Matt Stigliano

photo courtesy me and my iPhone

Fall arrives in San Antonio.

After one of the hottest Summers on record here in San Antonio (59 days of 100 degrees or more weather - with 5 of them hitting 104 degrees) and a drought that has looked like it will never end, I awoke to this as the scene in my backyard this morning. It's not pouring and it's certainly not the kind of Fall I grew up with back in Philadelphia, but today is most certainly not Summer. Today is the first day of Fall and the weather wanted to be sure we knew it here in San Antonio.

My good friends at KSAT News warned me it was coming and I knew it would eventually, but to wake up to 69 degrees, light drizzle, and an expected high of 79 degrees just proved it to me. While some of you from parts further north might laugh at 79 degrees signaling the end of Summer, it certainly does here in San Antonio. Fall has arrived and although I won't get the beautiful leaves of Pennsylvania and the Northeast, if you look close I do have tiny leaves all over my deck. I've never been quite sure, but they seem like they might be seed pods. I'm not very good at being an arborist, so I'll just have to accept that I'm not sure of much, except they stick to your feet and get all over the house (which drives my wife nuts).

Of course, here in San Antonio, we still have plenty of great weather ahead of us. When I first moved here, I was wearing shorts well into November. Looks like this week will be some rain, but as anyone who lives here can tell you...we could use every drop we can find.

If you're looking for quick and easy weather maps, temperatures, radar, aquifer levels (very important to us in San Antonio), and the ever-amusing "Haircast" - look no further than KSAT News' JustWeather.com.

photo courtesy of jepoirrier

The internet is always rife with scams.

I've heard of the craigslist rental scam before, but up until this week, I hadn't heard it specifically spoken of in San Antonio circles. The scam is pretty simple, you go on craigslist and there's the perfect rental for you. You inquire about the property and soon you are having a discussion with someone who is in another country for one reason or another and they're renting their home (or helping friends do the same). They ask for an application and the application seems safe enough (no credit card numbers or social security numbers). You fill it out, and they ask you to send either the first month/security deposit or the entire payment for the year and they will send you the keys and all the paperwork you'll need.

Of course, if you send that first monthly payment, you'll never see keys. Why? The scammer doesn't own the home in San Antonio. In fact, the home might be occupied and not even for rent. I know a couple moving to San Antonio who recently went through the process, but didn't send the money. Lucky for them, the alarms starting going off and they did the research on the rental.

RErockstar.com shows you the emails and gives you tips on spotting the scam.

Although all scammers don't use the same exact methods, they are typically very similar. Over at RErockstar.com, I wrote a post about the scam and included several of the scam emails as well as some tips on how to avoid these rental scams on craigslist.

RErockstar.com - "San Antonio Renters Beware: Craigslist Rental Scam Comes To Town"

New Neighborhoods Launched On RErockstar.com

In the quest to provide San Antonio buyers and sellers the best neighborhood information, RErockstar.com has recently expanded it's covered neighborhoods.

With the recent rains, it was hard to get out and do photos of new San Antonio neighborhoods, so I took advantage of the time and added some of the backlog of neighborhoods I had been building up.

New neighborhoods include:

Coral Springs - San Antonio TX 78250

Parklands - San Antonio TX 78250

Retama Springs - Selma TX 78154

Stonefield - San Antonio TX 78254

click any of the links to see all neighborhoods covered

New features too!

In an effort to bring the most information possible on each of the neighborhoods covered in San Antonio, I have begun adding market data to the "info" tab.  You can see a sample of the market data provided on the info tab below (I used zip code 78250 as an example):

As the site continues to grow, I will begin to add market data to the outlying areas of San Antonio that I cover in the Neighborhoods section as well (currently Garden Ridge, New Braunfels, and Selma).

You can help!

Have a San Antonio neighborhood you'd like to see covered?  Just send me an email or give me a call and tell me what you would like to see covered and I will get it up there!  Or click the "Call Me" button below to connect right now!

It's a common thing.

Recently SarahGray Lamm wrote a post titled, "ADVICE NEEDED: Blogging Works. Now What..." The basic premise of the post was how to handle the buyer who calls and says "I need to see this house right now." Not a client, but someone you've never met before. Every Realtor® I know gets these calls and everyone I know handles them a little differently, but the outcome is typically the same. I'm hoping to help San Antonio home buyers understand why many agents won't show the home on short notice.

Time Management

To put it simply, we as agents need to manage our time. We don't sit around lounging in the office just waiting for the next phone call to come in. If we did, we'd all be broke. With the internet and cell phones we are much more accessible, but we're not necessarily free at the moment we take that call. We have a daily dose of inspections, paperwork, showings, closings, meetings, prospecting (the act of finding new clients), and the usual things - dinner, family time, rest, etc. Agents have schedules to keep. Even occasionally, I am free at the moment, but know that if I go show houses right this moment, I will miss my next appointment. Time management is a huge part of our daily lives.

Qualifying Buyers.

I know a lot of people that want to buy a house don't like this step. I've had a prospective client ask me "What does it matter to you if I'm not pre-approved, I know I can get the loan." I find this one of the hardest things for a prospective client to deal with. They often feel we are calling them into question - almost as if we were saying "That's great, but I don't trust you." Because we don't know each other yet, there isn't a ton of trust between the two of us. We have to build that overtime. There's a certain amount that we must take as a leap of faith and I am fine with that. But sitting down and qualifying a buyer isn't just about a loan, it's about getting to know the prospective client (and you getting to know your prospective agent) and getting to know what their goals our in buying a home. We want to help you find the right home, not just any home.

Paperwork.

If you like what you're hearing and you'd like to work with me as your San Antonio real estate agent, there is some paperwork we should get out of the way now. Here in San Antonio we use a Residential Buyer/Tenant Representation Agreement. It lays out the rules of our work together and defines our relationship as that of buyer and agent. Making someone your agent creates a situation that allows us to offer you our advice and opinions and binds us to work for you and you to work with us. (I think I'll write an upcoming post on the Buyer Representation Agreement).

Safety.

Let's face it, there are some strange people in this world and there more than a couple of stories about agents going to a showing and being attacked. I'm sure you're not a vicious killer, but let's meet up first just in case.

Experience.

As an agent that started about a year and a half ago in the San Antonio real estate business, I know new agents. I even write about it at AgentGenius. I'm not here to say they're bad agents, I mean, we all have to start somewhere. What I do know is that these are the agents that will typically jump at any chance to go on a showing. Why? Because they're hungry. They have little to no business and will do anything to get more. What usually happens? They wind up chasing their tails and not selling any homes anyway. I know because I've been there. I spent my first few months running after everyone and selling nothing. As we mature a bit as agents we learn more about the other factors I've mentioned and we start practicing "smart" real estate in order to build our businesses and grow our client base.

photo courtesy of TheTruthAbout...

image courtesy of Robert Couse-Baker

Exposure, the internet, and you.

When you're thinking about selling your San Antonio home, you have a lot to consider.  Price, staging or not, different listing tactics (bonuses, allowances, residential service contracts, inclusions, etc.), and who your Realtor® will be.  It's a huge step in your life and getting it right is the goal.  A improperly listed home can languish on the market and cause you more headaches than you want (who wants headaches?).  One of the biggest functions of a Realtor® during your listing is getting your home noticed.  With plenty of houses to choose from and buyers spending more and more time researching homes before they even contact an agent, your San Antonio home needs to be a stand out in order to sell quickly.

There are many ways to make your home shine and your Realtor® (and the internet) have a lot of great resources to help make your home stand out, but the one thing that will truly make your home stand out?  Exposure.  It may sound simple, but I see cases of it being overlooked all the time.  You want to have your home out there, searchable and available to view on the internet, even at 3AM (and believe me, based on Google Analytics for my San Antonio MLS search tell me many people are looking at those hours).

Take a few houses that you know are for sale.  Try Googling them.  Can you find them?  Can you find multiple sites that have info on the home?  Any special stand-out sites with extra photos, descriptions, or video?  The more you find, the better.  Try different words for the homes.  Don't just Google the address, try the neighborhood.  When you start seeing the home in multiple places, you can see how much easier it is for a buyer to stumble across it when they are searching in their pajamas.

We have tools, but not everyone uses them.

Not every agent is using the internet to the best of it's abilities.  Some of them don't use it all (and still have great success), but many of us have embraced technology and are doing everything we can to make sure when someone hits Google, they find your home.  Recently, while doing research on homes for buyer-clients and I tried Googling several homes, guess what I found?  Nothing.  Not even on sites like Trulia.  When I finally found the home, it was exclusively on their broker's site, but not on any of the major portals (and the agent's didn't have personal sites either).  One place.  That's not much in terms of exposure.  The broker's site looked great, but if I had to spend that much time finding that specific home, what do you think a typical buyer would do?

Where is your home going to be when you list it?  Will it be left to languish on the internet, never to be found?  Or will it be exposed for the right buyer to find?  Don't let your home be invisible.  Let me show you how.