Pete and Mary Stanley

I just want to thank Buy Owner for making my job so easy. There is a world of opportunity picking up disappointed sellers who have gone for the advertising, paid $3000 up front, and received a cheap metal sign with the phone number pasted on (washes off in first rain) and a blank contract that no one knows how to fill out, and good bye. Oh yea, its on their website, if they can get the details right and someone accidentally finds it.

I just listed another this week, thanks Buy Owner. My listing today came from a lady who had one showing in 4 months. Kinda expensive, $3000 per showing.

We take pride in complete service that has 4 web sites, virtual tours, and e-flyer to mass audiences, Realtor Open Houses and on and on, but we do charge for our service but we earn it, we do not want a free ride.

Well, I told eveyone we were going back to Hawaii our 7th trip, and we just got back a week ago. Incredible trip, one week on the big island. We were really impressed with that island, it has so much variety to offer. Desert, Valcano, Rain Forrest, great beaches, black sand beaches, cattle ranches, wow it has it all. Fellow active rain community, get away and relax, the business will get better, enjoy the break and relax.

Now, see how relaxing it can be!

Mary and I love to travel. I am going to do a blog about our trips and how calming it can be.

Recent trips

July 6 was my birthday and when Mary ask me what I wanted for my birthday, I said " I want to get in the car and drive until I get to some cool mountains, check in a hotel and spend a long weekend doing nothing but looking at Gods great country."

Yep, we got in the car on July 3rd, drove from Dallas to Tucumcarri, New Mexico, got a nice room in a Holiday Inn Express. Got up late, had a good breakfast at Denny's, and drove on to Eagles Nest New Mexico. We arrived about noon, and as we drove thru town, we noticed everyone was lined up along the street. I told Mary we were either in a parade or one is about to happen. (July 4th of course). We found a local restaurant, parked out back in the only available spot next to the trash container, and carried our lawn chairs up to the street. You got it, we saw the neatest parade, complete with antlers on the handle bars of motor bikes to fire truck throwing out candy.

We went to get something to eat and all the restaurants were closed, in honor of the "Fire Department annual barbecue. So if we wanted to eat we went to the community center and had barbecue with the fire department. Well, it was great and fun to sit and visit with the locals.

After lunch we drove on up to Angel Fire and got a room at a resort on the side of the mountain, summer rates at a ski resort. Nice place.

That night we drove back to Eagles Nest to see the fireworks displey out over the lake. Got home late and crashed for the night.

At 6:00 AM we got up, went to see the Hot Air Balloon launch, up close and even visited with the people participating. It was beautiful, about 15 Hot Air Balloons rising together.

Then breakfast at a packed local resturant we found on a back street. Great food.

After that it got better, we went to a festival of arts and crafts up by the ski lift at our hotel, then drove to Black Lake, just to see what it was. On the way back we saw what looked like a old lean too, or a semi log cabin with a sign that said Winery. Well being wine lovers we went in to take look. Wow, we found the local joint where everyone hangs out and listens to live music and sips some wine. What fun, I had several request for songs, "Proud Mary", "Bobby McGee" and others and they played and sang everyone on for me. What fun!

The next day we drove the "loop" from Angel Fire, up to Taos, Red River and back, taking in the canyon on the way and enjoying along the way, returning to Angel Fire that evening. Great trip and great scenery.

The next day we decided to extend our trip one more day and checked out of the Hotel, drove down to Santa Fe, checked in at the Hampton Inn, and went shopping at the square, coming back in time to have a nice dinner at Olive Garden.

We drove back the next day, arriving home tired, but relaxed and realizing we had just had a great trip that was spur of the moment and enjoying this great country of ours.

Next Trip

We are going to Hawaii next, one of our favorite places, and I will write more about that trip while there on when I get back, if anyone is interested.

Fall is almost here, get out, drive the back roads of America and enjoy the fresh air and beauty and freedom we have here in the Good Old USA.

God Bless

Pete and Mary

As a Realtor, I remember when this stated to get out of hand. Banks actually enjoyed the foreclosure market because it allowed them to set up a profit center for marketing foreclosures.

What they did was put the foreclosure on the market at a price they would clear extra money. Forget the bargains, they did a BPO and an appraisal, estimated the repairs, did some minor cosmetic stuff, sold it as is and put it on the market at a price to generate a profit. So $190,000 was owed on the house so they priced it at $235,000 in competition with the owner sellers, then they offered bonus to sell quickly and when a offer came they were acceptable to lower price as is, knowing the cost of repairs they were avoiding.

Then poor management practices caused them to delay getting closure for the money because they would take from 3 weeks to 3 months to make a decision. Time was not money to the bankers. We did one short sale that took 3 months to get a decision on our offer, and we did one sale that took 2 weeks to get the deed transferred from Ginnie Mae, after it had been on the market for months. The funding was delayed so long the buyer had to rent a hotel waiting to get moved in.

Keep in mind that in Texas this forclosure by law had to be sold on the courthouse steps and the lender set the starting bid at what he owed and 99% of the time the lender bought it back on the steps when the book could have been closed and they could have had the money owed them, but greed caused them to buy it back, wanting to make extra money.

Now they have stashed the huge salaries they were getting while this was going on and they want to retire to the Condo they bought in Grand Cayman, or the island they bought with that huge 2 million per year salary the received to practice poor management. As for me, I say let them give back all that money they got paid, sell the million dollar homes they live in, then we can talk about what to do.

I am losing money on the stock market also, so I guess we have to do somthing but let them pay first.

Those banks had 15 levels of management, that is why decision were so hard, now they all get off the hook free, I say, let them pay. If my business fails due the the Real Estate market they helped create, will they bail me out, I don't think so.

I do not know about you but I am sick and tired of calling the service department of the phone company or other companies and getting on the line with some one in India that barely can speak English and in fact they speak our language so poorly with an accent that I have to have them repeat themselves several times to get help.

"Hewlo, had can I hep yo." Yo have problema wiht yo DSL lane. I can hep yo. log on and tale may wha yo say. It want log on, ya, that is a problema.

Die I hep yo, please answar ya or no.

So Sorry, Wha can I doe?

Ya, I doe spake engish!

You get the idea. Companies and public service companies, are the worst at forming out the service department to some company in India, Pakistan, Malaysia or so on and they really are more concern about saving money than they are about customer service.

Forgive me but I am just not ready to have some sleepy kid in India answer the phone for my clients to schedule a showing for my listing. Using Centralized Showing Service is difficult enough and they do a pretty good job as far as I am concern.

Does anyone else have this kind of problem?

Pete Stanley

Team Stanley

www.elliscountymoves.com