Bob Mitchell - Realtor St. Louis

(Imagine This Is A Television Commercial Done In The Style Of A Typical Car Dealer Commercial) Attention All Renters! Now, for a limited time, we've got excess inventory and EVERYTHINGS GOT TO GO!

No reasonable offer will be refused! $500.00 down and you drive away with a NEW HOME! Plenty to choose from!

Bad credit (well, okay...that won't work anymore unless you've got quite a bit to put down), but no credit is still okay! (as long as you've got four lines of SOMETHING that you've been paying on for a while).

Unlike most of these types of commercials which are a bunch of bunk, this really is the situation in the real estate market. There IS excess inventory and $500.00 will still move you in!

Real Estate is still one of the best investments that you can make as long as you are at least fairly sure that your economic situation is stable, that you're going to be in the area for a while and that you're emotionally mature enough to be a responsible home owner. If you can answer these questions in the affirmative, then now is definately a good time to at least consider buying a home.

But Bob, I just saw on TV last night that real estate prices are dropping. Shouldn't I at least wait until they stop dropping?

While there can be an argument made for this line of reasoning and it is true that nobody (not even me) can 100% accurately call the bottom of a market, now is still a good time to consider hopping in.

True, the value of the home that you're buying may indeed continue to drop, but what are the chances of it dropping a whole bunch more? Ask yourself these questions; Will this home be worth more 5 years from now than it is now? How about 10 years from now?

Chances are that any home that you are considering right now will indeed be worth more 5 or 10 years from now than it is now. Even taking the fact that home prices are still declining in many markets across the country right now, the facts of the matter are that the population is continuing to grow (therefore these additional people will need roofs over their heads) and the costs of building new homes continues to rise (if the price of nails and roofing shingles goes up, then the price of putting these roofs over peoples heads will also go up).

Also, do the math if you DON'T buy a home during this "sale". If you stay put, how much more will your apartment be worth 5 or 10 years from now? The answer is that it doesn't matter because YOU don't own that property! The only way that it matters to you is that your rent is probably going to go up.

Even if you buy a house and it only goes up in value a small percentage each year, you are still paying down a mortgage, getting a tax break, as well as all of the other benefits of owning a home such as increased privacy, greater freedom (you can basically do what you want to do with your home without having to ask a landlord's permission) and the pride of owning a piece of the American Pie!

Still not sure? I understand! If you're in the St. Louis real estate market or even if you're not and just want somebody to walk you through the process, please feel free to call me or to drop me a line. You should at least know your options!

R.B. "Bob" Mitchell

ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.

Bob Mitchell is the president of ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc., St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. To find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program please feel free to visit our web page, valuelistre.com

Yesterday I decided to take a holiday off from watching what I ate. Actually, I did WATCH what I ate, I just didn't make any efforts to limit myself. Below is the tally of my consumption including a superbowl party and hanging out with my son and his college age friend afterwards.

2 medium potatoes fried with bacon, green peppers and onions 750 cal.

Large glass of milk 350 cal.

5 servings of jambalaya 2,500 cal.

2 bowls of chilli 500 cal.

2 chili dogs 550 cal.

5 handfuls of frittos 700 cal.

2 small plates of nacho chips with chilli and cheese 700 cal.

12 Diet Beers 1,200 cal.

Big drunken bowl of left over jambalaya before bed 1,000 cal.

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Grand Tally 7,150 CALORIES!

So, how does that compare to you? Did you eat more or less?

My point in this post is that it's very easy to get carried away when food is just sitting there, readily available. I knew what I was doing and enjoyed the hell out of myself, but having kept track, I know that I can't fall of the wagon like this very often!

Just thought that some of you might like to know. If you've fallen off the wagon after a new years eve resolution, here's your opportunity to get back on that wagon! If I can make my fat ass do it, so can you!

R.B."Bob" Mitchell

ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.

Bob Mitchell is the president of ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc., St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. To find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program please feel free to visit our web page, valuelistre.com

A lot of folks outside of the St. Louis region don't realize that St. Louis is home to the country's 2nd largest Mardi Grau celebration. What originally started out as a group of friends walking from one of their homes to a bar has now grown into a neighborhood wide celebration that brings tens of thousands of people down to St. Louis' "Soulard" neighborhood.

One of the biggest questions that people outside of St. Louis have about the Soulard Mardi Gras is, "Why would St. Louis have a Mardi Gras celebration? Isn't that a New Orleans thing?

Well, while the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration is indeed better known and they have definitely set the standard, at least here in the US, there are several cities which feature celebrations such as Rio de Janerio and Mazata'n Mexico (which claims to have the WORLD's 3rd Largest Mardi Gras celebration). So basically, the only qualification that you apparently need for your city to host a Mardi Gras celebration is large Catholic population.

The fact that Missouri was part of the Louisiana Purchase and that St. Louis and New Orleans have a lot in common (both cities have rich jazz and blues heritages, as well as a lot of Catholics) make St. Louis a perfectly logical place for a large Mardi Gras celebration to have taken root. Being that there generally isn't a whole bunch to do here in St. Louis during the month of February makes it all the better!

So, What's There To Do At The Soulard Mardi Gras

Well, the first and foremost activity that most people partake in during the Soulard Mardi Gras is, they drink! Followed closely by eating. Mixed in among the drinking and eating is a large dose of public nudity.

In typical St. Louis fashion, the powers that be continue to be freaked out by the public display of mammary glands, but what they don't know is that the chance of getting arrested only adds to the fun for a lot of the women who flash their ta tas in exchange for a string or two of colorful beads.

In addition to the food, booze and ta tas, several stages will be set up throughout the Soulard area where various musical acts will be featured throughout the celebration.

Rather than rehash all of the events going on, I'll give you a couple of links that if you're interested in, you can click on to find out the specifics. I would have written more, but I need to go give the Jambalaya a stir and get my beads ready! If you're not doing anything this weekend, the snow is supposed to stop tomorrow and the temperatures are supposed to be up in the forties for the Parade on Saturday! See you there!

Soulard Mardi Gras "Official Site"

Partner Hotels for The Soulard Mardi Gras

Unreal's Guide To The Soulard Mardi Gras (an irrelevant look at the Soulard Mardi Gras and if you can't look at the Mardi Gras irrelevantly, then what can you get irrelevant about, right?)

R.B. "Bob" Mitchell

ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.

Today I came across several posts that spoke very enthusiastically about the fed rate cuts and the stimulus package that the Politicos in Washington DC are working on right now. And while I can understand people who work in an industry that has been beaten up as badly as the real estate and mortgage industries have been being enthusiastic about anything that might get buyers back out into this market, I'm going to ask you to stop and THINK ABOUT THIS!

Do we really want the government to crank up the presses?

While it might seem like a good idea to "rebate" some of the taxes that people have paid in order to "stimulate" the economy, you have to remember that our government is already running in the red. In order for the treasury to mail each of those checks out to all of us, they are going to have to borrow the money. The problem with this is that our credit is already getting pretty stretched! Not to mention that it's going to be our grand kids who are going to end up paying this money back.

Spending more money is not the answer here. Over spending is part of what has gotten us in this situation in the first place! Evidence of this is the historic low that the dollar now brings against other currencies. In essence, people around the world are saying to us that they more faith in the just about all of the other major currencies than they have in the dollar.

Another problem with this rebate plan is what is called the "Multiplier Effect". That is, when they mail you your check, what are you going to do with it? You're probably going to deposit it in your bank account. Since banks are only required to keep a certain amount on deposit, they are then free to lend a much larger amount of money out. When they make that loan and the borrower gets his/her check, what do you think that they do with it? Right, they deposit it.

This in turn frees the bank up to lend even more money out. Where does all this cash come from? The truth of the matter is that it simply magically appears! The government simply cranks up the presses and out comes more greenbacks. As I'm sure that you're aware of, the laws of supply and demand require that if the supply of something increases and the demand stays the same, then the value of that item MUST come down.

It's not optional. There is no magic way of doing it that can avert this LAW. If the demand for greenbacks goes down, which very likely will be the case because investors are aware of how this works, then the dollar will slide even further. If your dollars are worth less and you still want to buy something, say a barrel of oil, then you're simply going to have to spend more of your dollars to get it. This is called inflation!

What's the worst that can happen?

The worst that can happen is that we find ourselves back where we were at in the 1970's. If you remember back to the 70's (a lot of us don't, but that's another story), you might remember that inflation was running amok. When OPEC raised oil prices by severely cutting back on the amount of oil that they were putting onto the market, prices skyrocketed.

People started spending their money on gas instead of on other things. In addition, the price of many other items started to go up due to the increased energy costs. This led to a situation where even though the economy was stagnating, prices were still rising. It was called "Stagflation". Remember the Win (Whip Inflation Now) buttons?

The sad fact is that "Stagflation" isn't the worst that could happen to us. Worse than Stagflation would a depression. Worse than a depression would be total economic collapse!

Do I think that we're going to experience total economic collapse? No, I don't. There are a number of self-correcting mechanisms that will come into play before this would happen (I hope), but why do we even need to risk it?

We Can Fix The Problem If We Truly Want To!

I won't go into my entire economic plan on fixing the economy here (if you want to read more about what I think that we should do, please read my blog "Four Concrete Steps That We Can Take To Fix Our Economy"), but suffice it to say that we're not going to spend our way out of this one.

It's time for the powers that be to recognize this and to take concrete steps to deal with the underlying problems that have led to us being in the pickle that we're in today.

As always, your comments are greatly appreciated.

R.B. "Bob" Mitchell

ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.

Bob Mitchell is the president of ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc., St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. To find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program please feel free to visit our web page, valuelistre.com

As the title suggests, this post should put me over the century mark here on AR. When I looked up and noticed this, I thought about what a suitable topic would be for it and decided that the best thing would be to reflect on the good, the bad and the ugly of my experiences here on Active Rain.

In order to end on a positive note, I'll start with the ugly.

The Ugly

Active rain is very cliquish. My biggest complaint is that there are still certain people who could write about their preference in toilet paper and get featured, whereas there are dozens, if not hundreds of people who write very good posts who never get featured.

I realize that picking the featured posts has got to be a thankless job, but to the powers that be, you really do need to spread the love!

The Bad

Hmmm, I really can't come up with anything BAD about AR except that it might be addicting. My girlfriend and kids have all given me grief when I've snuck away in order to hop on AR. I think that sometimes my girlfriend would rather have me sneaking away to the computer to look at porn because then I would at least come back upstairs and give HER some attention!

The Good

Wow....the good? Great people, intelligent conversation, useful information, referrals, seo, sense of community, emotional outlet......the list goes on and on. Rarely a day goes by that I don't directly benefit from the time that I've spent here on Activerain.

So, to all of you who have contributed to making AR such a wonderful and vibrant community, I thank you and want you to know that I am looking forward to my next 100,000 points!

R.B. "Bob" Mitchell

ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.

Bob Mitchell is the president of ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc., St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. To find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program please feel free to visit our web page, valuelistre.com