and I make a couple of bold moves. For one, we will be nuking our pictures from our “stuff.” I, for one, think we may be clinging to the old, prescribed marketing ways by rote and for no good reason. In fact, it just might be to our detriment. I suspect that home buyers and sellers don’t want to interview my summer of ‘96 likeness but an agent with experience, and just because everyone is doing it doesn’t necessarily mean it wreaks of professionalism. This will be a slow phase-out (baby steps), but a phase-out nonetheless. And, I have a lot of rocks to look under to effect this next change, but give me until year-end. At that point, if you ever see me using phrases like “Top Producer,” “Award-winning Agents,” or “Top (insert integer) Percent,” you have my permission to take me out back and slap me silly with my Chairman’s Circle plaque.

There’s more of course, some things we haven’t even thought of yet, but it’s a start.

I guess we are all back to school this morning. Happy New Year!

photo credit: bcgrote

It’s Labor Day weekend, and I labored all right. Thanks to Jay Thompson, the Phoenix Real Estate Guy, and his latest great idea, I changed the theme of our site. It was long overdue.

First, a little about Jay. He is the quintessential geeky boy. He writes code in his sleep, and it is widely known in blogging circles that I am a Phoenix Real Estate Guy groupie. I have shamelessly stolen every good idea he ever had (at least, the ones I could understand), and where technology is concerned, I want to grow up to be just like him. So for Jay, my feat is not going to be much of a big deal. For me, this undertaking was about as easy swimming the free style while wearing a concrete jumpsuit, but I did it! I am aware of a couple of tweaks I need to still make, but it’s mostly working fine, and I think my downtime when the final transfer was made totaled only about 15 minutes during the second quarter of the Illinois/Mizzou game. Mizzou won.

Next up is the web site, but that one is going to stay on the back burner — at least until Jay posts another great idea.

This Zillow Pillow Justice video, bagged from Agent Genius, is hysterically funny and well worth the just under two minutes of your life it will cost you. Thanks, Lani!

Now, where did I leave that camera?

Some days (most, lately), I just don’t get it. Here is the photo in the MLS for a home that was listed 22 days ago:

As I sit shaking my head in utter exasperation, my knee-jerk reaction is to blame the agent. After all, it is the agent who holds the marketing reins. But, I will give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she misplaced her camera. Maybe her computer is in the shop. Perhaps she ate a bad fish taco and is just now recovering. It could be that she had professional pictures taken, but the photographer forgot to remove the lens cap and they are rescheduling. Or, the agent might just be backed up with all of her other listings.

Twenty-two days. In twenty-two days I could have commissioned an artist’s rendering (using charcoal on canvas). In twenty-two days, I could have deconstructed the home, scanned each element, and produced a respectable Photoshopped likeness. In just five minutes, in fact, I was able to design this image using only the touch pad on my laptop, and I’m not even artistically inclined.

While it arguably lacks the pizzazz of the typical “professional” image, I think it is far better than this home’s current cover photo.

In contrast, we listed a home five days after this home made its impressive debut. In that time, we had the property professionally staged, professional photographs were taken (about forty of them), a virtual tour was produced, a single-property domain was secured, a custom rider was ordered and delivered displaying the domain location, 200 four-page brochures were designed and produced, the listing was syndicated to about a trillion or so on-line sites, and a print piece was mailed to about 4500 homes. These are just the CliffsNotes.

So I could be blaming the agent, but maybe I should be blaming the seller. After all, it was the seller who selected this agent. And, as a matter of full disclosure, this particular listing is one for which we interviewed. But this is not a case of sour grapes, and I sincerely mean this. The fact that we were not selected is not the point. We can’t win ‘em all; we never have, and we never will. Hire me; don’t hire me. But, if you don’t hire me, please hire someone as good or better. Hire someone worthy of your business. The agent controls the marketing, but you are in control of the selection process.

Unfortunately, we see these situations every day, and the bigger issue is that it is beyond me how, particularly in this market, anyone would think their interests are well-served by this level of effort. They knew they had choices. They knew what marketing opportunities were available to them. And, I know they knew that listing a home is a partnership, one in which ongoing cooperation is required, one in which the agent does not operate within a vacuum but instead communicates clearly and often about the measures they are taking on the seller’s behalf to find a buyer at the highest price. I know because we discussed these things.

Maybe it was about friendship. Maybe it was about money. Or, on second thought, maybe it isn’t the seller’s fault at all.

Perhaps the seller isn’t aware of how his home is being promoted. His computer could be in the shop. He might have eaten a bad fish taco and is just now recovering. It could be that, well, you get the idea. But, I have to wonder, didn’t he notice that no one with a camera has stopped by in the last three weeks?

photo credit: akaalias

Hellooooo! Is anybody there?

It has been so quiet over the past week, you can hear a call drop. And it is just so hard to be a blur of activity, a working machine, when the real estate world feels like it is operating under a cone of silence. It must be August.

This happens every year, and I am having to remind myself that a lot of the lethargy we are seeing now may in fact be seasonal and not market-driven. Our market is less than ideal; we have consensus on this point. Buyers are buried under a barrage of reports of the end of the world as we know it, fearful that a purchase today would cause their friends to lob taunts and jeers in their general direction. There are always those motivated few, the few with a sense of urgency, but absent a true “need” to move in August, most people tend to put any buying (and selling) “wants” temporarily on the back burner.

So what does this mean if your home is currently offered for sale? Patience. Every summer-end, I find myself repeating this little speech: From now through January, stuff is going on, stuff outside of real estate. If seasonal trends hold true, showings will be fewer, and open houses will not likely be festive beehives of activity. We all enjoy competing demands this time of year, from the back-to-school daze and the vacations, to the “What am I going to be?” costume decisions and and the social and gift-buying obligations. The people who do look at your home during the next several months, however, probably mean business. And, don’t forget that there are a whole bunch of busy would-be sellers out there who are putting off listing until the relatives leave, so your competition is arguably less.

My father-in-law used to say, “Don’t fight the feeling,” and this is particularly good advice right now. When someone decides to view your home during the next several months, they have probably done so because it is a priority, a higher priority than basting the turkey. Expect fewer showings, but know that the quality of your showings will be greater for awhile. It always is. Veteran agents know the season all too well and use this time to improve systems, attend to those “projects” which have been languishing since last August, and generally mobilize for the next seasonal wave. Sellers would be wise to use this time to enjoy the things their potential buyers are enjoying while they aren’t looking at homes.

Lately it has been all about the market, but sometimes it’s just August.

Today we learned the news that our long-time A-list Scripps Ranch handyman, Jim Reed, passed away this past week. His granddaughter tells us that he died peacefully in his sleep while attending a family funeral in Denver. Steve and I feel like we have lost a member of our own family.

I say that Jim was our A-lister, but the reality is that he was the only name on our list. For almost as long as we have been in real estate, Jim has been a fixture in our clients’ homes and in our own. He did what he did primarily because he loved what he did. When he had knee replacement surgery last year, he took all of one month off before he was on the top rung of a ladder in our living room (the one that says “This is not a step!”) installing our new ceiling fan.

His hourly rate was well below market, but Jim made up for it with hours. He was a “visitor,” and each job was about one-half work and one-half conversation. On days when I was busiest, I avoided eye contact, knowing that the meter was running and I might be finding myself pulling up a bar stool to swap stories.  I invariably ended up swapping stories regardless. Jim was one of the kindest, sincerest people you could ever meet, and it was hard to say no.

We understand that his family is with him in Denver today. We pray he is at peace. Finding ourselves short on words, we have decided to rerun this post originally published by Steve in May, 2007, in his honor.ландшафт Our deepest prayers go out to his family.

As real estate agents we have a wide array of technical tools available to make ourselves more effective today - laptops, notebooks, Blackberries, and Treos to name a few. We also have an arsenal that includes e-mail, web sites, digital pictures, video tours, podcasts, blogs, and much more. We can literally expose properties to the world.

But for many transactions it’s the simpler, back to the basics type of assets that we need to bring to bear. Once a purchase agreement is consummated, the due diligence period begins. Virtually every home is professionally inspected and since inspectors have a secret agreement to always find something, if not many things, wrong (it’s in their oath when they become inspectors), a request for repairs list is commonly presented to the seller. If the items are agreed upon the transaction moves forward. If not, the transaction may be a risk.

So, notwithstanding all of today’s technology, in many cases the success or failure of a transaction is defined by how well you can negotiate and execute the repair list. Regardless of who is responsible for whatever repairs are agreed upon, it is common that some “punch list” items are beyond the capability or desire of the buyer or seller to complete, but they may not be significant enough to need a licensed vendor such as a plumber, electrician, appliance guy, etc. In most cases, the buyer and/or seller look to their agent to arrange for these items to be resolved.

Enter the Handyman. More specifically, in this case the Scripps Ranch Handyman, Jim Reed. Yes, the good ol’ handyman. It is increasingly rare to be able to find a really good one; one who is a professional and who you, as the agent, can count on to fix a wide range of deficiencies in the home, know the building code, do it right (in many cases better than the licensed vendor) and not charge $100+ just to show up. I fear the handyman is a rare and threatened breed.

After many years of trying to refine our skills as agents and to acquire new skills, we have come to appreciate the value of such a talented individual. Kris and I don’t promote our stable of vendors very often (ever). Our best are already in great demand. But in this case we have someone who is approaching icon status. Take the top five or six agents that work the Scripps Ranch market and combine all of the homes they have entered over the years and it still doesn’t approach the number that Jim Reed has seen - and “fixed.”

Amazingly, almost every home we sell in Scripps is one that Jim has not only been in for the existing owner, but also for the two or three prior owners. He knows the whole history of so many homes, it’s ridiculous. And he has great stories. I guess since he has been doing this for so long, he knows where all the skeletons are buried, so to speak.

But, like anybody who has done anything for 35 years, Jim is starting to slow down. After each job, I meet with him at the back of his truck where he sits on his bumper to rest and we discuss how the job went. His knees are a problem and he is stalling on getting needed knee replacement operations - for both. Selfishly, I don’t know what I would do if he was out of commission for 6 to 8 weeks. May as well shut down, or ask Kris to give my power tools back.

What’s funny is that every month we see his little ad in the classified section of the Scripps Ranch Newsletter - “Scripps Ranch Handyman. One call does it all!” Why he runs this ad, I’ll never know. Jim is always booked up for weeks or even months at a time. And generally, he will not do work in other communities. Why? Because he doesn’t have to. That, and because (he proudly tells us this) his truck gets about 6 miles to the gallon. I had to practically beg him to do some work for a property I sold in Pacific Beach a few months ago. When there he was telling me stories and pointing in various directions of homes he had done in PB in past decades. Not anymore, except for my begging.

Jim’s office is his truck. When he raises the back panel, you are immediately impressed with the notion that Home Depot has thrown up inside. Every imaginable tool and spare part one could need to rebuild the Parthenon is on display, and those spare parts have saved our sellers and their repair projects more than a few times.

Our Scripps Ranch Handyman is incredibly good at what he does, but I get the sense his work is not about the money, at least not at this point. He loves the work, but mostly he loves the people. And, after all, this is a people business.