Pat O'Brien

I found it funny that I called a chamber member at Frontier Airlines to help with an issue at American. It was a reminder to me that I need to make sure that as business people, we remember that good service is essential. If we say we are going to call, we need to call. We need to return calls and emails. With the mortgage industry changing daily, I find myself without the answers that I used to have, so I have had to learn to set the right expectations for my clients. I need to tell them that we need to have a lender that we trust and now must stay in much closer touch with the lender. I have a client with an 800+ credit score and we are still having a VA issue. This is a repeat client and he said to me the other day, "when you said it was different, YOU WERE NOT KIDDING". That keeps me from looking bad guy and the builder's lender is now on the hook to explain why with such great credit, we have to get all this other fun paperwork!

It is amazing that some companies still don't get it!

The Metrocom is the 10 cities Northeast of San Antonio. Checking some numbers for a presentation I found that the last three months of last year we had almost a 10 month inventory of homes. The first three months of this year we were down, but still close to 9 months.

The amazing news is that for April, we are down to a 6.2 month inventory of homes. Those that sell in this area can thank the builders and developers for actively working to keep our inventories of new homes from getting out of control. To put this in perspecive, some say that anything less than a 6.5 month inventory is a sellers market. I am not sure that we are there, but it is great that we can even talk about it.

I hope that there is no more National bad news and that we can stay this busy for a long time.

I got invited to be on the 18th hole of the Valero Open today. Our chamber Tourney was yesterday and some chamber members invited me to observe a night tourney last night. That is more time on a golf course then I have spent in over a year. One of the parts of golf that amazes me is the fact that it still is a "gentleman's game". The cooperation and the team work and the players genuinely seem happy for those that have great shots or recover well from bad shots.

When I first started in Real Estate Steve O'Leary my first real estate mentor, now with RE/MAX in Denver, always stressed the same thing in real estate. When I would worry about competition or someone "taking" my business, he would always preach the there is an abundance of business and if you worry about scarcity, you end up with scarcity and stop serving your clients to the best of your ability.

I was amazed last night to see a former Golf Pro, Todd from Northcliff Country Club in Schertz, TX play in the dark where the game was only for fun.

Although I don't every see myself putting the work into mastering the game, I have appreciated my Golf Weekend and am glad that Valero not only sponsors my Cycling Team, but also the Texas Open. Both bring a great deal of good attention to the San Antonio area.

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is...

I heard this a million times growing up (Dad also warned me a million times not to exaggerate) and as I get older and think about what dad's gifts to me were over the almost 47 years that I spent with him, this advice was about the best.

While in the Northern Virginia area during the real estate boom, there were signs everywhere for 1.5% real estate loans. I looked into it back in San Antonio and actually had to bring out my 1993 edition of Principles of Real Estate to remember what an interest only and negatively amortizing loans were. It made some since for some people, but obviously not for most! It was too good to be true.

Texas real estate law didn't allow many of those "too good to be true" loans and because of that, our markets are among the best in the country.

When people call with special deals that are only available today and you have to decide immediately or the deal goes away, when any sales person says that deal will not be available when you come back, remember there might be a better deal just around the corner.

The next time there is some real estate trend that seems too good to be true, I hope we are smart enough to take a second look!

At the monthly lunch for the Randolph Metrocom Chamber, Norm Dugas, a major force in San Antonio's development community, talked about many factors affecting our current market and focused on the JLUS (Joint Land Use Study). (A JLUS is the tool that is used when civilian and military needs for land start to overlap.) In San Antonio, that is critical when we are known as Military City USA and have three major installations. The current proposal draws a five mile radius around every military facility and could drive up development and redevelopment costs significantly. We are all pro-military, but some government entities are going above and beyond in an attempt to make sure they don't suffer the losses that other areas have due to BRACs and a slower economy and in turn may hurt both sides.

If you are in an area with gov't installations, have been in real estate or development long enough or are just a concerned citizen, please read the fine print when you see JLUS and work at an agreement that is good for all parties. The military wants to be a good neighbor and we should work to make sure that what we do is beneficial for all parties!