Robert OHaugherty, REALTOR, ABR

I'm doing my third "out of town" real estate deal. In Texas, our license allows us to conduct any type of real estate business or transaction within the borders of the state. My office is in Southlake, TX, a mid-city community within the Dallas-Fort Worth MetroPlex and my buyer client is in Monahans, some 6 hours from here. As with the prior two transactions, the entire paper trail, signatures and closings will be done entirely by fax and overnight shipping. Since the property is outside of my association, I have called the other listing agent already and they have indicated that they will not pay a commission. I have already got a buyer's rep agreement and that the buyer, my client, will be paying my 3% commission instead. If the offer is accepted we'll be closing the first week in December. Now, if you read the entire post up to here, did you catch the part of not getting paid. At closing, the listing agent will get paid 3% from his listing client, but I will not get anything. In Texas, unless I have an agreement with my buyer to be paid my 3%, I will not get paid. CYA.

Today, I held the second of two open houses on a commercial lease space. In my broker's marketing plan to attract tenants, he put in holding open an office lease space of about 3,638sf, a rather large vacant space. In our marketing plan we proposed to open the vacant space to the public from Noon until 2:00, a time period designed to catch people coming to and from lunch. We marketed the open house to our own e-mail lists of commercial agents and by word of mouth. We will open the space each week on a Wednesday and will have lunch snacks and drinks to offer customers. Our main brokerage sign has a permanently attached open house rider with the time stated. Today I had one customer come by, the next door tenant, and he was glad to see the inside of the space and is now considering demising about 1,300sf of the 3,638sf for his own expanding plan, a plan that the owner was familiar with but didn't have anyone to push the deal through. We enter here representing the landlord and we have begun the negotiaing process to lease this space. Maybe holding an "open house" or holding an "open office" is a good way to attract tenants and prospects for our busniess.

I didn't vote for Mr Obama, but the way I see it, it's time now for Obama to get us back to a stronger economy. He has inherited a miss and our newly elected President with the help of both parties need to help "fix it". He appears to be quite capable of fixing it, he said he could fix it. So congratulations to you, Mr Obama, now lets FIX IT.

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. Five orders in one day from Protek. I had to turn them all down but 5? I'm working the polling stations tomorrow and will not be able to complete these 5 orders in a timely fashion. But on Wednesday, the 5th, I'm going to be watching for the next set of orders. All I did was go into Protek and the orders where still there and the particulars on each order. After looking over each order, I rejected the orders and someone else, I'm sure, picked them up. Later in the week, if I take my first orders, I report the process back to AR.

Speaking of working a poll place. Please vote tomorrow, and then get active in the grassroots of your choice of political party. Our system works, but we have to still be involved in keeping it going. Here in Texas, TREPAC is our voice to the politicians.

Daniel Kennedy in her real estate books, promotes holding open houses and showing residential property to the public. All I can say is to agree with her, my broker, and past experiences with holding open houses. I have generated many new clients and customers from this weekend endeavor. But recently I held an open house on a listing for 970sf commercial property to try and find a new tenant for my client. I held it open, signs and all, from 11:30am, work it through lunch and closed it at 1:30pm. I had drinks and snacks, brochures, and cards, dressed in a suit and opened the door. Results: I had 10 people show of which one person became a client-a chiropractor looking to relocate in the spring of 2009. A weel later I had an LOI on the space. If you want to kick your real estate into gear, do open houses for a month and see if the results are worth the time and effort.