Photos from Bob Mitchell - Realtor St. Louis
I found a great car wash near the corner of Tenbrook and Jeffco. It doesn't look like much, but you get a lot for your money!Located in: Arnold, MO
With all of the bad press that the real estate markets are getting, did you know that there is a silver lining to it all? That silver lining is in areas where you used to not be able to buy a home for less than $100,000 you can now buy a home for less than $70,000!
If you're willing to go a bit higher, there are several homes that you might be interested in.
True, it's a bit tougher to qualify for the mortgage, but as long as you have decent credit and a bit of money to work with, I can probably get you into a home.
If you're credit isn't that good, you can still give me a call and I will be happy to sit down with you and let you know what you have to do in order to be able to buy a house. Even if you've declared bankruptcy, I can still get you into a home 24 months after your bankruptcy has been discharged!
Basically, if there is a will, there is a way! Call me for additional information!
R.B. "Bob" Mitchell
ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.
Bob Mitchell is president of ValueList Real Estate Services, St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. If you would like to find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program, please feel free to visit our web site at valuelistre.com
With all of the bad press that the real estate markets are getting, did you know that there is a silver lining to it all? That silver lining is in areas where you used to not be able to buy a home for less than $100,000 you can now buy a home for less than $70,000!
If you're willing to go a bit higher, there are several homes that you might be interested in.
True, it's a bit tougher to qualify for the mortgage, but as long as you have decent credit and a bit of money to work with, I can probably get you into a home.
If you're credit isn't that good, you can still give me a call and I will be happy to sit down with you and let you know what you have to do in order to be able to buy a house. Even if you've declared bankruptcy, I can still get you into a home 24 months after your bankruptcy has been discharged!
Basically, if there is a will, there is a way! Call me for additional information!
R.B. "Bob" Mitchell
ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.
Bob Mitchell is president of ValueList Real Estate Services, St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. If you would like to find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program, please feel free to visit our web site at valuelistre.com
A few weeks ago I got a call from some friends of a friend who wanted to buy an investment property for their daughter to live in. When they said that they didn't want to spend more than $65,000 AND that they wanted to home to be in one of several different areas where homes usually go for much more, I didn't hold out much hope.
But, being the dutiful Realtor that I am, I did a search and I was surprised to find that there were indeed several houses that were available in these areas for less than $65,000. When I broadened the search to $75,000, there were several more available.
Now, we went and looked at these homes and most of them were pretty much dogs. One of them was probably better off if it were to be torn down, but a couple were actually decent homes that with a little spit shine could have made a wonderful home for their daughter.
It turns out that the daughter has decided to move out of state to be with her boyfriend, so I won't be writing a contract on any of these homes, but this experience did get me to thinking. "The Drop In Real Estate Values Is An Opportunity For The Right Person!"
True, financing requirements have been tightened up, but as long as you've got pretty good credit and can come up with a few thousand dollars, one of these homes could be yours!
If you're interested in finding out more, please feel free to give me a call!
R.B. "Bob" Mitchell
ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.
Bob Mitchell is president of ValueList Real Estate Services, St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. If you would like to find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program, please feel free to visit our web site at valuelistre.com
By all outward appearances my father wasn't a model father. During the entire time that I knew him he battled with the bottle. At best, fighting it to a draw for periods of time ranging from a day to a couple of years at one point.
He was also a con man of sorts who traveled around doing whatever he could to make a living. If that meant cutting rubber bands out of car inner tubes to sell to the moving van drivers or lifting somebody's charge card, that's what he did. At one point he sold bibles while underneath the bibles that were in the trunk of his car, he had hidden the whiskey that he was running into a dry county.
For years, I was ashamed of him. I still remember one day that he showed up while I was playing basketball with my buddies. He was drunk, his clothes were dirty and he stunk.
I was horrified as I left with him and could hear my "buddies" laughing as we went.
He hurt me in untold ways including one time when he took my bicycle to have it "fixed". When he disappeared, which was his habit, I walked about 8 miles to the bicycle shop that he had taken it to only to find out that he hadn't taken it there to get it fixed. He had taken it there to sell it to them in order to get enough money to buy some booze.
To say that I was pissed at him would be a world class understatement. My anger was something that I carried around with me until I was in my early 30's. That's when I had an epiphany of sorts.
I stumbled across the philosophy of "Acceptance and Forgiveness". That is, that you have to be willing and able to accept reality as it is and not as you would want it to be. And that you have to be willing and able to forgive those who trespass against you.
While I was in the process of wrapping my head around this new philosophy I went to visit my father's grave site. While I was there I had another epiphany of sorts. I realized that, while he might not have been the best father, that he had done the best that he could.
Realizing this allowed me to get past all the negative memories which if you had asked me about him before this moment is all that I would have had of him. It allowed me to think about all of the good things that he brought to my life.
Yeah, he sold my bicycle, but he also took me to all 48 continental United States before I was 12 years old! He also taught me all kinds of "man things" like how to cover my chin when throwing a jab.
Even when he was fighting his demons and losing, he never stopped pumping me up. He told me that there wasn't anything that I couldn't accomplish in my life if I worked towards it.
As I stood there over his grave, I realized that he didn't have to come back to get me, but he did. And he didn't have to take me with him either, but he did that too.
People sometimes think that I'm bullshxtting them when I tell of some of the adventures that we had on those trips....getting invited into the Cardinals broadcasting booth where I found out that my dad knew Harry Carey.
Or being taken up in a small airplane after my dad rebuilt the engine for the owner. Even doing CPR on him when he had his first heart attack and then hearing him tell me exactly what I had done from the vantage point of being on the ceiling where he was having an out of body experience.
I'm 47 now and I've left all the anger behind me. I find myself thinking of him from time to time such as when I see my son stand up to authority or when he covers his chin while throwing a jab at the heavy bag...I wouldn't have known to teach him that if it hadn't been for my dad.
They say that hindsight is 20/20 and to be honest, I'm kind of glad that isn't always true. Because when I look back at my father I see a man who always tried. Who always made the effort to make sure that I knew that I was awsome. No, he wasn't perfect, but he was my dad and for that, I'm glad.
R.B. "Bob" Mitchell
ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.
Bob Mitchell is president of ValueList Real Estate Services, St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. If you would like to find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program, please feel free to visit our web site at valuelistre.com
As I've written about before, a long time ago I went through a "blue-funk". I had just broken up with a woman that I had been dating, but I was the dumper, not the dumpee....So, I didn't think that was really the problem.
At the time, I was just getting my mortgage banking career going and while it was a difficult market, I was actually doing pretty good in it, all things considered....so, again, I don't think that was the problem.
It other words, there really wasn't anything to whine about, yet here I was whining. I was able to keep myself pulled together during my workday, but at the end of the day, I would find myself in a hurry to get home and to put Stevie Ray Vaughn's "The Sky Is Crying" on. I would sit in front of my stereo and cry my heart out!
The pisser was that I really didn't know what I was crying about! Well, long story short, I did a bunch of reading and started going to "Adult Children of Alcoholics" meetings and through these activities and a lot of soul searching I figured out that what I was bummed out about was all of the hurts that I had experienced growing up in a dysfunctional home.
Over the years I hadn't allowed myself to grieve these losses and while there wasn't anything going on right at that moment to bum me out, that all of the anger and grief that I had not allowed myself to feel had chosen that moment to come welling to the surface. Finally figuring out what was bothering me, was one of the keys to getting over it.
Two of the other keys were figuring out that in order to be truly a happy person, that I had to start accepting reality as it was, not as I wanted it to be and that I needed to learn the art of forgiving. Not that I've always done as well as I could in these two areas, but over-all since this blue funk hit me back in the late 80's, I've been a pretty happy person ever since.
Anyway, the reason that I'm writing about this topic again is that the other day I read a post here on AR where quite a few members were whining and crying about lead generation companies and how they are nothing more than parasites on the real estate industry. It was obvious that there was a great deal of anger built up that was directed at these companies and while I can understand why a real estate agent would be angry at these companies for "stealing" their real estate clients and then selling them back to them as leads, I feel that this anger is misplaced and unhealthy!
The reason that I think that their anger is misplaced and unhealthy is that they are failing to "accept reality as it is, not as they want it to be!"
It's true that these lead generation companies put a lot of time, effort and resources into putting themselves between the agents and the public and they do an excellent job at it. It's also true that after snagging a minimum amount of information from the potential client that they charge a lot of money to the agents that utilize their services for this information and little else! Furthermore, it's also true that a lot of these lead generation companies mislead the customers into thinking that they are doing more than simply collecting their information and selling it to whomever will pay for it. All that said, that's the reality of the situation!
There isn't a whole bunch that you or I can do about it! But as I learned a long time ago as the result of my blue funk, being pissed off and carrying that anger around with you won't do you any good!
It's far better to accept reality as it is and to put your energies into working around or through this reality. If they are beating you at the SEO game, you have a choice. You can continue building and marketing your website in order to compete with them. Or if this doesn't work, you can put your energies into other ways of getting to these potential clients BEFORE they click on one of these company's websites.
Is It Even Possible To Compete With Such a Well Financed Competitor?
I'm here to tell you that it is! One of the first things that I learned here on AR was a bit of wisdom that Karen George mentioned in one of her posts. She said something to the effect that if you could get to be the number one ranked website if you simply built the biggest website dedicate to that particular market. I believe that she used the term "Chicago Real Estate" as her example. She said that if you built a site with enough content to be the biggest site for that term, that you would rank as number one....ie that content was king!
I wonder how many of the agents that were whining on that post that I referred to above (I didn't link to it because this is a fairly harsh critique and I didn't want anyone to think that I was personally attacking the lady who wrote it), only have basic 5 page electronic brochure types of web pages.
When I read Ms. George's post, I took it to heart. My goal is to add a page a day to my website. I haven't been living up to my goal, yet by doing what I've done, I've raised my web site's google ranking for "st. louis real estate" to a point where I'm on page two of a google search. Other than content and some other poor attempts as SEO, there is no other reason for my site to have made the gains that it has. It's not a state of the art site, I don't buy back links and I don't really pay to market it. Ms. George is right, Content is King!
So, yes. It is possible to compete with these guys, but it takes a concerted effort consistantly applied over time! So, stop your whining and start your writing!
***Note: The agent who wrote the article that I am referring to has given me permission to link to it. Click here if you would like to read it too.
R.B. "Bob" Mitchell
ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.
Bob Mitchell is president of ValueList Real Estate Services, St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. If you would like to find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program, please feel free to visit our web site at valuelistre.com
ValueList, St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. Our "flat-fee" listing can save you thousands on your real estate commissions. Wide range of mortgage products!
Thanks for visiting our profile here on Activerain. I'm Bob Mitchell, president & founder of ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc., St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company and I'd like to tell you a bit more about us.
ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc., was born at Cardwell's Bar in Clayton Missouri in 1994. At the time I was Vice-President of Clayton Mortgage Associates. Bill Beezley, who is president of Clayton Mortgage Associates, and I had stopped in for an after work cocktail. While there we met a mutual acquaintance who broached the subject of what would happen to a certain large St. Louis real estate company if somebody were to form a discount real estate company? His belief was that the larger company would implode into itself & be forced out of business.
At this point, our conversation was simply bar talk, but a seed of inspiration was planted in my mind. It was one of those moments where a light bulb went on. While the guy at the bar was not serious about forming such a company, the idea, with some modifications, was exploding in my head. That night I went home and couldn't sleep. All night long I was doing math on my bedroom ceiling. It seemed to me that if you took the vindictive nature out of the guy's idea & replaced it with a more positive approach to selling St. Louis real estate that it should be able to work!
In order to better explain why this idea had such appeal to me, allow me to provide some additional background. At Clayton Mortgage it was my responsibility whenever a transaction ran into difficulty to figure out what was wrong & to fix it. In that position I came to realize that more often than not, the root of most of the problems that these transactions were having laid at the foot of one of the real estate agents involved in the transaction. It dawned on me that real estate is the only 'profession' where you can go to school for three weeks, take a test and then call yourself a 'professional'. In other words, if you're too ill-tempered, ill-mannered & irresponsible to hold down a job anywhere else, you can always gravitate towards real estate. That's not to say that there aren't good St. Louis real estate agents out there who do a fine job, but the field definitely has too many people who simply don't know what they are doing.
Two other things that I noticed were: That after I fixed whatever problem the transaction had & the deal closed these same agents were collecting pretty good-sized commission checks. Secondly that the size of these checks wasn't commensurate with the amount of work that went into the transaction. Why was the commission for selling a $200,000 home twice what the commission for selling a $100,000 home was? Selling the $200,000.00 home usually wasn't any harder than selling the $100,000 home. As a matter of fact, it usually required less work.
So, these were some of the thoughts that were running through my head that night. Why was real estate sales structured the way that it was? Why did that certain large St. Louis real estate company have so many agents & so many offices? What were the economics of St. Louis real estate sales? What were the current cost structures of St. Louis real estate sales? Where were the inefficiencies? Where could St. Louis real estate sales be improved?
My conclusions, which I came to after several months of investigation, were that, not only could St. Louis real estate sales be done better but that they could be done at much less expense to the home-seller. With these conclusions in mind I decided to form ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.
ValueList incorporated in November of 1995 & opened our doors shortly thereafter. ValueList is built around the concept of the flat-fee listing arrangement. The Flat-fee listing differs from a conventional listing where the home seller pays the real estate company a percentage commission (generally in the 6 ' 7 percent range). In the ValueList flat-fee listing the home seller only pays ValueList a flat-fee for the listing side of the real estate sales commission. If another agency sells the home, then the home seller pays that agency what would normally be the 'selling side' of the commission (generally around 2.7 - 3%).
Comparing the ValueList Flat-fee commission structure to a conventional Saint Louis real estate percentage commission structure, ValueList generally comes out to be around 35 to 55 percent less expensive.
Now in the event where the real estate company both lists & sells the property (an event that happens relatively infrequently) a conventional company would still charge the agreed to percentage. That is, even if the conventional real estate company doesn't have to split the commission with a cooperating agency, they still charge the home seller the full 6 to 7 percent. With the ValueList Flat-fee commission structure, ValueList only charges the flat-fee for the listing side of the transaction and a 'sales commission' equal to the listing fee. In this scenario ValueList is an even better deal!
One of the biggest questions that we receive at this point is, 'How can you guys be so much less expensive than your competition?' The answer to that question is related to the economics of the Saint Louis real estate market. First of all, historically the key to Saint Louis real estate sales has been the key to the home. Literally! It used to be that in order to sell a home a Saint Louis real estate agency had to be close enough to the home where an agent from another company could stop by the office and pick up the key in order to show the home to their client. That fact led to the development of the neighborhood real estate office. As time went on many successful real estate companies opened or purchased real estate offices in individual areas leading to some companies having as many as 39 real estate offices to service the St. Louis market. Quite frankly, with the advent of the computer, fax machines and computerized lock boxes, the idea of having all of these expensively decorated offices with managers earning hundred's of thousands of dollars a year is antiquated. Somebody has to pay for all of that overhead and guess what? That somebody is the home seller! 
By keeping our overhead low we don't have to charge as much as other Saint Louis real estate companies. The other economic advantage that ValueList has is that we combine real estate services. In essence, ValueList utilizes the flat-fee listing arrangement as a 'loss-leader'. Very similar to when you go to a grocery store and they have eggs on sale. You know that they aren't making a whole bunch on the eggs, but the store is banking on the fact that while you are in the store to buy the eggs, that you will also pick up a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk! Well, with ValueList it's a similar concept. If you are selling a home, chances are that you will also be buying a home. ValueList will be glad to work with you in finding it.
When you find it, will you need a mortgage?
You will?
Have I mentioned that ValueList is also a full service VA approved mortgage lender? By combining real estate services, ValueList doesn't have to charge as much as our competition.
Now the next question that people often ask is, 'Alright, you're less expensive, but are you as good?'
This is an excellent question and the answer is, "No. We're better!'
This is true for several reasons. First, by combining real estate services it gives us more control of the transaction. We don't have to 'hand the ball off' to any other company. When we work with a buyer we control all aspects of the transaction. ValueList originates and processes the loan application for the buyer.
Secondly, having the background and ability to do mortgages gives us a level of technical competence superior to that of most, if not all, conventional Saint Louis real estate agents. Think of it this way, if you liken a real estate agent to being a general practitioner and a mortgage banker to being a heart surgeon, the heart surgeon could remove your ingrown toenail, but would you feel comfortable with a general practitioner performing open-heart surgery on you?
In the event where ValueList has a home listed and another agency sells it and uses a different lender, ValueList has the technical competence to hold that lender's feet to the fire. If they balk or hesitate for any reason, ValueList has the ability to ask the hard questions with the inside knowledge of how the mortgage banking business works. In many cases, if the lender still balks or hesitates, ValueList has the ability to take the loan process over and close the transaction. Very few other real estate agencies, no matter how big, can make this claim!
So, back to the story, since 1995 ValueList has grown to be the largest company of our kind in the St. Louis market. This is easy to say because we are the only company of our kind in the St. Louis market! While there are a couple of other discount real estate companies out there, none of them are 'full-service' companies. Most of the other discount real estate companies are based on a 'help you to sell' sort of model. That is, you show your own property (which puts you at a distinct disadvantage in selling your home), you field your own telephone calls and set your own appointments and in the event that you do sell your home, you are basically on your own in taking care of the details and getting the transaction to the closing table
ValueList is a full-service company. We do everything that a conventional St. Louis real estate company does including placing your home on the multiple listing service, placing and maintaining the yard sign, ValueList fields all telephone inquiries regarding your property, ValueList sets all appointments, helps you to negotiate all offers and once we have an accepted contract, ValueList takes care of all of the details required to get your transaction to closing! In short, ValueList IS a full service company! Also, the ValueList 'flat-fee' is a commission. It is paid at closing, there is nothing paid up front! If ValueList doesn't produce, ValueList doesn't get paid!
So this pretty much brings us up to date on the ValueList story. Thank you for taking the time to read it! If you have any questions or if any of the dedicated, ValueList real estate professionals can be of service in any manner, please do not hesitate to call us or to drop us a line. We very much look forward to serving all of your real estate and mortgage needs
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St. Louis real estate is what ValueList Real Estate Services does. Since 1995, ValueList Real Estate services has been serving the St. Louis real estate market with the very best in discount real estate and mortgage services.
ValueList is the only full-service/discount real estate and mortgage company serving the St. Louis real estate market. By only charging a flat-fee for the listing side of the real estate commission, ValueList Real Estate Services can save the home seller thousands of dollars on their real estate commissions. At the same time, ValueList is a full-service Realtor!
ValueList also serves the St. Louis real estate market by providing a wide range of mortgage products from first time buyer programs to credit rebuilder programs. If you're looking for a mortgage company in St. Louis, ValueList will give you an honest, straightforward quote and will also provide the very best in mortgage services in the St. Louis real estate market!
If you're looking to buy a home in St. Louis or to relocate to St. Louis, ValueList also offers full-service buyer's agency. Our web site, www.valueliste.com offers a wealth of tools and articles on all aspects of buying, selling or financing a home in the St. Louis real estate market. Feel free to visit it or to give us a call!
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Bob Mitchell and ValueList did an excellent job of finding me a home, financing it and eventually selling it. I liked him so much that I've been dating him for almost two years!
Kathy Lee
St. Louis
I liked ValueList so much that I referred Bob to my sister.....they've been going out ever since!
Brenda Lee
High Ridge, Missouri
Yeah, the above are true, but they go to show you how much stock you should put into reading testimonials on a webpage! Apparently there were movie reviewers in Utah who thought that "Open Water" was a great flick too.
Bob Mitchell
St. Louis
Other Blogs and Commentaries By R. B. "Bob" Mitchell
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