Mark Druckmiller

(Day 20 of the "30 in 30" challenge...)

Just as I mentioned yesterday about rentals being in high demand in my area, sure enough, I walk into the office into a firestorm! I get another young couple, looking to rent a house in the area, but this time, it's a little different.

I ask them, "Well, where are you looking to move to? Here in town? Somewhere nearby? Something within 'X' miles from here?"

They said, "It could be anywhere...."

<GASP!>

Well, that narrows it down to about a thousand. Seriously, the husband does work in a specific location, so we agreed to look within a certain radius. I get a bunch of listings printed and we go over them, offer some choices, and again we get into the topic of why it is that OTHER agents don't want to work weekends...

Don't know, but I'll do whatever it takes.

Within a few hours, I get calls, inquiries on foreclosures for sale (but more than usual), a request to list some vacant land, and scheduling some showings. Oh, did I mention the receptionist was out sick today and I was taking all her calls, too?

Whoever said the real estate business isn't doing well must be off his rocker.

(It's late, I gotta squeeze this post in to make the challenge!)

(Day 19 of the "30 in 30" challenge)

I'm happy to say that I have over a dozen prospects/clients/interested persons that I'm working with that are desperately wanting a rental home in Saline. The PROBLEM is, though, that almost each and every one of them wants "a rental home in Saline for about $1000 a month". That is getting rarer and rarer by the day. As of today's date, the MLS shows only 3 houses for less than $2000, where as a couple of months ago, it was closer to 10.

My most current pending sale got a LOT of calls asking if it would be available as a rental, perhaps if it was the market for rent, it would probably go for about $1600, in my opinion.

Anything in the sub-$2000 range in this market appears to mostly 3-bedroom, one and a half bath, close to 1200 square feet and most likely a one-car garage. But many of those are concentrated in neighborhoods built in the mid-1960's and close to the center of town.

So it least it's one factor showing that Saline is very desirable, but the only people celebrating based on the above info are recently leasing landlords.

Condos? Yes, condo rentals have also been sucked out of the market. As of this moment, ONLY ONE condo is available for rent, in the low $2000's per month.

What to do? I've got clients on automated watch lists and the lists notify me as well every day. But I'm doing a bit of pounding the pavement and trying to work with FSBO's to try and help, but word travels fast in a small town. The owners of the rental homes going FSBO also know this is now a high-demand area as well.

What ELSE can I do? I'm mostly working with the clients that have a more urgent need (they need to move OUT of where they are now, like having their current lease elsewhere end soon) and showing them homes in different areas, including one this morning where I showed a couple a home in Dexter. It definitely was not their first choice, but as they see what the market is like, they get a little more open. However, I don't push it on everyone, I carefully weigh out what the clients want and need, and more and more, renting in Saline is turning into a "want" than a "need".

So in other words, finding a rental in this market and this area isn't as cut-and-dried as it was before. It just makes life interesting.

(Day 18 of "30 in 30" challenge)

A long time ago, during the stone-age, when I bought my last home, I worked with an agent who obviously knew exactly where all of the homes for sale were in his town. We looked at something like 16 homes in two days. For the in town homes, we found them quickly, the agent didn't have to read the directions/cross-streets on the listing or anything, just drove straight to them. However, I was also looking for homes outside of town, and then the agent was TOTALLY lost. Had to stare at the directions on the paper copy of his listings, got his county and township maps, and after driving back and forth in several directions, we eventually found the house. I didn't mind, as I dragged this poor agent across three counties, eight school systems, and several interstate highways. I really didn't expect him to know everything outside of town and I knew I put him through a lot of work.

Fast forward to today. On some "day long showing parties", where I take a person or a couple through several homes in one day, I rely on a GPS, but again that's mostly because we did the same thing I did to my poor agent years ago. I actually know my home town pretty well, as well as nearby townships. (I live west of town so I know most of the rural roads very well, too.)

However, not all GPS's are equal, or for that matter, the real problem is the data that the companies (Garmin, Tom-Tom, Magellan, etc) rely on to provide street and address info. I happen to live in a place where many GPS's fail. On Dell Road, west of Saline, the house numbers go sequentially up from north to south, however, the numbers overlap near the intersection of Dell and Saline Waterworks, near where I live. GPS's will fail to find my house (north of Waterworks), and will point them to an open field (SOUTH of Waterworks). So delivery guys, repairmen, contractors, vendors, bicycle repairmen and just about everyone else, trip themselves up and end up calling me to find my house. So when they get lost and call me on their cell phones I ask, "Are you staring at a cornfield?". If the answer is yes, I tell them to turn around and drive 1/2 a miles north.

Of course, this makes finding houses for sale on my street a bit hard unless the agent KNOWS where everything is.

One other thing, though, what about emergency response? I mentioned in another post, I've had emergencies happen before where I had to make sure police, fire, and ambulance personnel can find me.

I spoke to the Washtenaw County sheriff's office and their dispatcher KNOWS about our addressing and the way it's been since several new homes and subdivisions have sprung up. We also have BRIGHT GREEN signs on our mailboxes, provided by the Saline Fire Department to make our addresses visible. (See picture to left!) Although they say our addresses are known and mapped out properly before being dispatched on calls, the signs are now mostly an aid, just in case. The signs aren't the primary tool used to find our homes in case of a fire.

So I can rest easier, as well as anyone who wants to live out here. I did also speak to the township, and the assessor I spoke to years ago said that with different officers and officials long ago, they "chose" to do the numbering that way. THEY SAID if the homes were to be numbered using the systems and personnel as they have today, this numbering confusion wouldn't happen...ever. (So they say...)

(Day 17 of the 30 in 30 challenge!)

While I concentrate what's going on in real estate, now we take a left turn and talk about TOOLS we use, such as desktop computer, laptops, netbooks, smartphones, and other things like the iPad. But first we'll specifically talk about the first "half", namely computers. I may get to smartphones and other devices in a later post.

First of all, a little bit of a disclaimer, I was a computer technician in a recent former lifetime. I have computer biases and some of my favorite types of operating systems. That, and I'm certified to work on PC's and have a Certified Computer Examiner certification, which means I can find deleted files and search your computer for kiddie porn. In my own home, I have at my disposal:

- Three WindowsXP PC's.

- One Windows7 PC.

- One Mac Mini with OS/X Snow Leopard.

- And one DEAD PC of which no longer has an operating system, perhaps the hard drive has bitten the dust. But more on that one later.

I'm not going to get TERRIBLY geeky on you all, but I don't intend to start a flame war, either. However, I AM interested in what you folks reading here think about the various platforms and what works best for you.

Windows: Love it or hate it, it IS the predominant operating system and platform for desktop computer and laptops. Or rather, it used to be described as an "IBM PC" or "IBM PC clone" (something LIKE a PC, but not made by IBM). I had worked on these systems since the first IBM PC. Yes, people complain they are buggy or they crash, or they're prone to viruses, spyware, malware, and all that. It's true, But indeed many folks will maintain that if you're careful, they can be just as reliable or as safe or SAFER than a Mac. Currently, my two newest systems are on Windows, but that's only because one of them is my wife's PC (she really only wants the same machine as she uses at work) and the other is a netbook that I use that can run my local Board of Realtor's website that DEMANDS you run Internet Explorer and use ActiveX controls. Or in short, you basically HAVE to use Windows. Okay, my netbook is cheap and one of the reasons it IS cheap is because it has Windows installed. A decent MacBook would be more than double the price of my little netbook.

Mac: Yes, it's a CULT. But yes, it's not a prone to crashing, or getting viruses, or being very buggy in general compared to Windows PC's. But part of that reason is what one I.T. professional calls "security through obscurity". Most of the viruses out there are for Windows PC's, as they're a BIGGER target. But indeed I prefer Mac's myself because I have fewer issues with them. But that's me. Since the release of the last "family" of Mac operating systems, or OS/X, the actually underlying computer code in it has proven vary stable, plus variants of OS/X are what also run the iPhone and the iPad. (Not exactly, but it's basically all BSD Unix under the covers). But in short, it's fairly stable because it's Unix-based underneath, but also it not as popular so therefore it's a bit safer to run than a WindowsPC.

Linux: Lin-WHAT? Linux. I mention this because actually, Linux runs on many servers operating websites all over the world. (Actually, a special version of Linux also operates the entertainment systems on Delta Airlines passenger video displays!) Linux was developed in the 1990's by Linus Torvalds, a programmer that wanted to just sit down and write a good, simple operating system that worked like Unix, but was to be shared and easily modifiable. But back to our story, Linux has the attractions of being FREE and being able to run on almost any OLD PC, or even on recent Macs with Intel processor chips. If you have an old PC sitting around that you don't use and it's about 10 years old, you can probably wipe the hard disk (remove Windows) and bring the computer back to life and running fast again with Linux. It can be just as crash-proof as Macs (seem to be), but you run into the problem of support, because there's no ONE Linux, there are over 600 flavors, or "distributions" of Linux. They're not controlled by one company, it's "open source", or that is, people all over the world contribute to writing Linux and making their own "custom" versions for various uses. As wonderful as everything sounds, Linux is solid, but getting help or support is not as easy as Windows PC's or Macs.

I would prefer to use Linux, if I were to use it for just general browsing and if I could get to some sites that don't care about what browser you're using. But since I can't, I'm using a Windows PC right now to check listings through my local MLS and local board website.

I can go over more details of all 3 operating systems in future posts, BUT for now, I'm just scratching the surface to perhaps discuss pros and cons from you all reading this.

(Day 16 of the "30 in 30" challenge)

Another case of what the public thinks and what do agents/brokers/Realtors think?

Our local office set up our little booth at the local community fair, where all the local merchants and groups promote themselves. I and an other agent, a gentleman with many more years in the business than I, were working the booth today and talking with interested and disinterested folks (they came for the coloring books!).

But the question that kept coming up, usually as THE conversation starter, from visitors was, "Is the real estate business pretty slow now?".

Both of us answered with a resounding "NO". From my perspective in the local market, I get plenty of calls for rentals and "long days on market" properties, and lots of fixer-uppers. My cohort reported that the (conventional primary) home sales are still going at nearly the same volume, but the prices are just lower than usual.

We were just there 3 hours, but this came up time and time again. I think a larger part of the media may make it sound like the entire country as a whole is suffering from lower sales and that's true, but not necessarily everywhere, not in our neck of the woods. So perhaps, the general public around here just doesn't know. We're not desperate, we're not hurting terribly, and many of us still keep fairly busy. It's just perhaps the commissions aren't what they are, but commissions are still commissions.

The only reason I'm a little curious as to the perception is only because when you live, breathe, and eat real estate every day, what you see is definitely different from what the general public sees. People still need a place to live, so whether its rentals, short sales, foreclosures, moving from houses to condos, or whatever, the real estate business is still VERY active.