There’s always something to howl about.

Month: May 2010 (page 3 of 3)

Obama’s iPad review: Dear graduates, iPads are a threat to our country

Due to social media, I prayed for Anna to have the grace of god with her this morning.  I did not feel like I was damaging the fabric of our country by my simple action.  So, I was surprised to learn our president laments that the new media is not “a tool of empowerment.”  I translate his words to mean that such things are not yet a tool of his empowerment.  If you haven’t seen his comments, here they are:

BlackBerry-loving President Barack Obama declared war on technology, singling out Apple’s super-popular iPods and iPads for criticism at a commencement ceremony in Virginia, the New York Post reported Monday.

Obama — whose election was credited in part to his skillful use of modern media, from smartphones to Twitter to Flickr — on Sunday told college graduates that high-tech gizmos and apps were straining American democracy.

“With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation,” Obama said at Hampton University in southeastern Virginia.

Obama described the most popular offerings of companies like Apple, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo as distractions that are putting unnecessary pressure on the country.

Obama also lamented the spread of social media and blogs, through which “some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction.”
“All of this is not only putting new pressures on you,” Obama said. “It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.” – FoxNews

Do you think patriots should drop their iPads?

A Home that’s Worth at Least a Million

Sometimes location, location, location isn’t the key to defining the value of a home.  Often times its God’s providence.

When I relocated home to Dallas last July, my brother and his family decided to put their home on the market – they wanted to take advantage of a soft market and ideally get a deal on a property not far from their current location.  They had two offers but neither stuck.  It just seemed like they weren’t destined to move.

Their existing place was fine but rather than sell, they decided to stay put. An extensive renovation was in order, however, there was one feature of their home that simply couldn’t be changed – their home’s  best feature transcended any physical characteristic, it was a metaphysical connection – or rather a spiritual one.  A bond they shared with their neighbors – Dave, Carol and their daughters Patrice and Anna Basso.  The Bassos aren’t really just neighbors, they’re more like family.

I believe there was a far greater reason why my brother’s house didn’t sell.

Just a day before Thanksgiving, 2009, Anna, Dave and Carol’s youngest, was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma, a very rare and terribly aggressive form of cancer that typically strikes children to young adults between the ages of 10 to 20.  So rare that only a handful of cases are diagnosed in a year.  Anna’s cancer was diagnosed at Stage 4.  The tumors were identified on her pelvis and the cancer had spread to her bone marrow.

While the news was devastating to Dave and Carol, the impact was almost as severe to my brother and sister-in-law – they’ve seen Anna grow up.  She was simply part of the family.  There is perhaps no stronger or more overwhelming sense of helplessness felt by a parent or loved one when the there appears to be no hope for a child.

But again, this is God’s providence.  Where there is faith, there is always hope.

My brother Mark knew he had to do something for Anna.  While Anna’s health was in the hands of the medical professionals, her emotional and spiritual well-being – as well as her family Read more

Mastering the Art of Active Listening

Yesterday I was in a meeting in which relevant information was disseminated yet some people just refused to LISTEN.  I know they could hear what was being said, but for whatever reason they either chose to ignore it or don’t have the mental ability to understand (I really hope that it was the former of the two).  This is not meant as a rant, a diatribe, a denunciation (or whatever other label can be attached), but rather as a reminder to those who hear what others say but still don’t listen.

It takes much more to be a participant in a discussion than to just spout off opinions.  To some, being a good communicator means being able to speak in public or BS’ing your way through a conversation.  Well, actively listening is becoming a lost art.  And let’s make clear the difference between “listening” and “hearing”.  Hearing, in a nutshell, is having the ability to perceive sound.  Listening, on the other hand, is understanding, interpreting, and assessing what is being said.  Sometimes you can even see when a person stops listening, you can see the wheels turning in their head as they prepare a rebuttal and just wait for their turn to speak.

Well, for those people, I have a few suggestions:

*  Start out with blank, neutral slate and let the speaker have their say;  it might even be something that you agree with or new ideas/information that could benefit you.  In doing so, give them your undivided attention (yeah, that means no doodling or daydreaming, at least not for now).

*  Use non-verbal communication, it will let the speaker know that you are listening.  Maintain eye contact (no, not in a creepy stalker way), nod and gesture as appropriately, and use body language.  And this is much less disruptive than interrupting.

*  When appropriate, ask relevant questions.  This allows the speaker to explain their points further (in case they were not clear in their Read more

The Kumbaya School of Real Estate Brokerage Values Service Over Results

For all you real estate boys and girls out there, if you haven’t had the pleasure of going to an Apple Store to buy something, or have a problem solved, I heartily recommend a field trip. Find the biggest most trafficked Apple Store in your area and go there just to watch, listen, and learn. And learn you will. I’ve had what Dad taught me about the difference between service and results reenforced every time I walk through their doors.

These pages have, pretty much from Day 1, screamed about delivering service, a concept with which nobody, including this company owner would credibly disagree. But results are what BloodhoundBlog is all about. Some, however, have screwed up the order of importance of the two. (Has there ever been a better place for a that said?)

That said, and this is what I’ve been sayin’ since Dad’s fiercely burning eyes so congruently highlighted the dripping tone of sarcasm when he spit out the words to me — it’s about producing results, genius. I’ll take a gruff, mildly rude manner and give back a thank you if it comes at me hand in hand with timely, stellar results. Yeah, I know, you’re muttering ‘duh’ under your breath. You’d think that would be universal knowledge, right? We all know that’s ultra malodorous crap.

What many refuse to allow unfettered into their consciousness, is that world class service is as effective as a gelding trying to generate the next Secretariat when it’s not complimenting equally world class results. Think about it. “Yeah, Bob said your service was the best in town. You hardly ever produce results, but your service is without rival.” When was the last time you heard that?

Think of any service company or store selling product — would you use them again if the results were fabulous, but the service not so much? On the other hand, would you return if the results were uniformly disappointing, but the service on the way to the predictably inferior results was orgasmic? I know I’m risking the tag of heretic, but I’m gonna say it anyway.

Those who Read more

A Salute To All The Unprofessionals Out There

The word unprofessional has no meaning.  It’s designed to be vaguely insulting, and to be an ad hominem attack on someone that inconveniences a busy Realtor in the course of his or her day.  Nobody wants to be unprofessional. Folks sling it around on twitter on a daily basis.  Follow the #RTB hashtag for details.  It’s an insult below the surface: any agent  that doesn’t immediately cater to the irrelevant demands of a competitor risks being called unprofessional.  When I was a mortgage broker, I was first called “unprofessional” when I didn’t want to listen to the pitch of a dumpy salesperson that walked unbidden into my office.   I see it coming: another coercive assault on innovation, on hustle, on passion.    Anything that rocks the boat is to be called unprofessional.

Unprofessional.

What, then, is a professional?   Congenial, and cowed.  They wear the yokes of the big brokers proudly, making nice at the big agent meetings and the Barcamps and the other exercises in irrelevance that show that they are people people. These professionals sell but few houses, but dog gone it, they do it in a way that their other professionals don’t object to.  They attend their board meetings and they advocate rulings that help one another…and in the name of more standards (for others), they add paperwork and tedium to the job of representing buyers, sellers and borrowers.

And if you glance askance at any idea, you run the risk of being called unethical in addition to unprofessional.

The real aim, of course is to have a cushy job that requires little.  To not adapt and help.  To innovate so very slowly, and of course to prevent anyone else  from entering into their space.  Of course, they all stick together.  People are professionals because they say they are, not because they care about their clients, innovation or anything else.  What is a real estate professional?  Probably someone that sells 3 homes in a calendar year and returns calls 40% of the time.  That’s probably a higher standard than 80% of the NAR reaches.

Our #RTB movement (which other word often precedes “movement”) Read more

How An Activist Government Destroys the Environment

Sarah Palin is so suspiciously quiet this week as is President Obama.  We’re all kind of holding our breath, as the oil spreads throughout the Gulf of Mexico, with hopes and prayers that it doesn’t reach the Panhandle beaches.  This oil spill is big and its effects might be catastrophic.

This is not a failure of the free market rather it is a failure of government.

Greg Swann beat me to this yesterday, encouraged by an email from Sara P,. Miller, but I’ve been talking about this on Facebook for a few days:

There is no need to ban offshore drilling. Present BP with the cleanup bill and hold them responsible for the secondary damages, and other oil companies will think long and hard about the costs associated with offshore drilling. If the US Gov’t “bails out” BP by socializing costs, it will be one more example of how gov’t makes the world a less safe place than the free market can

This may be a hard pill for government groupies to swallow but the response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill (more government regulations and a limit on liability) is what caused this disaster.  Regulations offer a false sense of security.  Moreover, when the State manages risk for private industry, private industry will take as much risk as they are legally permitted.  It happened in the housing market and now its happening to our environment.  This is what free market supporters call “moral hazard” which is a fancy way of saying “with reward comes responsibility”.

We didn’t like the Valdez oil spill but let’s face it:  that was in Alaska.  It affected far fewer people and its cold there so you (and I) didn’t think too much about it.  Now that the chocolate milk is threatening our prettiest beaches, in a warm clime, with millions of people affected, we’re nervous….and it might have been averted had the State not encouraged what might be VERY risky behavior but we’ll never know…

…because that risk was socialized by the taxpayer.

Let me show you how it happens:

Senator Sara  is elected from a Read more

HDMI and me: A Mac mini turns out to be the ideal TV set-top box

I’ve known this was doable for quite a while, but last Friday I finally got around to doing it: I took an old Mac mini we had lying around, remapped it to OS-X Snow Leopard and then set it up as an HDMI set-top box for our very small big-screen TV.

Why? Because I hate TV — the censorship, the editing for content and for image size and especially the commercials. Lately, most of our TV viewing time has been either movies on-demand from Cox Cable or DVDs from Netflix. We’ve both watched Netflix on-demand, streaming movies to our desktop or laptop computers, so going the HDMI route was not a long leap.

What do we get for our trouble? The cabling is kind of a kludge, and for now I’m using a wireless keyboard and mouse to drive the Mac mini. But shortly I’ll use Rowmote on my iPhone to control the computer, connecting via Bluetooth. But by using the Mac mini as a de facto set-top box, we gain access to Netflix’ library of on-demand movies, along with the on-demand services available from shows like South Park and Glee.

That is: We get to watch only what we want to watch, only when we want to watch it. We can stop and start at will, as calls from clients and calls of nature demand. And we suffer neither censorship, editing or commercials.

The cost? I bought pricey cabling from the Apple Store, but you can do this for twenty or thirty bucks. And the Netflix subscription? Ten bucks a month, both for the DVD ping-pong and for unlimited on-demand streaming. The video quality is not Blue-Ray perfect, but it ain’t bad for ten bucks.

Plus which, we have a Macintosh driving our TV. If I need to look at an email or a web site, I’m there. If I want to play games from the sofa, I’m there. If I want to kill spam comments on BloodhoundBlog — Zap!

And think of this: Really good big-screen TVs are selling for $650. Mac minis cost nothing, and used Macs or cheapo Windoze boxes cost even less. Read more

iPad Arrives

My 64 gig WiFi and 3G iPad arrived on Friday. I had it delivered to another office where I knew someone could sign for it. When I opened the package in the lobby, the lawyer – an ex-Marine with 25 years of trial experience – looked at it and asked, “what’s that?”

He was unconvinced that it had any value, and I didn’t take the time to explain it to him.

Fast forward to Monday afternoon, where the two of us were sitting for nearly two hours waiting for our case to be called. He asked me whether I knew the potential sentence for a class of crime. I said I didn’t, but quickly showed opened the sentencing chart I had loaded onto the iPad.

Then he got interested, so I showed him how all my clients files are synched onto the device, how I have started to create a presentation for potential DWI clients that I can show to them when I sit down with them in their homes for the initial consultation, and how I am currently putting together a Probation Violation presentation together replete with video of the family from another state pleading for leniency.

That got him interested. Obviously this only scratches the surface of what can be done, but his next questions were: How much is it, will it work with Windows, and could I help him set his up?

Aside from downloading some Apps and putting client flies and certain legal documents on the device, I’ve been too busy to play with it. Will give it a review later.

This oil spill and the government’s belated response to it do not prove the value and efficacy of the government, but precisely the opposite.

So I had a spam email from a state-worshipping zealot I’ve never met named Sara P. Miller. Apparently Sara P. Miller is the modern-age equivalent of those noxious creeps you used to find preaching the gospel of Jheeezuhs! on buses and subway trains, self-imprisoned in a never-silent pantomime of exhibitionism and self-loathing. I cannot be trusted to find the truth on my own, so I must have it thrust upon me by benificent busy-bodies. Good grief…

Anyway, here is Sara P. Miller’s argument, all spelling and punctuation errors faithfully reproduced: “As the sludge roles onto Louisiana’s coast, suddenly, the anti-government bashers are silent. [….] And this morning, as that horrible, poison sludge makes its tragic, putrid, photo debut, we will all believe in ‘big government.'” She defends this by making reference to a number of Rotarian Socialist statists, absolutely none of whom are anti-government. They are all exponents of the government — past or current office-holders.

And that doesn’t matter to me. I’m assuming Sara P. Miller sent this nonsense to me because I haven’t said anything about the oil spill in the gulf. “Cum taces, clamas,” say my Roman friends — “When you are silent, you shout.” Not quite. The topics I don’t write about are legion. Hell, the things I think about writing about but don’t constitute a vast library of unwritten prose. I haven’t written about this oil spill because I don’t care about it, frankly, and because I am busy.

But: The actual essence of Sara P. Miller’s argument, which she is not smart enough to make, could not be more wrong. This oil spill and the government’s belated response to it do not prove the value and efficacy of the government, but precisely the opposite. These events — and the cloying chorus of the Rotarian Socialists of both major political parties — do not argue for the glories of the state right now, but, rather, for its inglorious ignobility going back forever. The state is never anything other than crime, and the crimes being played out right now in the Gulf of Mexico are nothing other than further proof Read more

Gleeks, Freaks, and affirmations that improve my mood

Talking with a client a few weeks ago. She’s been in her home for two years now, and her biological clock is beginning to tick tock. She’s nesting. It’s fascinating to see how property ownership impacts lives in a big way.

It is the husbandry of the land — each man to his own parcel — that most makes husbands of us, that sweeps away our willingness to live as brigands or rapists or thugs.

That applies to females as well, in case that needed to be explained.

This client was telling me that she was baby sitting for friends of hers, and the baby started crying, as babies are known to do. She didn’t know what to do for it, she tried this and she tried that with no luck, but then without a thought, she began to sing to the baby, and it worked. Singing is not something she’s prone to do. “I never sing” she told me. That little bundle of joy obviously needed comforting and singing was the key to calming the baby. My client learned what I’ve known for years- singing makes us happy and you probably figured out that I’ve pretty much always got a song running in my head as background music to my life.

All of this is my clumsy and roundabout way of working real estate and singing into one post so I can share a song I’ve been singing lately. It’s campy, it’s tongue-in-cheek, it’s awesome in its goofiness. If you are a newly minted Gleek, it’s okay to sing loudly and badly, as all the most fun show tunes seem designed for that very purpose. I’ve been accused of having a sense of humor and for not taking things too seriously, so it makes sense that for me, singing a show tune like this is as close as I ever get to an affirmation. “Money flows to me like a river.” Yeah, okay, but I’d much rather sing at the top of my lungs:

“I hear the sound of good
Solid judgment whenever you talk.

Yet, there’s the bold, brave spring
Of the tiger that quickens your walk.
(roar, Read more

Professional Development, Are You Doing Enough?

First, I must say that it is an honor to be able to share my thoughts with such a distinguished audience.  This site and its members has been essential in my professional growth and development.  As such, I found it fitting that my first post should be about professional development.

As real estate professionals, we have a duty to develop our real estate expertise and industry knowledge in order to keep up with the changing markets and best serve our clients.  Yet everyday I am seeing (both online and offline), professionals who are content spouting off ‘advice’ (and I use the term loosely here) on topics about which they apparently are ill-informed.  For example, a few days ago I overheard an agent telling their client about a ‘real estate investment opportunity of a lifetime’ (that’s an actual quote, I couldn’t have made THAT up).  However, in their cashflow worksheet he failed to take into account property taxes, estimated repairs, projected vacancy rates, etc. which when calculated would make this cash cow into quite a money pit.  In addition, although as professionals we are expected to have a certain degree of industry expertise, we are NOT an attorney or a tax adviser so refer any questions outside your scope of expertise to the appropriate party!  I saw a post on a national real estate forum in which an agent answered a potential buyers question:  “I am considering buying a $52K property that I intend to rent out to bring in income, do I qualify for the $8k tax credit”.  The agent’s response was an unequivocal YES, “Yes, you qualify and it’s the perfect time, I am a Realtor in your area so give me a call”.  Does anybody see something wrong with that answer?  I won’t go into detail as to the many ways in which he is wrong, but you get the point.  Don’t pretend to be an expert in something you are not!

I fully realize that this is not applicable to BH members/subscribers, as by nature Bloodhounders are professionals who seek to raise the standard by continuously pursuing self-improvement and knowledge.  Read more