The Harris Team Experience & Knowledge Beyond A Real Estate License

Today I am going to attend yet another "short sale" class. The thing that makes today's short sale class special is first its free and second they are givings us lunch. We Realtors like free lunches. Its one of the classes sponsored by our local title company. Guess they want to make sure we have one iota of an idea of how to handle a short sale. Did you know that many of the title companies now have a "short sale" department to help assist agents with the process.

When I took all the classes to become a licensed sales agent and even a licensed broker there was no such thing as a class on short sales. This should tell you I got my license before 2008. Since I am an exclusive buyer's agent in Fountain Hills, Arizona and I do not take listings why would I need to take another short sale class? After all don't the ins and outs of a short sale pretty much just pertain to sellers?

I suppose that is true for the most part. However just because I don't take listings, and we all know that most of them right now are short sales, does not mean I should not educate myself as much as I can with the inner workings of a short sale. My buyer needs to know that I know as much as the listing agent about the process he or she is about to get involved in when and if they make an offer on a short sale property.

I will tell you that each short sale class that I have gone to I have learned something new that has benefited me and my buyers. There really is no "free lunch" in our business when it comes to educating ourselves as much as possible about short sales. Short sales are here for the next couple of years, educating yourself as much as you can about them will only make you a better Realtor.

Yes the time has come when I need to take this blogging thing seriously. OK its been about a year that I put my first blog on Active Rain. I was so enthusiastic, I was going to be this great blogger, after all I can fill a paragraph as well as the next guy with useful Real Estate information for potential clients or my real estate colleagues. So what went wrong that I didn't keep up with it. NO COMMENTS! Translation, no one cared what I wrote about. What a great excuse not to do it anymore! Well after all those months of saying blogging is a waste of time I am back to give it another try. A serious effort. .

I am not from the generation X, Y, or Z. I convinced myself that social media was going to be a fad. I'm a great Realtor, however I am now realizing that I am passing up a lot of business by not taking advantage of free marketing and networking. No longer do I believe that I can get by with just the old ways of print ads, cold calling or just maintaining my contacts. I am afraid it just doesn't cut it anymore.

I am not going to give up so easily this time just because I may not get any COMMENTS about what I write about. So no more excuses, its time that I take this blogging thing seriously. What was that line in Field of Dreams "build it and they will come."

2009 WAS a very good year for real estate. Is it too soon to say that, after all it is the end of November and I don't know about most of you but with the holidays and all, things seem to pretty much slow down till after the first of the year. So I chose now to say 2009 WAS a very good year for Real Estate. after all it is the end of November !"

Now some of you would say "Are you crazy, were you selling real estate in the same year I was?" I would say "hey, are you not reading this blog post, which tells me you are "still an active Realtor". Three cheers for those of us that are still around. We must have done something right to accomplish that.

I think that those of us that kept a positive attitude about the real estate market and kept our heads above water and figured out new inovative ways to work with clients and make things happen can be proud to say 2009 WAS a very good year for real estate.

Take a moment to buy yourself something special for Christmas. You deserve it and pat yourself on the back for a job well done. . and yes HAPPY THANKSGIVING TOO, you have a lot to be thankful for as well.

I know there are tons of qualified buyers out there that just can't seem pull the trigger to buy a home, condo or whatever kind of real estate they would love to have. The reasons are many, the negative press saying we have not hit bottom, friends and family saying wait, the prices are going to go lower, look at how many people are losing their jobs, eventually interest rates are going to 3% and I'll wait till that happens, the banks are'nt loaning money etc. As real estate agents we hear it all.

I also know there are going to be tons of buyers that a year or so from now are going to say "I should have and could have bought that house for X. Buyers have to be armed with the positive reasoning why it is a good time to buy real estate, and who better to do that then the folks that do this for a living, the real estate agent.

What a great time for a 1st time homebuyer or somone who has not owned a home for 3 years to buy a home and take advantage of the new $8,000 tax credit that is NON-REFUNDABLE. Don't have a large down payment, or your credit score is not pristine but respectable, hey FHA is your source, only 3.5% down and FICO scores can be as low as 620. Have great credit, I spoke to a Washington Federal mortgage originator that said if you have good credit and have good debt ratios they will do 90 to 95% financing! Many agents and buyers think this type of financing is a thing of the past. . just not so.

Buyers and real estate agents it is not all doom and gloom out there. It is a great time and the right time to buy real estate. Prices are at an all time low, interest rates are low, there has to be at least ten homes that are right for each buyer with inventory at an all time high. So I say, stop listening to all this day to day negativity about the market, stop letting the fear factor take over good judgement. There is no better time to buy real estate than right now. A year from now you will be saying "I got a smokin deal".

If you are in the market for a home in the next 90 days and want an agent that has your best interests at heart and knows the Scottsdale/Phoenix real estate market and knows how to get you the best deal and has the best finanancing sources call me at Buyers 1st Realty, TJ Harris, 480-836-4338 "We're always on the buyer's side".

Today I had a fellow business owner stop in my office to see how things were going. He has an mid to upper range designer flooring business. We started chatting about how slow things were and he told me a story about a client that he had given a quote to for carpeting in their home. He had quoted this client a price based on 98 yards of carpet and had given the client a nice discount in the quote. The client called him and said "well I measured and I came up with 90 sq. yds". My friend said I will be happy to come over and show you how and why we came up with 98 sq. yds. The client then replied that this was not necessary but still only wanted to be charged for 90 sq. yds.

Now I am not a large real estate company and my fellow flooring company neighbor is not a large company either, between the two of us we have 2500 Sq. Ft. of space. We fall into the class of what we all know as the small business owner. I spoke with another agent today about how difficult it is trying to put a deal together with the majority of the buyers that we are now encountering that want the deal on top of the deal. After getting a firm rejection from the seller, be it the lender or homeowner that received the unrealistic offer, the bottom line response is, "well there is always the next one" having learned nothing from this offer or the previous one that have been submitted. Yes I know many agents would say "perhaps I am not the right agent for you" etc., etc. I could not agree more with you, but I have just spent countless hours with this client and in today's market its not like there is "another one coming around the corner". But what bothers me more than anything is this new buyer attitude and often they verbalize it with no apology "I want a steal".

Now please don't get me wrong, a buyer has every reason to want a deal right now and I respect that and frankly if I were in this market to buy right now I would want the same thing. I know the tables have turned from the boom years, but lately I am seeing and hearing about this new "culture" of buyers wanting something for nothing beyond what I consider to be "reasonable". We all work hard to make a living especially in this market, driving buyers to see some 30 or more properties and putting in offers that are unrealistic is not only time consuming, but what I find most frustrating is they don't want to hear what you have to say, could care less about the statistics, and just does'nt seem to want your expert advice.

Well I don't know how long this deep recession is going to go on, or how many of us are going to still be around on the other side, but I miss the good old days when it was a "win win" for everyone.