There’s always something to howl about.
We all banter about terms like the Keynesian, Chicago and Austrian schools of economics. I thought it might be informative to share this little quiz. Since football is finished, here is your weekend diversion.
For the record, I am a B+ Austrian.
Ja Wohl!
Kicking this back up to the top. I wrote this on November 19th, 2006, but nothing has changed since then. But, as it happens, our friends at Agent Shortbus have taken up the topic of dual agency, albeit without reference to anything rigorous or dispositive. We have a whole category devoted to dual agency, and some very interesting Bloodhounds have weighed in on the topic, over the years. I think I’ve written more on the subject than anyone — possibly more than anyone, ever — but this one post is the giant-killer on dual agency.
So: While our #RTBar-buddies are telling are telling you that dual agency feels just as good to them as a healthy bowel movement, this post explains — in painstaking detail — why disclosed dual agency cannot possibly be effected without persistent, repeated, egregious agency violations against both principals to the transaction.
Don’t doubt my gratitude, though. I love the #RTB marketing message: A “professional” Realtor won’t do open houses, but he will take a double dip when the opportunity presents itself. I cannot think of a better way of selling our own high standards than for our competitors to be so forthcoming about their self-serving “professionalism.” Very nice.
Anyway, even though every bit of this is painfully obvious, here is why even a properly disclosed dual agency is unethical.
–GSS
Addressing Jeff Brown’s claim that Dual Agency is more about perception than reality, and Russell Shaw’s contention that clients do what they intend to do, rather than what their agents advise them to do, let’s go buy a house and see what happens.
I’m going to split my personality in thirds (I have plenty to go around). Realtor Gregory is going to represent the buyers. Realtor Stephen is going to represent the sellers. Then we’re going to reexamine events from the point of view of Dual Agency, with Realtor Swann representing both parties in a Disclosed Dual Agency.
So: Realtor Gregory is out showing homes with his party and they settle on one they like, listed by Realtor Stephen. Because it’s a buyer’s market, and because the buyers aren’t very well-prepared, they don’t Read more
Incredibly, the IRS cannot do a lot to stop you, or anybody, from cashing in on the stimulus tax credits.
According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the IRS is “unable to verify eligibility for the majority of Recovery Act benefits at the time a tax return is filed.” That doesn’t mean they can’t audit you, but only a small portion of filers are audited. If audited, you would have to correct any mistakes and you might face penalties.
Understand that the IRS prefers that you file electronically for efficiency reasons. They rely on taxpayers to provide accurate information.
For example, the inspector general recommended that the IRS require taxpayers to provide documentation to verify first-time homebuyer credit claims, but the IRS said no. Such a requirement, officials said, “would be burdensome and would potentially exclude as many as 2 million taxpayers from electronically filing.”
It wasn’t until the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009 was signed into law on Nov. 6 that additional documentation was required for the credit and the IRS was given additional authority with respect to returns that did not include that documentation.
Moreover, the IRS did not have math error authority – meaning that officials are not authorized to check calculations – to stop payment of erroneous credit claims. In essence, the IRS relied on taxpayers to be honest, didn’t require hard documentation and could not check the math on certain credits.
That same article quoted above has a sidebar titled “Getting money you don’t deserve.” It goes through a hypothetical scenario of how the First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit can be scammed for extra benefits. The limitations of e-filing do not allow the IRS to transfer paper documentation to electronic format. So, there is a level of trust in the system. There is a level of trust in the system that the 73,799 taxpayers who are suspected of not correctly claiming the tax credit as of last July do not justify. Those suspected incorrect claims may total $504 million.
Expect more news of fraud as this version of the Homebuyer Tax Credit, and other stimulus credits, wind down Read more
Yet another over-groomed rat-eater won the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, but it’s not hard to figure out who the real champions were.
(Thanks to Richard Riccelli for fingering this gorgeous photo.)
Greg put me on this #RTB nonsense. I will say this: anyone who supports increased prelicensing requirements is a lazy coward who is deluding himself into mediocrity by legislation. They don’t want to compete with young whipper snappers, so they make it harder. Even the most innocuous opinion by Real Life Sheri is dead wrong. The responsibility for education lies with the practitioners, not with someone that’s disseminating information. I didn’t learn anything from my prelicensing except this: that my Real Estate Career was going to be filled with egomanical blowhards that were going to do their best to maximize the drama in a transaction. And that the state had the power to make me sit through 120 hours of nonsense before I could tell full grown adults that “this…is the living room.”
That’s the insanity of getting in bed with the government. When you advocate increased rules, you’re carrying a scorpion across the river and expecting something good to happen. The result will be destruction, always.
However, I’m certain that #RTB is to succeed. It’s a perfect example of Johnson’s law: All randomly generated bad ideas that benefit the government will find a willing partner in the government for their execution. See, the government doesn’t need to plot and scheme to get bigger. Once she attains a critical mass, people will kowtow and bring her offerings in the form of enslaving ideas. There is no conspiracy, there are no black helicopters. There is nothing but a bunch of morons abdicating their use of a brain and ceding what is rightly theirs to a government or trade organization. That’s enough to create massive growth in the government.
Ken Brand puts it nicely:
I don’t want to raise the bar, I want to take the steel bar and beat the crap out of the leaders (Broker’s/Sales Managers/Team Leaders/etc. who hire, support, allow, retain and reward people who violate natural laws of human interaction, common sense and professional conduct (as defined by our association).
He also gives the just deserts to the consumers that accept morons. When you advance the causes of government you are a friend to Read more
In my late twenties, as a trader on the floor of the options exchange, I was a “Master of the Universe”. That’s a very common affliction down there. Apparently, when you put a bunch of young, fearless, risk-takers together and give them the power to move markets around the world, you end up with a bit of a monster. At one point I attended a symposium with my fellow traders; each of us secure in our status as Cowboy and Superman rolled into one very special gift for the world. We listened to the latest market analysis systems and celebrated our shared royalty. Amidst all the revelry was a speaker who didn’t have a financial background; he was more of a self-help, motivational kind of guy. (Believe me, the last thing that group needed was motivation!) I remember not paying much attention to him – you know, being a “Master of the Universe” and all – but I wish I had. He wasn’t there to motivate us, he was there to help us – to keep us from losing ourselves… an effort made mostly in vain.
Within days of the symposium all was blissfully forgotten; let’s face it, what could these talking heads possibly teach a “Master of the Universe?” All, I should say, but this bit of wisdom from the self-help guru – the one who was so out of place. This stuck with me and I damned him for it:
If you want to know who you really are, listen to that quiet voice you hear while driving home after a meeting, late at night and tired, with no one else in the car and the radio off. That voice is who you really are… and the fears that voice brings forth are what you really fear.
Over time I was pretty sure I understood what he meant… but I didn’t.
I was thinking about this the other day. I had just finished with a group of agents in my POPs Program, where we had been favorably comparing the stress AND the fun of being Read more
From Samuel Adams’ speech in Philadelphia, 01 August 1776
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!
Via LiveScience.com:
Separate reports out last week show that mobile phone use is soaring in the United States and globally, and data moving across mobile networks is expected to grow dramatically over the next four years.
One report by comScoreMobiLens shows that Americans want to do more than talk on their phones, and they’re willing to pay for it. A total of 234 million people age 13 and older in the U.S. used mobile devices in December 2009. In the past year, smartphone ownership increased from 11 percent to 17 percent of mobile users, while 3G phone ownership increased from 32 percent to 43 percent and unlimited data plan subscriptions rose from 16 percent to 21 percent.
Every month, comScore measures how often people use their phones to send text messages, access the Internet, play games, use downloaded applications, or “apps,” check their Facebook profile, watch videos and listen to music.
In the latest comScore report, all of these activities showed an increase from the previous report period. Though most of the increases are modest because the survey was conducted over a short 90-day period, texting and visiting a social networking site or blog increased more than 2 percent.
The report also reveals users are shifting from the more utilitarian phone operating systems toward more media-focused operating systems that have more functionality. While RIM, the operating system for BlackBerry devices, remained the leading mobile smartphone operating system in the U.S at 41.6 percent, it saw its market share drop slightly along with Microsoft and Palm.
Meanwhile, Apple, which owns a quarter of the mobile market and is ranked second, saw a gain in popularity for its media friendly iPhone platform. Likewise, Google’s Android operating system surged in popularity with the launch of Motorola’s Droid in November, allowing the company to double its market share in just three months. Like the iPhone, the Droid is built for multimedia content.
Separate research released by Cisco estimates that global mobile data traffic has increased by 160 percent over the past year to 90 petabytes per month, or the equivalent of 23 million DVDs. The company projects that this figure will increase Read more
So quickly, I mean. It was an obvious hoax, at least to me. Environmentalism is the new poverty for Marxists, the new insurmountable crisis that can only be solved by universal slavery under a one-world government. If you didn’t see through that pose, you must have slept through the twentieth century.
(For future reference, whatever the supposed emergency, if the proposed solution is more government, the “crisis” is a hoax and the sole objective is more government. This ain’t rocket science.)
Even so, I am delighted to cite two local angles on the “global warming” hoax:
First: Phoenix was one of the cities used to fudge the records on rising temperatures, although I don’t think our teeny-tiny little local hoax has been exposed yet. What they did was move the temperature collection apparatus at Sky Harbor Airport from a position over grass to a new spot over blacktop. Voila! Several degrees “warmer” every day, just like that.
And: Just because the world hasn’t actually gotten warmer since 1995 doesn’t mean winter is a frozen, lifeless hell everywhere. Today — February 14 — we used the air conditioner at home for the first time this year.
I had a great week.
That’s not something I get to say all the time — rarely more than fifty times a year.
The truth is, most of the time I feel like an undocumented refugee from a forgotten country known as A Different Way Of Thinking. I don’t feel any huge bond of commonality with most of the people I know about, and, when I do, that just by itself is a cause for celebration.
What’s different? I could say “I love myself” or “I love my life,” but those sentiments are too vague to be useful. It seems easier to me to define what I’m talking about by negatives, rather than in affirmative statements.
So, for example, it never occurs to me to start a sentence with the words “With my luck…” or “Knowing me…” These are very common expressions, and it’s plausible to me that the humble attitude being expressed by those phrases is faked — that the speaker doesn’t actually feel the — to me — humiliating self-degradation implied by the words. But it doesn’t occur to me to express humility in the first place, not even faked humility.
To the contrary, if I could paint a picture of my own idealized self-image, it might be something like a conquering Viking, sword held proudly aloft, or a virtuoso pianist in that eternal instant of silence when the last note of the concerto has faded into the ether but somehow still rings on in the mind’s ear. I don’t actually see myself that way, but that’s a way of imagining what my life looks like to me from the inside.
And just that much is boundlessly funny to me, since, if it were measured by any presumably-objective standard, my life has been a colossal failure. I’m not rich, not even close. My personal relationships have mostly been disasters, to the extent that I am very careful about letting people get close to me. What little fame I might claim amounts to notoriety — and I have complete contempt for other people’s opinions anyway.
And yet inside my own mind, none of that matters. I love Read more
The interwebs are BUZZING about Google Buzz and how benevolent Google co-opted everyone’s contact lists from their Gmail accounts. I wonder how many million valid email addresses Google captured in the first 30 minutes of Buzz going live? I try to remember that Google is the same benevolent company that assisted the Chinese communists in censoring the internet for the billlions imprisoned in the PRC. More recently Google has gotten a Federal bailout in the form of assistance from the NSA to secure Google’s servers from the same ChiCom hackers they used to happily work with ‘doing no evil’, except for entrenching the folks who invented the involuntary liver donation.
The point is this: be aware of the cost of “free stuff”, no matter how cool. The price may be more than you are willing to pay in terms of your professional reputation. I would suggest that a cost benefit analysis is in order. What is the cost in professional reputation for all your social media efforts? Are your friend lists, contact lists and customer rosters available for any non-#RTB data scraper to start spamming with listing flyers? It is surely something to think about.
I don’t care if Google renders a contextual ad in my gmail account. I do care if my clients start getting real estate spam from competitors. Below is a relevant video.
I’d have more to say about this, but everything I have to say is encapsulated in a single URL: BloodhoundBlog.com.
I was mildly interested in this #RTB (raising the bar) nonsense until I figured out that it’s just more Rotarian Socialism: Make it harder for punters to get a real estate license so that the few who make the cut can make more money with less competition. Nice.
Meanwhile, an email correspondent sent me to Twitter to search on a particular #hashmark. There were more than 30 tweets in a span of 20 minutes, from perhaps a dozen tweetards — all of them theoretically real estate professionals.
Why theoretically? Because if you’re pissing away your day on Twitter, you’re not selling real estate, underwriting loans or doing anything else productive.
And all of those clients you claim to have cultivated via social media? They can see what a goof-off you are, just as much as I can. If I were steaming by the phone, waiting for you to return my call, I would just love to watch you kibitzing with your butt-buddies around the virtual water cooler. Now that’s service!
Here’s the only standard of value that matters to consumers: #DTFG (deliver the frolicking goods)! Your clients want for you to treat them the same way you yourself would want to be treated, were you in their place.
It’s easy to figure out what to do, harder to get the job done — harder still to get it done well. But that is all that matters. And if you’re not going to deliver the goods, then you, too, are one of the bums I want to see pushed out of this business.
Whether you’re a dinosaur pissing and moaning in the bullpen down at the brokerage office or a shiny new dino.bot giggling on-line with all the other shiny new dino.bots — you are the problem.
Until you are prepared to put your clients first — all the time — you have nothing to say about raising anything. Raise your frolicking standards! And if you don’t — if you won’t — hard-working dogs like me are going to help Read more
F U Cn Rd Ths, you’re connecting to the new server. (A painless transition, so far.)
The unspoken, bottom line: The federal government has already nationalized the housing industry. We’re not just talking about Uncle Sam providing a few subsidies, or even taking over a few of the big players, as they have in the auto industry. This is a complete takeover. Every new mortgage today is a government mortgage.
Over the last two years, government mortgage and mortgage-backed holdings have grown on net by nearly $1 trillion. Private investors and institutions have shed more than $1.5 trillion — through foreclosure losses, pay downs, and by selling to government.
The effective result is a government-run housing market. Barofsky reports that right now, the government is responsible for about 100 percent of all new mortgage activity. You read that correctly. To put it in his own words:
“According to Federal Reserve net borrowings data, the federal government and the organizations it backs now guarantee or issue almost all net new borrowings for mortgages and MBS.”
Chris Pearson is a pretty smart dood. He’s the developer of the Thesis theme that I use on all of my blogs. It’s a pretty cool premium theme…but I’m not here to pitch WordPress themes.
Yesterday I received and email announcing some proposed changes in the next version of Thesis and in this email it included a link to a Video interview with Chris Pearson.
For the first 3 minutes, most of the talk is about changes to the Thesis theme….and then it gets interesting.
He starts to talk about the future of Twitter and Facebook and poses some very interesting hypotheses.
Here’s the video (can’t embed the vid for some reason, so check it out and come back) – go ahead and jump to about 3:08 to get to the good stuff. Then, let’s talk about it.
Ok, so Chris brings up some pretty interesting points right? I mean, think about how massive of a push there is for the RE.net to jump into the almighty Facebook Fan Page and Twitter stream life rafts to float safely to the shores through turbulent real estate seas.
Do you think that Facebook and Twitter care how or why you contribute content? No, they could care less. These are popularity contests to see who can get the most groupies. Once these communities gain celebrity status, they are finally in a position to execute on their end game…..find an investor.
What is an investor going to do? Use the traffic to the community as leverage to sell advertising or sell subscriptions to generate revenue. Do you think either of these sites will ask you first if it’s ok if they use their platform for this reason?
Remember when Facebook tried to change their terms of service to say that all of the content on the site was 100% owned by them and could be used any way they see fit? Do you really think that just by changing the verbiage in the terms of service that it changes the way they view your content?
I know there are hundreds of Twitter and Facebook snake oil salesmen out there crafting the next great real Read more
