"I'm not a racist but......." Do these words make you cringe? Do you just want to leave before they go any further? The best way to tell a racist is when they say “I’m not a racist but……”.
Meeting with so many potential customers on a regular basis, as I do, it doesn’t surprise me when I hear this but it does surprise me how often I hear it and who’s saying it. As REALTORS(R) we cannot go there! We must nip this conversation in the bud before it goes any further. There is a little law called the Fair Housing Act that we must abide by.
I must admit that this always places me in an awkward position. I usually move forward at the speed of light then ignore it but I can never seem to forget it. It changes my relationship with that person.
Just last week I had a potential Buyer, for one of my listings, call me to cancel an appointment with one of my agents. The wife told me that her husband would rather work with a man. Since it was my listing I agreed to meet them over there. The first thing out of hubby's mouth was "I'm not racist but I work with foreigners all day long and I don't want to work with one when looking at houses" then he spit his chewing tobacco out of his mouth. Redneck asshole!! Oops! Did I just say that out loud? Oh well.....Redneck is not a protected class. But my agent, who is Hispanic, is.
My dream is that someday we will learn to appreciate people for who they are not despise them for the color of their skin or the way they speak. I live in the great State of Florida and one of the best things about Florida is that it’s very multicultural. I wish all people would see it that way.
I’m not racist but…………..I do have a vision. That's all I have to say about that. What say you?
Are you a Florida REALTOR(R) looking for a change? Check it out. http://TTRealtyNet.com
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Richard Zaretsky’s recent post..........
got me thinking. His post is talking about the amount of people who are making the "Strategic” decision to default on their mortgages.
TheTruthAboutMortgage.com site had this to say about the topic.
“A new survey conducted by the Kellogg School of Management in Chicago suggests that more than a quarter of mortgage defaults are strategic, especially when negative equity exceeds 15 percent.”
Some of the comments on Richard’s post were calling this a moral issue. As in “It is morally wrong to strategically default on your mortgage”.
So…….my question is…“Is deciding to default on your mortgage, or not, a moral issue?”
Here are my thoughts: "Strategic Defaults" are rampant in my area. People are living in their houses as long as they can for free and saving their mortgage payments so they can move on with their lives and have a little bit of a nest egg.
These are people with families that have mortgage balances over $200,000 on homes that are now worth $60,000. Foreclosures and short Sales make up 90% of the market in Poinciana Florida and are still dragging prices down.
There is no chance in hell of these properties EVER being worth $200,000 again. At least not in the next 10-15 years..
These borrowers are so far underwater they will NEVER be back on top again. So…. whether they make payments or not, at some point they will have to sell, due to life circumstances i.e. job relocation, divorce, marriage, death.....it makes sense to take the hit now and start rebuilding.
To compound the issue....folks see all of the "bailouts" for the banks and start thinking "Where's mine?" So they create their own bailout.
Is this a moral issue? I don't think so. As much as I hate to say it…I think it’s a sound financial decision. What say you?
Are you a Florida REALTOR(R) looking for a change? Check it out. http://TTRealtyNet.com
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Hi folks. This post is a follow up to my recent post My Buyer only wants one house. Why make 14 offers? If you haven’t read that one….I’ll give you a brief synopsis. It’s about making offers on multiple properties even though my Buyers intent is to only purchase one of them.
I’m writing this post for clarity. I want to clarify what I’m doing and I need clarity on a few of the comments that were left.
First, a few people mentioned that they MUST have an escrow deposit in hand prior to submitting a purchase offer. If this is a law……….show it to me. I don’t believe it.
Secondly, I had two agents from Georgia comment about what their purchase contracts state about disclosure.
One said:
"In GA we actually have something in our contracts specifically for this. A checkbox in which the buyer must disclose whether this is their only offer or if they have others in the hopper simultaneously."
The other wrote this:
"Actually, here in GA the Purchase Offer has a box to check for the buyer to either have or not have the right to enter into a contract on another property."
One’s talking about offers the other is talking about contracts. Which is it? I would be SHOCKED if there were a State law in any State that stated a Buyer had to disclose if they were making offers on more than one property. If there is……show it to me. I don’t believe it.
OK….I’m not trying to be a dick....I just want clarity. These things are important. Sometimes things we think are illegal or unethical are not. If I’m wrong..... I want to be corrected. It’s how I learn.
Now let me clarify a couple of things.
I think that’s it. Maybe when Wendy and I get finished with “Short Sale Basics” we’ll jump over to “Dealing With Buyers in a REO Market”. What do you think?
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Making offers on Multiple properties. Do your Buyers do it? Mine do. And here’s why.
In the Central Florida market right now REOs (bank owned properties) make up a HUGE percentage of the saleable inventory of homes. Most sell very quickly, for higher than listing price and with multiple offers.
This can be very frustrating for Buyers and their agents. It seems like every time you make an offer on a REO property it is either pending or a bidding war is going on. So what do you do?
What I do is have my Buyers make offers on numerous properties at the same time. We don’t even look at them. If a good property comes on the market I send an offer for my Buyer to sign and then we forward it right on to the REO agent. We want to get into the game.
Last week I presented 14 offers for one Buyer alone!!! My Buyer’s intent of course was to only purchase one property. Luckily we received acceptances on 2 of the 14. My Buyer was so excited he changed his mind and decided to buy both!! You just have to love it when that happens.
It happened to me this week too. So….submitting multiple offers turns out to be a very good thing. The Buyers are not only getting the property they want but they also getting a second one as a bonus!!
Now listing agents are probably not thrilled about this as we end up withdrawing a lot of offers. I had a conversation with one of the REO agents last week who asked me if the Buyer had seen the property. My answer was “no”. He seemed to be a little perturbed and actually said I couldn’t do that. Said I was “playing dirty”.
Now folks…..I don’t think I have ever seen a law that stated a Buyer needed to see a property in order to make an offer on it. Have you?
We look at the property between the time the offer is verbally accepted and the time the bank sends us over the final addendums. As you know, if you sell a lot of REOs, this could be a day or 2 weeks. Whatever it is it’s plenty of time to pop over and check out the property.
I’ve been primarily a Listing Broker my entire career. I think I’m getting pretty good at this Buyer stuff though. Am I playing dirty or am I just doing the best I can for my Buyers? What say you?
Are you a Florida REALTOR(R) looking for a change? Check it out. http://TTRealtyNet.com
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