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Category: Real Estate (page 104 of 266)

August 18, 2008

I Can’t Swim

by

Chicago Broker Owner Realtor | RE 2.0 Blogger

Author website

I can’t swim; not a lick, stroke or otherwise. I got pulled out of the deep end for the first time when I was 4 years old and then again when I was 14. Both times I saw my quick, up-to-that-point-in-time life, unfold before me as I flailed wildly for help, until finally sinking below surface and fading off into the ether…. Both times I awoke choking up chlorine with a male lifeguard’s mouth on my mouth trying to breath life back into my waterlogged lungs. Both times I was left with the taste of stale cigarettes. I didn’t turn out gay but I did become a smoker soon after the second incident; luck of the draw, I suppose.

I was clocked in the 100 Yard (not meters) Dash under 10 seconds in the same, much younger life, but I never gave anyone reason to save me from myself in that particular venue. I was, unfortunately, forced to run the last leg of a Mile Relay once in high school and hit the asphalt pavement, face first, on the third turn. I had to be escorted off the track and into the infield by the cheerleaders, one of whom I did bum a smoke from, so I suppose the theme continued on in its own way.

I’ve never put on a gymnast’s uniform (okay…maybe once after a heavy night of tequila shooters in Tijuana, circa 1984) so there’s nothing really exciting to report on that Olympic front, either. I don’t do horseback riding, play basketball worth a damn, or participate in soccer, softball, or syncronized anything; men, womens or Soviet Block cross-gender. I don’t do long distance unless it’s covered in my AT&T plan.

I did ride my bicycle 23 miles yesterday morning—but it took me almost 4 hours, well off any competitive pace, so it’s probably not even worth mentioning here. Oh, and I did get into a boxing match of sorts one night with someone who may very well have been a ladies weightlifter from Azerbarijan but that ended in a ‘no decision’ from what I’ve been told. As I vaguely recall, Read more

August 18, 2008

It Takes More Than Comps to Beat the Competition

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

As real estate agents we are always looking for ways to help our clients make sound decisions.  If we find a way of doing so that also differentiates us from the market – all the better.  In the next two posts I am going to share a new way to value property that not only gives clients a vastly superior ability to make home-buying decisions, but should decrease defaults and foreclosures substantially too.  Do you think that will make me a better agent?  More valuable?  Here’s one more way to differentiate yourself in the marketplace of real estate agents.  (Warning: this post and the next involves some arcane securities concepts and new ideas that will require even more of your time and effort.  If this does not interest you, stop reading now.  Pick up a newspaper.  Enjoy the classifieds.  Maybe polish up the old resume…)

CMAs
In a recent article by Greg Swann discussing the woes of the real estate market, he mentioned homes selling for less than they would cost to build.  He referred to homes priced “below their fundamental value.”  Over the past six months or so I have been discussing with Brian Brady different ways to value a property.  Having both come out of the securities field (I was once a securities broker and “enjoyed” some pretty exciting… read: stressful… years as an options trader on the exchange floor), the discussion revolved around how property would be valued if it were a security investment.  First, Comparative Market Analysis or CMAs would be used only as a qualifier or a secondary validation.  They are circularly self-serving and relationally compromised.  Instead of “comps”, let’s wow our clients, protect them and increase our value as agents at the same time.

A New Way to Value
Remember I warned you that this would involve extra work.  That is because there should be four values to any property and they should all be calculated before we advise our clients.  Here are the four values in ascending order:

  1. BREAK-UP VALUE – this is the value of the land itself along with any profits Read more
August 18, 2008

Kodak’s new Zi6 hand-held video camera is pricey and comes with no memory, but if it’s QuickTime HD native, it might be worth it

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

That’s Kodak’s brand new Zi6 hand-held video camera. If it looks a lot like a Flip camera, there’s a reason for that. At first glance, it’s a virtual Flip cam clone, right down to the built-in USB connector and the YouTube video-sharing software.

And like the Flip camera, the optics are nothing special. This is not a camcorder, much less a pro-quality video recording device. This is a hand-held solid-state-memory camera meant to be used to capture memoranda, video podcasts or embarrassing moments at parties.

The Kodak version of the concept stands out from the Flip, though. For one thing, it’s pretty costly — $179.95 list. Much worse, while it can handle SDHC memory cards up to 64GB (which could equate to a day-and-a-half of continuous video), it actually ships with nothing but its own on-board memory. After overhead, there is 30MB left for video — not enough for a sustained belch from a practiced teenager.

By contrast the Flip Mino lists for $179.99 but ships with 2GB of memory — 60 minutes’ worth. The Flip Ultra lists for $149,99 and ships with the same 2GB. Both the Kodak and the Flip Mino use a rechargeable battery scheme. The Flip Ultra uses AA batteries, which is by far preferable to me.

Where the Kodak pulls away from the pack is in video quality. The camera can shoot 720p HD video at either 30 or 60 fps. A short lens and lots of camera motion, but better-than-TV-quality video. Go figure. More significantly, Kodak claims that H.264 is one of the native capture formats for the camera. That’s QuickTime, folks, the MOV format. That implies on-board hardware compression, which would make clips from this camera wicked easy to edit in Apple’s Final Cut video editing software.

YouTube is pretty strong on compression, so my thinking is that a YouTube video from the Kodak Zi6 (dumb name; it’s not a German roadster) is not going to look much better than a YouTube video from a Flip camera. But if you’re shooting hand-held video to be edited with high-end software, it’s plausible that the Zi6 could save you a boatload Read more

August 17, 2008

Looking for Volunteers – Not-for-Profit Realtors

by

Realtor, Rabble-Rouser

Author website

Who wants to be a volunteer?

I received a very pleasant courtesy call the other day from a Realtor who represents a property that I showed to my client several months ago. After showing this particular property, my client and I both walked out of the showing stating that the seller obviously wasn’t reading the news – what were they smoking? Nice but over priced – NEXT!

Her upbeat message was hard to resist,

Volunteer Agent: “Hi Tom, I’m just touching base with all of the agents who’ve showed my listing in the past that my seller is now offering a 4% co-op on the sale of their property, is your buyer still in the market?”

The property in question is still listed with no price reduction.

Me:”Thanks for the call – nope, my client is no longer in the market – they’ve since made a decision, purchased and closed on a more realistically priced property.

Volunteer Agent: “What do you mean a more realistically priced property?”

Me: “Um – (wondering if she was serious) a property that is realistically priced???”

I guess from the nature of the call, her question perhaps was not necessarily a surprise. I thought that my response was fairly understandable – realistically priced means realistically priced, right? Needless to say her tone became a tad indignant.

Volunteer Agent:”Well – as you can see from the co-op commission, my client is very motivated to get this property sold!”

Me:”Yep – sounds great – the motivation is clear – thanks for the call.”

Volunteer Agent:”Ok – well, thanks again and keep it in mind.”

Yep – I sure will keep it in mind – next time I want to get paid for convincing my buyer to overpay for a property that doesn’t clearly reflect market conditions, you’ll be the first agent I’ll call. Hurray for me! I gonna make a killing!

There is nothing I love more about selling real estate than not getting paid for doing my job! I love volunteering! I honestly believe that one of rewarding aspects of being a real estate volunteer is not sharing the facts about the Read more

August 17, 2008

Give me your money, Part II: Emergent investment opportunities in the recovering real estate market

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Last Tuesday I met with a potential real estate investor. She’s an investor because she’s got the money, the credit and the will to dip her toe in the water. She’s a potential investor because she has never yet been a landlord. That’s okay. I’ve worked with many potential investors, some of whom have gone on to own multiple properties, most of those — not all, alas — very successfully.

Mostly when I do these kinds of interviews, I talk about premium suburban single-family rental homes. This is normally the safest and most economical way to start a real estate investment plan in Phoenix. This is especially true right now, when the right rental home will be cash-flow positive from day one. Our rents are low but stable, and our home prices can be very low right now.

But I also talk about other income opportunities in real estate, if only because land-lording is not for everyone. I would not advise a first-time investor to take the plunge in a large multi-family community or a strip mall, but there are plenty of other ways to take advantage of our current market conditions.

An example? Flipping. Never was heard a more discouraging word right now, but flipping has a horrible reputation because ten bazillion TV-tycoons bought at the top of the market and sold their refurbished masterpieces at auction. Now, when entry prices are low and trending lower, a slow flipping strategy promises nice rewards.

Here’s one slow strategy: Find a great flip candidate at a rock-bottom price. Buy it to own as a rental, doing what you have to on the way in to make it marketable as a rental. Hold it in that state — with the monthly cash-flow covering your costs — until prices recover to your satisfaction. When the tenant’s lease expires, do the refurb and sell.

Here’s another one, a strategy that worked very well from 1997 to 2006: Buy your cheap refurb candidate and move into it. Redo the home slowly, room by room, especially when the materials for doing a particular room are very cheap. Sell it after you’ve owned Read more

August 16, 2008

Paradise lost. Or, how serving up cake can kill you.

by

Free Market Cowgirl

Author website

Owners, brokers, exalted ones lend me your ear! Today is the day to become students of history. To learn from mistakes made in the past. Does the royal library lack history books? Send out the servants to fetch them! The servants are busy on other important affairs of state? Perhaps, while exhausting yourself with strenuous retail therapy or the daunting task of where to holiday next, you could swing the golden carriage by the Barnes & Noble bookery? It will only take a minute, Sire. Books written about the French Revolution or the American Revolution would be a good place for his Highness to begin.

Why such laborious reading? Sire, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Those who can’t read the writing on the walls are likely to wake up from their feathered pillows and find that neighboring brokerages have raided their precious little kingdoms. They will find themselves oblivious to the fact that their former citizens voluntarily renounced the crown and ever so enthusiastically swore allegiance to their new brokerage.

Surely I must jest? Certainly not! The people are tired. The people are hungry. The people are overworked and underappreciated. The people are frustrated with being asked to wait weeks to receive their commissions from the Royal Treasury. The people moan at their deprived conditions while you bask in your splendor. The people are growing deaf from all the lip service uttered from the Throne. Bothered by all the pretty windowdressing that brought them here but window shopping is as close as they are allowed to come. Outsiders looking in…

They demand action! They long to see a plan. They want to witness improvements made to the Kingdom. Fortifications made to protect them from outside forces hell-bent on plundering their farms and territories. Training to help them embrace changing times and rapidly evolving technologies. But, most of all they want to know that you actually care about their wellbeing more than prancing in your fancy robes at Court like a peacock strutting around the barnyard.

Who can you learn from in order to right the Read more

August 16, 2008

What went wrong in the real estate market? We told homeowners to treat their homes like securities investments — and they did…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

As a matter of eating crow, I will attest that I publicly denied that housing prices could ever behave like securities prices, falling far below their fundamental value. The market has proved me wrong. We’re writing contracts on REO properties where the purchase price is well below the replacement cost. I read a listing for a potential rental property in a not-awful neighborhood that is selling for $49,500. We anticipate prices like that in premium rental neighborhoods when the Ameridream/Nehemiah calliope grinds to a halt. A house in Detroit was listed last week for one dollar. This bust behavior is just as irrational as the boon behavior — and it is a choice opportunity for people who are not irrational. Nevertheless, I was wrong. The real estate industry told buyers that homes were an investment just like securities — and damned if they didn’t believe us.

 
What went wrong in the real estate market? We told homeowners to treat their homes like securities investments — and they did…

If you were to turn back the clock on the Phoenix real estate market by four years — that would be just about right.

Judging by prices for bread-and-butter homes, it’s just as if the last four years didn’t happen. The average stucco and tile suburban dream home sold in July of 2008 for almost the same price you would have paid for it in July of 2004.

A lot has happened since then, of course. The 1,400 square foot single family home you could have had back then for $150,000 soared to $250,000 by December of 2005. That seemed like $100,000 in free money, and, regrettably, many people borrowed against that paper equity in their homes. Even if they did not, it has proved difficult to eradicate that entirely imaginary $100,000 from list prices.

The real estate market got hammered good and hard by two very bad ideas. The first is that homeownership is an unlimited good, that everyone should own a home regardless of their circumstances. Governments — and the National Association of Realtors Read more

August 15, 2008

My blossoming love affair with flexMLS, the new MLS system adopted by the Arizona Regional Multiple Listings Service

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This

is the F.Q. Story Historic District in Downtown Phoenix as rendered by the flexMLS MLS system recently adopted by the Arizona Regional Multiple Listings Service. ARMLS is 30,000 Realtors working in the fifth largest city in the U.S. — and the 14th largest market area — so this is a big MLS system by any measure.

This particular map looks a whole lot better on the screen. I had to scale drastically to get it to fit here. Here’s the good news: You can see it for real, live, on a “portal” that I built for this post.

Do this:

Go here.

Your user name is: Jack Swilling

Your password is: demo

Please don’t reset the password, or no one else will be able to get in. For all of me, I would make passwords optional, but that’s only because I hate them with the passionate heat of a thousand suns — no big deal.

I built this search to show off just a little bit of what flexMLS can do. I’m not even a good tour guide on the subject. Cathy has a much richer base of experience than mine. For all the gee whiz technology we talk about around here, I am not an early adopter. The words you are most likely to hear from my mouth, when discussing new technology, are “mission critical,” and I won’t risk a mission critical function on something new until it is completely tested. I’ve been in love with the iPhone for 19 months — and I’m getting mine next week.

But, even so, this software is cool.

In the photo (or in the map view in the portal), you will see that I have defined F.Q. Story as three irregular polygons. Why? Because Realtors can’t spell. In principle, I should be able to use the “Subdivision” field in the MLS listing — but I don’t trust it. If the address is mapped correctly — and flexMLS makes it difficult to map a home improperly — it will show up in a polygon search.

And because I can use multiple non-contiguous irregular polygons to define a search, I can base my search of Read more

August 15, 2008

Mortgage Market Week in Review

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

Well, it’s Friday again, and as one of the few remaining Fridays of the summer, I hope you can get out and enjoy the weekend (and hopefully the weather where you are will allow you to!)

So what’s been happening in the mortgage market this week? This week it’s been all about inflation and housing statistics…..

Inflation – the Consumer Price Index grew by a much faster than expected .8% during July. Normally, that would send the markets into “freakout” mode but the markets didn’t really react all that much. Why? A couple of things: 1) A huge amount of the increase was due to the rising costs of energy and that has dropped quite substantially since the first of August, thereby easing the risk of inflation. 2) There has been quite a bit of “noise” lately on how the slowing of the economy both here and internationally will become, eventually, anti inflationary. How does that work? In a nutshell, if there aren’t many people shopping at Best Buy, they can’t very well raise prices, can they?

Housing Statistics – I’m not going to get into the itty bitty details of the housing statistics that have been released lately but I’m going to give you a bit of an overview of the reports and try to focus on the bigger picture rather than get stuck on details:
1. Foreclosures are rising – the number of homes that have been foreclosed on in July vs. last year is a LOT higher. In some areas of the country, it’s a staggering percentage higher, in others, just higher. But it’s up. What does that mean? It means that the troubles in the housing and credit markets are still going on and are potentially getting worse.
2. REO – Real estate owned by a bank or financial institutions. According to one report issued this week, banks and financial institutions now own over 750,000 homes throughout the United States. What does that mean? Essentially this, if we had to relocate the entire city of Chicago, we could find a bank owned home for every resident of Chicago and there Read more

August 14, 2008

BloodhoundBlog Unchained has a home in Orlando for a twelve-hour event — and the price for tickets just went up to $199

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We have a place to howl in Orlando at last. We wanted something very sexy, very cool, but the constrictions on time and space were killing us. We finally settled on a hotel conference facility to get a room big enough to accommodate all the people who want to join us for BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Orlando. As a bonus, we get to go back to our original plan of a twelve-hour event. This will give us time to explore some mastermind ideas that we would have had to leave out of a shorter presentation.

The flip side of this is this: The Earlybird price is gone. If you go to BloodhoundBlogUnchained.com, the levy for tickets is $199 — full price.

But don’t take out a second mortgage — whatever that is. We’ve made arrangements with some good friends of the kinds of ideas we teach. If you keep your eyes open, you’ll spy opportunities on other web sites to snag Unchained tickets at a discount. If you want to pay us full price, feel free. But you will have plenty of chances to save yourself some money.

For example, lender Kevin Sandridge can get you into Unchained in Orlando for half-price. Be sure to thank him when you meet him in November.

There will be other offers out there — but don’t dilly-dally. We only have a limited number of seats available, and there will be 20,000 Realtors in Orlando for the NAR Convention. When the music stops, they won’t be seats available at any price.

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August 13, 2008

A Proposal to Improve Mortgage Lending….

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

Since there are a variety of licensing, regulation, education, criminal background check proposals bouncing around in an effort to clean up the mortgage world, I thought I’d throw out my own proposal on how to improve mortgage lending.

I’m proposing that as part of the training for becoming a mortgage lender, all originators be required to spend a minimum of 6 weeks working with a Realtor full time.  They would be required to essentially job shadow the Realtor in every aspect of the business.   What would they learn during their time?

  1. They would learn that Realtors don’t get weekly paychecks, they only get paid when they sell a house.
  2. They would learn that Realtors have many people putting pressure on them to “get the house closed.”   The seller wants to close so they don’t have to make another payment on it.  The buyer wants to close so that they don’t have to move twice.   The Realtor’s wife wants them to close so she has the money to buy groceries.   The Realtor’s daughter wants them to close so that Dad can buy her the stuff that she needs to “look good” going back to school.    The Realtor’s bank wants them to close so that he can make the payments that need to be made on the _______ (fill in the blank – car loan, lease, house payment, home equity payment).
  3. They would learn that there is a lot more to marketing a house that is for sale than a sign in the yard and a listing in the MLS.
  4. They would learn the intricacies of negotiating a purchase agreement and have a much better handle on the dynamics of the relationship between buyer and seller and the ways that a lender can avoid disturbing those relationships.
  5. They would realize that many Realtors care deeply that their buyers and sellers make wise decisions when they are buying or selling and aren’t just focusing on “how much can I make.”  Unfortunately, not all of them are focused that way.
  6. They would realize that there is a lot more that goes into determining what price to list a house at than the Read more
August 13, 2008

Give me your money, Part I: Sell locally, market nationally and build a real estate brand that actually means something to consumers

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I’ve been interested to watch Sean Purcell, Mike Farmer and Rob Hahn talk about alternative brokerage structures, but the only structure that actually matters to me is our own. It’s possible that BloodhoundRealty.com will grow bigger in due course — all but certain given the work we’re doing this year — but I am never, ever interested in growing so large that I cannot directly control the quality of experience we deliver to each of our clients.

Cathleen Collins and I both work constantly to come up with newer ways of doing our work better, more ways of knocking the socks completely off of our buyers and sellers. This is a process I want never to stop, much less see reversed by the three-headed monster that passes for “management” in most businesses: haphazard philosophy, hamhanded preparation and tightfisted execution.

That is to say, we are a brand, no matter how small we are. We approached our business that way from the very beginning, to have the iconic idea of a Bloodhound speak for us in every possible way. We have never pursued personal promotion, preferring instead to promote the idea of this brand — not just the images but the underlying ideas.

Our market penetration is very slight so far, as must be the case for a boot-strapped brokerage. But there is no one we have worked with, either our clients or their warm networks or neighbors, who does not remember us or the ideas we stand for. We don’t hit 1.000 — although we have not missed on a listing in 2008, knock wood — but we hit the ball so hard that everyone remembers us in the neighborhoods where work.

They remember not us as people, but the brand. One of my favorite clients came to us when, frustrated that his house wasn’t selling, he turned to his wife and said, “What we need is the Bloodhounds.” He didn’t remember us, he remembered our marketing efforts and our results. Iconic ideas Google well, so he found us in one quick search.

This is the kind of branding that I think can make all the Read more

August 12, 2008

The “MLS 5.0” Manifesto: Everyone working in hi-tech real estate must oppose this vicious plan with every fiber in your being

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

“Oh that the Roman people had but one neck, that I might cut it off at a blow!” –Caligula

Here is the naked essence of Saul Klein’s so-called “MLS 5.0” proposal:

The MLS of the future will bring a marketing service and benefit to the industry by being the single point of entry for listing data and then, based upon the election of the broker, distribute that information to web portals, newspapers, even radio and television, handheld devices and applications.

The emphasis was in the original, which is a nice illustration of how much Klein trusts you not to see what he’s up to.

What does that sentence actually say?

It says that Klein’s idealized “MLS of the Future” will be a national monopoly system controlled by real estate brokers and the NAR — to the immediate and permanent detriment of independent MLS systems and vendors, Web 2.0 listings aggregators and — most especially — individual real estate agents.

What Klein is proposing, ignoring the presumed benefits to accrue to his own ventures, is to give the real estate industry one chokepoint, one bottleneck, so that the NAR can put a choke-chain around it.

Who will control that “single point of entry for listing data”? The NAR.

Who will control who can and cannot have access to listing data? The NAR.

Who will have the entire real estate industry in a chokehold? The NAR.

This is so diabolical, it makes me wonder if the fix is already in — if this evil plan is going to be rammed down our collective throats in November in Orlando.

Let’s assume it is not. Klein’s proposal is an undiluted evil, and it is incumbent upon everyone working in hi-tech real estate to oppose this vicious plan with every fiber in your being.

To say more is to gild the lily. I think Klein’s actual objective is to pull off another Realtor.com heist, to get the NAR to sell him a national MLS monopoly. But the benefit to the NAR is obvious: With a national monopoly MLS system, brokers will once again have the power to bring their agents to heel. If you understand what it means Read more

August 12, 2008

Introducing Jessica Wynn Horton, a once and future mega-producer

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

What do you do when you’re selling a thick slice of a billion dollars’ worth of real estate every year, when you’ve built your own RE/Max franchise from scratch, when you’ve hit the “30 Under 30” target at Realtor magazine?

Start over in another town, of course, and do it all again.

Today we add once and future mega-producer Jessica Wynn Horton to our roster of contributors.

In addition to her duties as broker, Jessica is hoping to replicate her earlier successes, this time with a decidedly Web 2.0 approach.

We’ll teach her what we can, but I think we’ll reap a good deal more from her experiences.

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August 11, 2008

May You Live In Interesting Times

by

Realtor, Rabble-Rouser

Author website

I am reminded again this year of just how much I love the Olympics.  In my opinion, there are few events that can be defined as uniquely human experiences.  National pride aside, I continue to learn from each and every athlete how unbridled commitment, sheer determination and raw tenacity can produce unimaginable results.

I can’t explain exactly why I get choked up when I watch the medal ceremonies – I just do.  Maybe it’s because, as a father, I think it is just an instinctual reaction.  How can you not be reminded of the times when overwhelming pride swells into your chest when your own child accomplishes something magnificent.  It’s a feeling you can’t necessarily describe in words – but it is a warm rush of emotion that sometimes spills over into tears.

I was truly awestruck by the visually stunning opening ceremonies at the opening of the 2008 games in Beijing – not just in appreciation of the magnitude of effort to coordinate such a moving spectacle, but I was touched by the deep metaphors which emanated from the vignettes that took place on the floor of the “bird’s nest”.   The messages were gracefully and beautifully communicated but profoundly powerful.  The sleeping dragon has been aroused – and it roared.

I was left with a deep appreciation for the Chinese people, their heritage and the clear intertwining influences of their culture – its affect on daily life – how they view the world and their role within it.  As the dancers danced across the floor creating the images of nature, it was profoundly clear that in Chinese culture, there is little distinction between the art and the artist – they are not mutually exclusive, a concept which defines the psyche of the average Chinese citizen.

Upon longer reflection, I became uncomfortable with the bigger picture I was left to interpret.  I can’t help thinking – just look at what our interest payments have accomplished.  This world event is full of metaphors.  Have we passed the torch to the Chinese economically?

To think that this event was masterfully orchestrated in seven years.  In that same period, Read more

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Inventing Real Estate 2.0

Welcome to BloodhoundBlog, the national real estate industry marketing and technology weblog written by, for and about real estate professionals. Better yet, welcome to the wired world of real estate. We are busily inventing Real Estate 2.0 – technology, marketing, service and salesmanship. Like all Bloodhounds, we are smart, frisky and fiercely independent. We've built a spot on the earth – beloved over all – where each one of us can be who we are, no matter who that might be. We are committed to an idea of excellence that will flush the bums, the con-men and the crybabies out of the real estate industry. If you yearn to have your failures excused, your moral lapses absolved or your boo-boos kissed, seek elsewhere. But if you are sick to death of mediocrity – welcome home. Read all about us, subscribe to our feed and steel yourself for the hunt. We work hard, we play hard, we learn everything we can – and we bow to no one.

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