Jeff Brown has come out from Behind the Curtain. His new weblog (blogrolled, of course) is BawldGuy Talking.
The Hamptons Real Estate Blog (blogrolled) has also moved to a new WordPress platform. One less Blogger weblog out there. The speed at which people can abandon software platforms should give every Google investor pause.
On that subject, The Phoenix Real Estate Guy has news about a new Point 2 Agent weblogging platform.
The Landlord Blog has started a Carnival of Real Estate Investing. I like the specialization. There are some very smart people in that corner of the RE.net.
Kevin Boer at Three Oceans Realty has maps! I am ambivalent about whether map searching actually does anything to sell houses, but it’s slicker than whale snot anyway. Kevin also has a real estate office in two boxes.
RSS Pieces has a great article on choosing the right domain name.
Rent or buy? Ask Todd Tarson at MOCO Real Estate News. I’m on the bubble on this question, and, not to bust any bubblehead bubbles, but I’m selling more houses than I expected to at this time of year.
Greg Tracy at BlueRoof.com Blog argues that Zillow is relevant, accuracy be damned. I agree from a different direction. Zillow is the elephant in the room right now. Its relevance is a given. As the BalwdGuy says, Zillow might be Pong, ultimately just a blip on technology’s radar. Okayfine. But: Pong was big news for its time.
Send a prayer out, if you can, for Jonathan Dalton’s father. Pneumonia, the worst of house guests — shows up unexpectedly and takes forever to clear out. Take good care of your own selves, too, as the weather cools. Pneumonia is what you get when you tell yourself you can ignore a chest cold.
Hey! Where is Kris Berg? I hope some San Diego newspaper is paying her big bucks for her sprightly sense of humor. If not that, I hope her absence is explained by a big stack of new contracts.
Finally, it might be nice if everyone would chip in to buy Keith at Housing Panic some lubricant. The poor sod has been Masturbating to Armageddon for months now, to no discernible result. It’s gotta chafe…
Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, blogging, disintermediation, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate marketing
Ron Ares says:
End-of-day beer through nostrils while reading last tidbit about HousingPanic….well said. I needed a laugh today, thanks for providing.
November 21, 2006 — 7:59 pm
REBlogGirl says:
Greg, thanks for the mention. You are a content king! Let me know what your stand up comedy album drops- that would be a required purchase. How you manage to mix highly relevant news and great laughs is beyond me. Most of these dry blogs need to take a page out your play book. Excellent post, once again.
November 22, 2006 — 5:29 am
Jonathan Dalton says:
Thanks, Greg … very much appreciated. Sounds like he will be back to my sister’s house today.
November 22, 2006 — 6:39 am
Todd Tarson says:
First, Mr. Daulton I hope for the best for your father.
Greg, I’m on the fence as well even though I wrote that post. I guess I was speaking more to the folks that right now don’t have much in the bank or perhaps don’t know if they can really afford the mortgage… especially when they can get the same basic home for less money by renting it. It’s a local market deal…. while I’m reading about rents rising in many places it is not happening here as of yet.
But yes, I have been more busy with clients as of late… it is welcome. This is my first time through a changing market and I am learning… but my nature is conservative about these things.
November 22, 2006 — 7:50 am
Greg Swann says:
> but my nature is conservative about these things.
No, I’m with you. If we’re not getting some huge builder incentive and if my clients can’t swear they’ll stay put for at least three years, renting is probably more profitable right now.
November 22, 2006 — 7:57 am
Russ says:
“Finally, it might be nice if everyone would chip in to buy Keith at Housing Panic some lubricant. The poor sod has been Masturbating to Armageddon for months now, to no discernible result. It’s gotta chafe…”
Tell that to my cousin in Peoria, AZ. After many months, his house is still not selling at $60K below the 2005 peak average for his model. The place is spotless and nice, and he knows enough to disappear for the occasional showing. It may only amount to around 10% thus far, but it is armageddon to his perceived net worth. At least he was not dumb enough to borrow to the hilt. A cursory search of public docs on houses in his neighborhood show that many did, and they are now seriously underwater.
November 22, 2006 — 9:32 am
Todd Tarson says:
Russ, are there finacial advisors out there that tell folks to include their ‘equity’ in their own residence to their net worth??
A residential home dwelling is a liability, not an asset. What that dwelling may be worth is only known the day it transfers ownership.
While I may believe my own home is worth 1 million dollars, it is only worth what a buyer and I agree it is worth for me to move out and for the buyer to move in.
I continue to take calls from owners that think their home today should sell for more than their past neighbor sold his home for last year… I hear it all the time. But what do the buyers say?? Because that is all that really matters.
November 22, 2006 — 10:16 am
Greg Swann says:
Your cousin might consider cancelling the listing now. He can relist in 90 days at zero Days on Market, a new swing at the ball. Or if he can afford to sit tight while this market settles down, he should be okay in the long run. I can’t speak for other markets, but our growth pattern is such that Phoenix should be a growth market until we run ourselves out of potable water.
November 22, 2006 — 10:17 am
Kevin Boer says:
On the whole “buy vs. rent” thing, I’m a somewhat analytical guy, and I have somewhat analytical clients, and the home prices here in the Bay Area are somewhat out of whack with rental prices. Be that as it may, you only have to assume fairly modest home appreciation rates over a 5yr period (3.8% per year) in order to be better off buying than renting. Intuitively, the longer you plan on being in the home, the less the market needs to appreciate in order for you to be better off buying than renting. I’ve put together a neat little graph (click here) that shows the trade-off line. Note that this graph is only valid with the ratios we have here in the Bay Area and the assumptions I’ve made in the model, which our outlined in the associated article.
November 22, 2006 — 6:48 pm
Russ says:
“Russ, are there finacial advisors out there that tell folks to include their ‘equity’ in their own residence to their net worth??
A residential home dwelling is a liability, not an asset…While I may believe my own home is worth 1 million dollars, it is only worth what a buyer and I agree it is worth…I hear it all the time. But what do the buyers say?? Because that is all that really matters.”
I agree with everything in your comment, Todd. Houses definitely should not be the defining element of one’s net worth. I will not, however, be explaining this to my cousin (again) right now because it will be taken poorly and sour the friendship (kinship). But I did lead by example, and unloaded my overvalued stucco masterpiece in Fall ’05. He just had to wait for the precious two-year tax exemption, and it is not going to be worth the wait.
Greg, he should definitely cancel and re-list in the future, but he gets excited about the occasional showing and thinks that a completed sale is just around the corner. Unfortunately, he also made the perilous decision of buying another house first. It is really mind-boggling, considering that the one that he bought is in the same subdivision, just a scaled-down, less expensive model. It would be the perfect house to buy for him and his income, except for the double mortgage scenario now underway. My unsolicited advice was to wait to buy, and possibly rent in the same subdivision for a year after his house sold. He would probably have been more flexible on the first house asking price without the double house payments for the last several months. If it sells, it would still be a windfall-level return.
I have to imagine his views on house values, etc. are shared by a supermajority of Arizonans.
November 25, 2006 — 8:30 am
Mike Bliss says:
“Finally, it might be nice if everyone would chip in to buy Keith at Housing Panic some lubricant. The poor sod has been Masturbating to Armageddon for months now, to no discernible result. It’s gotta chafe…”
PRICELESS! When the housing market explodes again in a year or two, Lil’ Keith (he has a small penis, thus the name) will need to be put on suicide watch.
November 25, 2006 — 11:00 am