Value may be easier to find than you think. A few days ago I read this article about Florida Mobile home buyers and thought, man; I need to get into mobile homes. To be fair, I am probably not going to get into mobile homes (certainly not because of this article), but it is clear there is value everywhere. This off the wall scenario happens all the time, heck; it’s what makes real estate an exciting business to be in. So if value is easier to find than you think, where do you start looking?
First, start in your own backyard. I have shared my views on out of state investing in a previous post, so it should not come as a surprise when I say that value can be found close to home. I say this because the small investor knows this environment best. Investing at home is a lot more feel, than numbers because an investor has developed a great sense of the market. As investors move further and further away, information gathering and financial modeling become the chief tool. Of course, this is not to say that you should not use these tools in local investing, however; it is to say you have other tools that may be more valuable (intuition and market knowledge).
Second, find the crowd and look to the peripherals. If you see an area that has grown rapidly, go another half a mile or mile out. If this area is still lying fallow, it might be a good place to invest. This takes a small bit of market timing because you don’t want to be on the very back end of a trend. However, this kind of investing can net significant gains for those of you who buy and hold. There will always be buyers who want to live in the mix, but can only afford to live close to it.
Third, buy the worst of the best. If you can afford the worst house in the best neighborhood, you can usually find great value there. In good markets, great neighborhoods tend to get hot fast. Read more
Category: Real Estate (page 213 of 266)
Cathy Jager wrote this in a comment, and I responded briefly, but I really think the response needs some expansion.
“I tend to disagree consumers should be expected to understand agents. Would anyone suggest that it’s important for patients and clients to “understand” doctors and lawyers?”
Cathy is correct. They don’t need to understand real estate agents in the same way real estate agents need to understand them. But they do need to fully understand why they need to use a real estate agent and it’s clear to many that they don’t.
Why don’t I have to “understand” doctors? Because I already do.
If I’m going to go to a doctor, I first have to understand what a doctor does and why going to a doctor is going to help me. It’s easy to say “I don’t have to understand doctors” in this example, because on the whole, we trust doctors. We’re taught to trust them very early on in life, by our parents. Our parents hold our hands and lead us to the family doctor and explain what the doctor does and why we need to be there. So, we understand not only what they can do for us, but that we can trust them to do it for us, and this development of trust starts very young. So, when we get sick, we go to a doctor. We don’t really have to think about it. We only have to think about which one we choose.
The same can’t be said for real estate agents.
Our parents don’t drag us to a real estate office when we’re a child to meet the family real estate agent. They don’t lead us by the hand and walk us through an understanding of what they do, and why we need them. Value has to be explained and trust must be earned. The consumer isn’t just thinking about which real estate agent to choose, they’re wondering if they should choose one at all.
Consumers are obviously confused. For whatever reason, consumers don’t trust real estate agents. Cathy covered this topic very well herself. In the Harris Interactive Poll Read more
by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
Dustin Luther, Director of Interactive Marketing for Move.com gave an outstanding seminar today in Long Beach, CA entitled “Finding Relevance on the Internet“. Dustin offered something for both the upstart and the more advanced real estate blogger. In typical “LA fashion”, it was a star-studded event with real estate webloggers from all over the country in attendance.
Dustin’s presentation used examples of live weblogs. This picture is from the presentation as an example of “expert knowledge”.
We just love Dustin for that example.
I’ll say up front that this subject is one maybe better written by Captain Obvious. Yet, if it’s so obvious why are so many investors consistently caught with their pants down? As a real estate investment advisor I’m asked all the time about when to buy or sell. I do not claim to have either a lucky and talkative bird or a working crystal ball. I can say however, (obvious comment coming) that paying attention to the market pays off.
I thought I was a year late getting into both Phoenix and Boise – 20/20 hindsight. I wasn’t late as in miss the boat late. I just didn’t have that little birdie whispering to me exactly when and where to invest. I had to rely on my own experience, research, and judgment. It’s easy to say, “Yeah, I just decided it was time to move my clients to this or that region.” It’s a lot harder decision to actually execute when your clients are looking to you for guidance. Correct guidance.
How often have we all heard timing is everything? In real estate how much would our overall investment performance have been improved had we known in advance exactly when a down or normal market was about to skyrocket? What if you were in East Toilet Seat Rhode Island in 1999 wondering just what you should do with that $50K burning a hole in your pocket? Suddenly a little birdie landed on your shoulder and whispered, “Hey big guy, buy all you can with as low a down payment as possible — in San Diego. The only thing you knew about SD was its predictably great weather.
Your timing would have made you look like a genius. Of course if you were that bright you would’ve traded up a couple times before doing a third trade into Phoenix around the middle of 2003. By that time your $50K would have grown to more than $400K. (drawn from client file) We all know what happened in Phoenix from that point on. You knew it before hand because of your talkative birdie. He whispered again, telling Read more
In retrospect, I should have said something. My own initial aversion to the 2000 bloggers incipient fiasco was purely personal, the Inner-Introvert whose skin crawls at the thought of too much social contact.
I was also operating from a rule of thumb I think of as Dustin’s Law: “If it sounds too much like high school, don’t do it.” I derived this by reading comments from Dustin Luther at Rain City Guide.
So why didn’t I say anything?
I didn’t want to rain on other webloggers’ parades. I didn’t actually realize that this game was wrecking Technorati’s utility until Thursday of last week, and, even then, I didn’t anticipate consequence at Google. I’m not aware of any of the usual SEO mavens sounding alarms, either.
But I did know from the very start that the 2000 bloggers project was trading in unearned links, morally suspect even if — at the time — seemingly inconsequential.
And by now we know that the game was not without consequences. On and off all day I’ve read people trying to excuse and rationalize what may turn out to be a huge disaster. Inasmuch as many, many RE.net webloggers were involved in this — bloggers who have great commercial hopes for their organic findability — this is not “only blogging.” It really does not matter what you are I or anyone thinks about this mess. What matters is what Google does about it.
Here’s my takeaway: If I have something to say, I’m going to say it. I don’t care if people call me a stick in the mud or whatever. This smelled wrong to me from the very beginning, and if I had said so at the time, a whole lot of people I like and respect might be sleeping better tonight. “Deliver us from evil,” is in some other guy’s job description, but I think you should be able to count on me to say so when I think something stinks, no matter whose toes I might be stepping on.
The truth is, I thought I was being nice, a good sport. But I’ve never been anybody’s “nice guy”, and I’ve Read more
Partnerships can be disastrous, but they can also open the doors to investing for many individuals, who could not otherwise invest. Personally, I think many investors are too eager or not eager enough to partner with like minded individuals. On one hand, everyone has a friend who always has that “great idea” (you know the liquor store across from the church or the ice cream store in Antarctica). These people should clearly be avoided. But what about people who actually have good ideas or have found good investment properties?
A good partnership begins with common goals. Each partner should have a clear expectation of the investment type, expected return, and reinvestment rate. If the goal is to get a better understanding of the real estate investment process, the partnership should focus on smaller, easier to manage properties. If maximizing return is the goal, everyone should be clear about their risk tolerance. Partnering on a land development deal might not be appropriate for someone with a lower risk preference. More importantly, everyone should understand the risk of every investment. This is easier said than done. Many real estate deals seem simple, but can get very complicated very fast. Keeping everyone well informed of the details is a must.
After common goals have been established, a clear investment strategy should be laid out in writing. It is important this is in writing because it should be referred back to as each investment is considered by the group. It is very dangerous for the group to stray away from their investment philosophy. When things go well this is typically not an issue, but when things go poorly this can be an issue of contention (outside and inside the courtroom). Additionally, by putting the investment strategy in writing, the group is forced to flesh it out. This process will often eliminate extraneous ideas or bring out ideas that people may not have been comfortable with. Either way, it puts everyone on the same page.
Next, bring in the legal and the accounting team. For smaller, less complicated partnerships this step is as simple as paying a Read more
Pinched. More beef. Technorati it going to take is all back.
To dissuade chain posts from submerging your voice in their dilutative effects, we’ve updated our indexing systems on an experimental basis to filter out links of this nature. We all love photo collages of faces; we’ve had them, albeit on a smaller scale, on the Technorati site since last summer. However, “join us and use these links” memes such as 2000 Bloggers is really a disservice to rank measurement systems and thus this decision to change our indexing policies in that regard.
What happens if Google decides it was scammed, too?
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing
Perhaps I’m just a bad sport. Since that fateful weekend when the Chargers bit the big one, I have checked out of the postseason excitement. For me, unless I have a favorite team in contention, Super Sunday strikes me as a New Years Eve redux – Ready, set, everyone manufacture fun.
Yesterday afternoon, Steve (my partner in crime, business and otherwise) was one funny commercial short of dividing the marital assets. With both daughters off to Superbowl parties of their own, I too had abandoned him. I spent much of the first half judging Carnival entries, mapping improvements to our website, staring into space while I mentally strategized my impending world domination, and figuring out just how I am going to pay our first quarter taxes. These were the things that weighed most heavily on me as Prince hit the stage, while Steve was most concerned with the party atmosphere (or lack thereof).
Granted, my husband would watch any Pop Warner match-up with Superbowl-like enthusiasm assuming it was televised and there was the possibility of guacamole. That is largely a guy thing. I, on the other hand, need to feel I have a stake in the outcome. Steve is a highly social animal; outside of work, I am not. As a team, this provides balance. An an individual, balance is something I only dream about.
Greg alluded to it – It’s the geek gene. I wasn’t born with it (none of us were), but I was born with the inclination. Combine the geek gene with a career in real estate, and you have the perfect storm for social alienation. Being the one in the relationship that is geek-inclined, the business of the business, the IT duties, the technology tasks fall squarely in my lap. But, mostly, I love my work, and being that my work is a seven-days-a-week proposition, the lines between work and hobby blur.
For those agents that reach Russell Shaw status, divorcing oneself from the job may come more easily. Yet, I suspect even Russell has found himself drifting off toward business plan thoughts during a half-time show or two. I submit Read more
On second thought, maybe we are the nerdliest joint on the RE.net. I actually watched much of the Super Bowl yesterday, but it was only because it was coming between me and the judging for the Carnival of Real Estate. BloodhoundBlog is host to the 28th edition of the Carnival, and, geek that I am, that was far more interesting to me than watching the Colts stampede the Bears.
And, yes, we are geeks with pride. Snotty sardonic surly teenaged web-programmer god Cameron built us a little bot that would permit multiple judges to view and score each article “blind,” with no knowledge of either the author or weblog. And wise winsome willowy spreadsheet goddess Cathleen Collins built an Excel bot that combined all the results into a one-page report.
These were our judges, six out of the eleven of us: Kris Berg, Brian Brady, Cathleen Collins, Michael Cook, Greg Swann and Jeff Turner. Of the judges, only I saw the articles in their original form. Everyone else saw the versions that I had anonymized.
So: Who won?
Rank Has Its Privileges, and I’m asserting one here. The winner by a significant margin was David Gibbons from Zillow Blog with Attracting a Conversation: Blog Comment Tips. But — I hope without diluting David’s glory — I would like to craft mini-laurels for all of the authors of Zillow Blog’s series on real estate weblogging. Here are the other articles in the series:
- Content is King, but the Voice is Queen
- Setting Up Your Blog
- Avoiding Legal Pitfalls in Blogging
- SEO & Syndication
And, yes, we’re weblogging about weblogging. But that’s beside the point. The Carnival of Real Estate should celebrate uncontested excellence in real estate weblogging, and David’s post — and the entire Zillow Blog series — are particularly good examples of how to handle this work wisely and well.
But now the pre-game show is over. Here are the top ten winners of the Carnival of Real Estate:
- David Gibbons outruns the Colts with Attracting a Conversation: Blog Comment Tips – Zillow Blog posted at Zillow Blog.
- REBlogGirl comes in second with Long tail, short tail and coat tail searches posted at Read more
If you have been reading my posts, it may seem like I am all over the board. One day I am talking about mortgages, the next I am talking about agents, and today I am talking about landlords. The coherent theme behind all of these things is smart real estate investing. Commercial investors must have a strong skill set across areas because they represent the cog that brings different real estate functions together. Today, I want to talk about one of the most value jobs a residential (commercial and non-commercial) investor will have to do. This job is that of being a landlord.
People have typically had one of two experiences with landlords. First, they may have rented an apartment growing up, in college, after college, etc. Second, they may have seen one of the many comical landlords on television (Mr. Roper from Three’s Company for example). Regardless of where your experience comes from, being a landlord is never as easy (or as comical) as it appears. This is especially important for the first-time investor, who has no idea what to expect from tenants.
First and most importantly, new landlords must understand that people will not treat their property like it is their own. This is true with just about anything that is rented. Everyone remembers how much more recklessly they drove their rental cars or how poorly they treat their hotel rooms. It’s just a simple fact of life; ownership creates a sense of pride, while rentership (not really a word, but you get the point) creates a sense of carelessness.
Once that very important lesson has been absorbed, investors should go into the process well informed. This means finding every book, article, blog, and person you can to help you gain a better understanding of what it really means to be a landlord. Don’t just listen to the people that say it’s easy. Look for the horror stories. Watch one of the many day time Judge Shows. Ask yourself if you could handle the worst of the worst. Once you feel fully informed, you are ready to begin the process of becoming Read more
Surely BloodhoundBlog is not the nerdliest joint on the RE.net, but we’ve still got a lot of arrows in our quiver — er, pocket protector.
For a start, I pinned the tail on Redfin, arguing that nerdy INTx geeks are in fact their target market. (Sing along: “I’m fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon.”) Kris Berg snagged an interview with Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman, himself a palpably INTx specimen. We have to sit on her podcast until Thursday, but Kelman’s confirmation that the brokerage target markets techno-geeks is not an embargoed tidbit.
Kris had a great Redfin post of her own as did husband Steve Berg at The San Diego Home Blog.
And: I did geek-seeking missile duty by awarding the first Cheez Whiz Prize to a dead-pool destined circle jerk called my-currency.com. What did the starving mathematicians say when they stumbled onto a can of beans? “First we will postulate a can-opener…”
But just to establish my own hopeless geek bona fides, this week I became the first hopeless geek to write a song about real estate weblogging. “Cathy’s Clown” indeed!
But, Dave, I’m just a wave. I ain’t the water. So here’s what else has been going on in the BloodhoundBlog pond:
Investor Michael Cook took us along on his trip to Greensboro, NC, advising us that Time Really is Money and asking What makes a good investment? He follows up by naming some Watchouts for New Market Investing and then invites us to consider Bank Relationships vs. Mortgage Brokers.
In Googling for Pizza Kris Berg takes us on a very straightforward roundabout route through the SEO benefits of real estate weblogging.
Also on the theme of weblogging, Jeff Brown argues against the practice of allowing anonymous comments in It’s Time To Take The Lead — Let’s Turn The Lights On Now. Anonymous commenters are still permitted at BloodhoundBlog, but we’ve had to put everyone on a very short leash to avoid flaming, obscenity, etc. It’s common for people to argue that policing comments is “censorship.” This is incorrect. Censorship is something that is done by governments. The issue here is the right of private property Read more
Fred asks:
I can not be at the closing to sell my home, due to distance. Is
this an acceptable plan? What risk? I am told I need to sign the
deed, early, in order to settle. I need to sell the house, but can I
miss the closing & do so with complete confidence that this will no
cause me problems later?
Having been licensed since Nixon was in office, escrow closings aren’t foreign to me. I have no clue how many closed escrows I have under my belt. I had a better chance of guessing how many jelly beans were in the huge glass jar at the drug store when I was a little kid.
I have yet to attend my first one. When we first started doing business in Idaho, the agents we hired for our team asked us how we were going to attend all the closings. After seeing our glazed-over RCA dog look for a few seconds, they figured we had no idea what they were talking about. Idaho is an escrow state.
Having spent my entire career in California which is also an escrow state, sitting around a big ‘closing’ table wrangling over details just hasn’t been part of my professional experience. As a young man entering the business as a blank slate, my mentors taught me the successful closing of an escrow was dependant upon all of the professionals involved doing the job for which they were hired. I’ve trained my successor, my son Josh, the same way. If those pros aren’t up to the task, you can find yourself isolated and adrift.
By the way Fred, signing the deed ‘early’ is SOP in an escrow state. The escrow will hold it and record it only when the entire contractual agreement has been satisfied. When signing, don’t forget it needs to be in the presence of a notary public who will attach her ‘okey dokey’ to the document.
If your home is being sold in what we Left Coasters call an ‘attorney state’, I can only tell you what I’ve done in those transactions. I’ll save that for later.
If it’s Read more
When I was a child, I used to love to play Monopoly with my kid sister, Pammy. She was sweet and passive and just wanted to play, where I’m the most competitive. I would routinely put her six figures in debt, then just keep lending her more and more money, so that I could put hotels on absolutely everything.
I think this proves that I am an incomparably talented real estate investor. Kirk Kerkorian owns three of the four corners of the intersection of Tropicana and Las Vegas Boulevards. But the only difference between us, as real estate investors, is that Kirk is playing with real money, where I was playing with play money.
That can’t be much of a difference. Can it?
If you’re thinking, “Who would bother to answer such a dumb question?” — there is an answer: my-currency.com, a brand new Zillow.com wannabe that is even stoopider than an AVM for pricing homes.
The site explains itself in a particularly soft-skulled newage style:
CrowdValue is where we process everyone’s idea of value for specific problems – such as “What is the value of a house for sale” or “what will be the value of a square foot in 6 months in my neighborhood”? So in that regard, CrowdValue is exactly like the stock exchange – it brings people together to coordinate all the different views of value and settle on an equilibrium price, at a point in time. CrowdValue is a trading engine and marketplace.
No, CrowdValue is a silly, masturbatory game. Stock prices are not equilibria, they are a consensus among buyers and sellers about real values. A play money stock market is as dumb as… a play money real estate market.
An AVM is at least rational enough to make guesses about what real traders might do. There is no value whatever in making guesses about what pretend traders will do with pretend money. Most especially since real buyers and real sellers are the only people who can establish the market value of real property, by negotiating to a meeting of the minds.
I’ll award the first Odysseus Medal next week, but this week Read more
There was big news in last week’s Carnival of Real Estate, but we were delicate enough not to take notice.
A kinder, gentler BloodhoundBlog? Don’t hold your breath.
There is other RE.net blog carnival news, though:
We know about the Carnival of Real Estate Investing, of course, which was started by Real Estate Investing for Real. (BloodhoundBlog will be hosting this blog carnival on February 19th.)
Now comes news of the Consumer Focused Real Estate Blog Carnival, founded by Sadie’s Take on Delaware, Ohio. The idea is to reward locally-focused weblog posts.
From the other direction, David Gibbons of Zillow.com phoned this afternoon to talk about an idea he has proposed for the Carnival of Real Estate. The idea is to make a five- or ten-minute podcast with each week’s CoRE host, discussing the judging process, the decisive qualities of that week’s winning choice, and, also, offering the host a moment to discuss his or her local real estate market.
I like this idea, although I can never talk about anything for ten minutes. Our phone call to talk about a ten-minute podcast ran for 32 minutes. But I do like the thought that there will be some oversight over the hosts, if only to prevent — or at least draw ignominy to — the kind of news we delicately ignored this week.
I am also concerned about this proliferation of RE.net blog carnivals. I understand the impetus to create niche carnivals, but each new addition tends to dilute the impact of the others. I like the Carnival of Real Estate being “The Oscars,” as it were, of real estate weblogging carnivals. An idea I suggested to David is to split out CoRE awards by category: Best Investing Post, Best Local-Interest Post, Best Feature Post, Best News/Commentary Post, with one overall Best Post picked from among all the entries.
Another idea I have been toying with is to create a weekly Odysseus Medal to be awarded to what I think is the best RE.net weblog post of the week. Why me? Because I had the idea. Because I’m a presumptuous-enough insufferable bastard to trumpet my own opinions with a Read more
The last 36 hours have been interesting to watch, both on ActiveRain and here on BloodhoundBlog. Perhaps there’s something in the water, but there have been a slew of posts about REALTOR? commissions and what is the “fair price” to pay for their services.
Here are a few:
Are you being short changed? Not by me! (recycled and edited): Bryant Tutus
Perception = Reality: Real Estate Agents Suck: Mariana Wagner
How I Defend My Pay … A Posted Reply to Mariana Wagner: Sarah Cooper
A Different Perspective on the Value of Realtors: Michael Cook
If there is no Realtor monopoly — then what explains the commission structure?: Michael Cook
Whatever it takes: A determined Realtor is a bargain . . .: Greg Swann
Overcharging? A dedicated Realtor is a bargain . . .: Greg Swann
$68,745.00 Paid to Rain City Guide Readers: Ardell DellaLoggia
The opinions and ideas shared in the posts have been enjoyable to read, but the comments are what have been most interesting. It’s clear that some ideas are unwelcome. In many cases, it appears that the reaction to any idea that is outside the commonly held perception of reality, is to attempt to kill the discussion around the idea as quickly as possible, either by ignoring it or covering it with comments that defend the status quo or simply cast the current reality in a different light.
It’s unfortunate.
This is not a problem reserved to REALTORS? or the real estate community. The vast majority of all people in this world have a hard time leaving their comfort zone to conceptualize an idea, even if just for the sake of argument, that is contrary to their personal experience. This is especially if their assumption of the result of the idea may harm them in some way. It’s natural. They are simply unable to suspend judgment long enough to see where the exploration of The New will take them. The forest is too close to see the trees. And that’s unfortunate, Read more