Oklahoma City, OK

No this is not the for people, this is for the state legislature. I love California, and I have two trips planned to SF in August(Inman news), and September. I helped your economy twice already this year by coming to the state. Now you are mired in a budget crisis, and this 2/3 majority rule, and the insane party politics garbage is threatening Oklahoma. Why? Because your bigger than most countries with your budget! You aren't the only ones facing huge shortfalls at the end of the fiscal year. Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, Connecticut, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi are facing similar shut downs of essential services. Folks the money is not there and you either have to shut down government or raise taxes so what will it be? The anti-government conspiracy in every nook and cranny crowd may finally get what they want. It will be an object lesson to see if the world is coming to and end, or if the glory of a new age is upon us. The problem is that as California goes, so goes the nation. With 11% unemployment already, and the prospect that thousands more are about to be unemployed, and with no money to pay out in benefits, what happens now? I guess these people will have more time to attend tea parties? If I am one of the people who receive part of the $3 Billion dollar IOU's tonight, how am I going to keep the electricity on? So go enjoy your name calling that Democrats or Republicans are subhuman non-caring idiots. That does not solve the crisis, and I don't pretend that a few days of budget cuts will take care of the problem. You have a lot of work to do. Just understand that this Oklahoman is one of many who do not think we are out of the woods economically, and could care less about your party affiliation even if you believe it makes you think you are the righteous ones. A pox on both your houses because you people would be the type that would be in a burning theater and you would debate whether to exit front or back and burn up before you reached a conclusion. Thank God I am going on vacation tomorrow. I need a rest from this post.

Only Franz Kafka could create a world as hopeless as working to get a loan modification. As CDPE's (Ceritifed Distressed Property Experts) we have listened to the webinars about doing our best to try to keep people in their houses versus a short sale. My partner Charlene Humphreys and I will work up to 200 short sale possibilities this year alone, and in Oklahoma we have not experienced the devastation of hard hit markets. I can only imagine what short sale teams are going through there. Here is my statistic for the success rate of loan modifaction this year, ZERO. I can't believe that any real estate activity is more frustrating for the homeowner and the Realtor than this. You want to save the house but the system is rigged, and the governments program they love to talk about is not working. Folks this is crazy. While the mortgage companies fiddle, Rome burns. By the time you may be able to get the homeowner to the promise land, you have seen their credit score drop as the mortgage companies report their bad credit, all the time reassuring the homeowner that it is in process. In process is the new code word for, Drop Dead.

We want to help people in distress, not just make a commission off others misery. For those who work short sales you know that having to deal with the emotional turmoil of the distressed homeowner is a cause for burn out. The paperwork drill can be Byzantine with 200 pages of documentation not unusual. Something must be done. We save Wall Street and Corporations, and I am okay with that, but only if we look at the American Homeowner with the same concern. My short sales are based on hardship, not on people just deciding to quit paying and avoiding deficiencies. I am linking an article from today's New York Times that you should read. It details what I am talking about. This is a call to action because our client's deserve better.

Attention all of you who are addicted to paper marketing. It looks like snail mail is on it's way to the Smithsonian, right next to the abacus. I know that in saying we need to get off our addiction to paper, at Active Rain I am preaching to the choir as we say in Oklahoma, and the amen corner is very loud this Sunday. It is not a shock that stamps are going up constantly and usage decreases, and that the Post Office is beginning to downsize. I still have checks from six years ago because of online banking. If you still are only going to give up paper marketing when the pry your cold dead hands off it, consider a few other recent events.

The Boston Globe barely made it. Without significant union concessions and others, they would be toast. Seattle now has an online newspaper only. The Rocky Mountain News is no more. Have you heard of a Kindle? That and it's competitors are changing the face of publishing. I'm finally ready for it. It was hard to lose my addiction to books. Now I know how addicts feel during withdrawal. Real Estate sections started disappearing from newspapers over a year ago.

Now lets look at a survey from the Piper Jeffrey Company about the cost of leads in our business. Per lead here is the breakdown: Search .45c, email .55c, Yellow Pages $1.18, Banner Ads $2.00, and the No 1 and biggest loser is Direct Mail $9.94. Surprised? I was about direct mail. Now besides books I have another addiction to get over.

Finally, let's talk ecology. Virgin Forest are fast disappearing. Real Estate needs to get ahead of the curve on the greening of America and the world. Besides the obvious cost savings detailed in the last paragraph we should show our stewardship of our planet and we can lead the way. This includes making sure your state will accept digital signatures, that we use the electronic forms now available for contracts and addendums and not paper, and even to start using talking sign technology rather than brochure boxes. Besides how many boxes have you seen without flyers?

That's a picture of me in Houston with our precious poodles, Hope Elizabeth the standard, and Henri the toy. You can imagine why the little guy got that name if you were around him. Everyday that I got home from cancer treatment, they were there to jump on me, demand me pet them and walk them as if to say I don't care what kind of a day you have had, what about my needs? And they did deserve it because poodle love will be my chapter 3 of a surviving cancer book. Which leads me to yesterday.

I blogged here about how happy I was to be a Realtor on Monday morning, sitting in my robe, drinking coffee at the computer, blogging and commenting, and working on internet lead generation. Meanwhile, my life's partner and real estate partner Charlene was having the opposite day. Will the roofers show up to one house, will the appraisal come in on another, and will the mortgage company fund on a short sale closing today. She was going crazy, but hey, I was not going to let that get me down. She was going to yoga and when she got back, hopefully she would be centered again, and we would do our morning 15 miler on the bikes. I ended up biking more than that, but not the way I thought I would around the lake.

We had landscapers doing a french drain, and removing a volunteer tree by our back gate. Then Charlene had to go run an errand, and she saw that the workers had left the back gate open, and the dogs through doggie doors can get to the yard. They were gone and then I joined into Charlene's panic. I drove the neighborhood yelling for them, joined by Charlene, the workers, the workers families and four neighbors. I made missing reward signs and the next door neighbors son and I got on our bicycles and posted every power line in 1/2 mile. We called every pound, animal shelter, a close by vet to alert them. No dogs, and the temperature turned 102. It had been four hours since they got out, and we were losing hope. Then Charlene decided to go to the neighborhood to the south because that is the way we walk them, and maybe they were following the scent. She turned the corner in her car yelling out the open windows and she heard what she though were poodle barks. Yes, there they were! They were back from their Milo and Otis adventure. They ran to Charlene, got into the car, and parked their noses in front of the air vents.

We got them home and after a few liters of water, they settle down to a long, long nap. For me, all beautiful mornings can be shattered by events, but for Charlene something else happened. Real Estate was not worth worrying yourself sick over. Family, friends, and precious little bundles of unconditional love is what really matters. FYI, the roof got on, the appraiser seemed satisfied with the value, and the closing funded, and her worry over it didn't change whether these events would happen or not. The only thing that mattered is being like the proverbial shepherd looking for that one lost sheep.

The moral of the story is this. Don't panic until it is time, then if needed to, go for the gold. Just make sure that the panic fits the situation. Hint, real estate is not that important in the grand scheme of things, or in the wandering of dogs.

My joke that I tell on myself as a Realtor is this, Thank God it's Friday because I only have two days left in the work week. Does not mean I put in 8 hours a day for a total of 56? Sometimes, and then other times it may be 30. That is the beauty of being self-employed and I wouldn't have it any other way. In fact, with real estate and retail ownership since college it has been all of my 36 years of work. And you know what? I love it more than ever. Yeah I know, self discipline and all that stuff is necessary, and there is no pension unless I create it. But how many people do you know love what they do as much as being on vacation?

I was inspired to post by sitting at my desk, and yes I love the morning coffee. I am typing in my bathrobe with a coffee cup by my hand, and a bowl of granola and soy milk topped with blueberries. Aint it a loving morning! My desk faces a front window and I watch my neighbors in sport coats and ties get in their cars and go to work. I am happy for them, but even happier that I can do two blog post, comment on Active Rain, read The Phoenix Real Estate Guy about a parking lot scam, get inspired by an eco-article abour recycled toilet paper, and await my girlfriend's return from yoga so we can do a 15 miler on the bikes this morning. I am grateful for my life before cancer, and even more after cancer. I love the relationships I build with clients, talking to my sibs, and rescuing people from foreclosure by doing short sales.

At 61 years old, as I read updates on Facebook from my high school friends I wonder about time. I know that the days haven't changed, but still, how did I go from 18 to 61 so fast? But you know what? Sitting here in nothing but my bathrobe, looking at the green grass and trees, and a perfectly cloudless blue sky it is a feeling that all those years have led up to this eternal moment. So I close these post my Active Rain friends, savoring the moment, glad that I am alive, that I am about to bathe and go forward with the day, and wishing you a great Monday. I bet that there are a lot of AR bloggers today who feel just like I do.