Joe Pryor.com REALTOR® Oklahoma Investment Properties

One month ago I was interviewed by the Boston Globe and later videotaped by them about my friend from highchool Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth and i were on the debate team together and for three years we were state champions. The Globe was trying to investigate what she was like growing up in Oklahoma City and so that were close to her were interviewed. Regardless of your politics i will tell you that Elizabeth was the smartest one in the room, unpretentious, and unconcerned about status based on wealth or what cool clothes you wore or how hot your car was. During the interview I was taken back to the early 1960's and while talking about her i relived many lessons I had not forgotten but had ceased to be in the conscious activity of day to day real estate. here is what I learned:

Investigate in depth. Too often in real estate we flit from one type of real estate to another, we get onto a new "it's the new thing" marketing on the web instead of learning completely about the tools we already have. In debate we had monster topics for being in high school especially for the early 60's. Proliferation of nuclear weapons, free trade, and socialized medicine were just a few. We went to the library like we now go to Google to learn everything about the topic. We had one topic a year so it allowed us to focus and get the depth that you need in a debate. The lesson learned was focus and get it right. I would rather see someone just blogging only, or dominating youtube.com, or being the Facebook community resource without doing anything else. Whatever you do nail that sucker before you move on.

Know both sides of topic. When we went to debate tournaments we would be teams of two and other teams of two. We flipped a coin to see who was the affirmative and who would be against. Because of this we had to be able to defend passionately and authoritatively our side. What I found was in a topic like socialized medicine, that there was good reasons on both sides. had I just put on blinders and believed that was only one truth I would have not only lost half the debates automatically, but missed out on reality. We can see now in this country extremist views that are unyielding and dogmatic, and neither side is right. At least in this business we should be able to see both sides of a transaction and create fairness for both. No one should lose, and I wish that politicians could incorporate that sense of fairness. This is where i believe our industry excels.

Know the questions to ask. There comes a time at the end of the debate where there is rebuttal. Both sides get to question the other about what was presented. To be good at this you first must listen. If your mind is racing while someone else is talking you don't take in what is meant. What I did was write down the arguments they gave before I formulated the questions. If I really knew my topic from both sides I could spot a fallacy in the argument (see above), and i could show the weakness. In real estate we have to know all the rules to ask the right question. We need to review what we originally learned especially for me after 22 years. We have to know the Code of Ethics, we have to know financing, we have to know budgeting, we have to know the math, we have to know a lot of things to know the questions that make a difference.

What does winning mean? Okay I admit it, I was and I am competitive, and I liked winning and still do. it is that debate taught me how to interpret winning without it being a ego game. If I won in debate it was not because I was an excellent public speaker which I was, it was because I presented arguments that resonated with the judges. if I lost then I had to realize that as good as i was at this, someone was better or at least the judges thought so. So much more about winning is learned when you lose. You ask yourself why you lost, was there anything you could have done about it, or was there anything I could change so that the outcome would he winning the next time. Don't ever beat yourself up about losing and remember that a perfectionist is a person who believes in failure because perfection is not an option.

Final Thoughts. I am not a person who dwells on the past but sometimes like in these interviews you can't help it. I remembered events from over 45 years ago. I remembered a debate I lost because I was familiar with what a cartel was but I learned. I remembered that there is more than just one side to an idea, and that ideas can create a paradox that is resolved in a new way of thinking. I also learned to never stop learning, that it is okay to question yourself without beating yourself up, and as I approach my 64th birthday this week that I am still growing, still questioning, and no matter how old i get that 16 year old debater is still in me, looking at both sides, and win or lose I have one topic now that I can learn about every year, helping people and families find their real estate dreams. Now that's winning!

Charlene and I have been working on business planning for the last month. new budgets, written core values, the creation of rules that governs the culture of our business are just a few of the things we are doing to insure 2012 will be even better. At the same time I am in the holiday spirit, and as the keeper of all the old family photographs I am categorizing them to get to a digitizer for a more permanent home to distribute to family members. Sometimes looking over the times of your life especially before your 64th birthday causes a few pangs of regret, bur during my search of the attic my attitude changed because of what I found.

In my search I found that I had saved boxes of old records, bank statements, and in the pre-online era, the checks them selves dating back to 1998. Knowing that many of these papers I don't have to keep anymore for the IRS so I set out to dispose of them, but these records you don't want to put whole in the garbage can, so I took them to The Shredder. Yes I put that in bold because I found the antidote to old painful memories and regrets, shredding!

I am like many of you, I have a hard time of letting go. When a buyers or another agent is too pushy, I get angry and have to hold myself back. When I think back to missed opportunities I want to bang my head against the wall saying how was I so blind? But holding those bank statements as they went through the shredder, not only was I emptying boxes of what I didn't need anymore, I also felt a lighter spirit inside of me, and a strange feeling started to overcome me and I had to ask myself what was this feeling? It was pleasure.

Pleasure from ridding myself of clutter, and ridding my soul of any obsession with the past. We tell our selling clients all the time, you need to declutter your home to maximize the sales potential, but are we saying this to ourselves about our own lives? I have spent a month getting ready for next year by making plans, creating flow charts, making my marketing have synergy, leveraging repeatable task for outsource, and making projections based on big dreams. That is all good stuff to do, but like a computer hard drive that is full to capacity, it just doesn't work as well. While you are preparing for the new year, think not only about what to do and how to do it, also give importance to what baggage you need to discard, both personally and professionally. For me I think like Hercules, it was his task to clean out the Augean Stables, not to put more crap into it.

FYI, my favorite tech object of this year is my industrial strength shredder, it not only shreds useless old data, it reminds me that when I wake up in the morning the past is prologue, and the future is now.

My team does a lot of short sales in Oklahoma City, and we are on track to close over 50 this year. This may not seem like many in some markets like Vegas or Florida, but for a market as robust as ours it is. First a little bit about our market:

First, we had no buble pricing and our values since 2008 havenot dropped and the median home price has gone up.

Second, our unemployment rate has average 5% this year, and we lead the nation in income growth for metro areas over 1 million.

Last, taking in the whole state we have only 5.7% of homeowners underwater on their mortages, the lowest in the country.

Because of these reasons this is not a rant against appraisers doing a tough job as all of real estate categories are tough this year, rather it is a rant against the rules and some observations about REALTORS® who try to do short sales but don't have the committment for the education as well as the hard work required to have a successful short sale. First, let me give you a few exmaples of the difficulties and what I think needs changing.

Our HAFA Problem. I will save for a later blog the lender issues, but let's stay with appraisers. I have a HAFA I started in February and despite the timeline restrictions it is still going. I just had the appraiser out for the third time for a pricing dispute. The problem is that for a house that should asell for $160K or less we have $50K to $70K in repairs including 24 piers for structure and a very bad roof that insurance won't touch. That's $45,000 just in those two items and we have eliminated most financing except for cash, a bank that loves you. or a full blown 203K. It has taken us 10 months to get the price to $160K from $218K. The appraiser was not allowed to take in absorption rate, the limitation of financing, or the general amount of repairs that could be even higher. The only reason we have the price down is our constant pressure omn both the lender and appraiser. Get this, while I just saw a featured post about low appraisals killing sales, in Greater Oklahoma City, high appraisals are killing short sales.

FHA and Square Footage. In Oklahoma City since we have so few distressed properties, FHA will not allow the appraiser to use any distressed comparables on the price consideration. So six months ago we listed the property at $150K, no showings. Then we lowered it to $145K, no showings. Again we lowered to $140K, no showings, and finally $135K and contract! The price was lowered over two months of prime summertime sales. One month later we get the appraiser out, show him that distressed sales were the only sales in the neighborhood in the last 60 days, show him that the formal dining and second living area were not desirable for the typical buyer, showed hiome the price reduction timeline, the showings that only happened after the $135K price, and left feeling good. Two weeks later the appraisal came in at, you guessed it, $140K. Now 4 weeks later, you guessed it, no showings. Doesn't the market set the price? Since the appraiser doesn't but the house at the price he sets, and since square footage is all he can use, and the foreclosed homes indicative of market conditions, the result may be foreclosure for the owner, and ultimately, less money for the lender since it may be a year before they get any money in a forclosure sale.

Conclusion. Appraisers need some new rules. If the idea is to save the homeowner from foreclosure, avoid empty houses that can be vandalized and look unkempt, keep away a lower foreclosure price that may bring non-distressed sellers to a negative or neutral equity postion, and the least amount of losss to the abnks we bailed out, then the system is wrong. You can say don't trust the REALTOR® who just wants a commission, especially since the work hours for short sale are the longest in any transaction, there is a problem. When you have teams that close lots of short sales and like us have a 95% close rate, then we need to be in on the decsions. We don't fire slae these properties looking for an easy score, our price drops are timed and based on showings and feedback. Yes, there are some short sales that can't be closed even from the best agent, but when they are avoidable and in every ones best interest, the appraisers need to collaborate with us and more criteria needs to be added into the mix.

Now my REALTOR® Rant. When I meet the appraiser or a BPO agent on a short sale I get the same reply from both, I am surprised you are here. In Oklahoma City and maybe elsewhere, REALTORS® are doing short sales where representing a homeowner in distress can mean foreclosure and a further credit meltdown for the whole family's future, you have got to go the distance and be there for everything. I am shocked that so few show up for the appraiser or BPO agent on a short sale, realizing that so much is at stake. No we cannot manipulate or signle hadedly set the price but we do have influence and can answer questions, show condition of property problems, discuss excell inventory issues and what is and is not selling. We can make a difference, and we have been able to dispute pricing and help the homeowner. REALTORS® please remember, the victory is not in getting the listing, the voctory is saving a family from foreclosure and giving them a brighter future to look forward to.

If you are a financially distressed homeowner in the Oklahoma City area we want to help you with all your options toa void foreclosure including a short sale. Contact us at joe@joepryor,com or visit our website devoted to the differences bewteen foreclosure and a short sale at www.avoidforeclosureoklahoma.com.

Edmond Oklahoma is one of the top communities in Oklahoma. It has the hghest per capital income and the highest level of college graduates in the state. People come to Edmond for two reasons. First, the school system is in a class by itself. Since 1977 Edmond residents have voted for every bond issue for school improvements that has come up. Second, Edmond has a well respected city government that is dedicated to providing events, activities, and recreational facilities for the population that is copied by other Oklahoma cities but never to the extent of what Edmond gets done. The under $180K in Edmond Oklahoma is a good example of affordability and is ready for you to move in.  

2005 built 3 bedroom home in Edmond, OK

Overview Maps Photos Features Description Neighborhood

$179,500 Single Family Home Main Features 4 Bedrooms 2 Bathrooms 1 Unit Interior: 1835 sqft Lot: 9,310 sqft Location 2237 Scissortail Landing Dr Edmond, OK 73012 USA To get updates on open home dates and other property events, please click the "Like" button below:

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Joe Pryor (405) 216-0020 joe@joepryor.com http://www.thevirtualrealestateteam.com Listed by: Redbud Realty & Associates

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