by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Over the last half century or so the S & P has averaged, give or take, about 8% growth annually. Pretty impressive. A lot of folks are very impressed, especially those who’ve invested into vehicles tied to the S & P index. They did better than ok this year, don’t you think? Twice the average for the last half century ain’t bad by anyone’s calculations. As a matter of fact let’s say the S & P annual growth rate for the five year period) averaged 10% annually, which is still 25% better than the average since Eisenhower was president. For those already retired and receiving income from investment grade insurance vehicles, many of which are tied directly to that index, 2006 has been a banner year. If you’re wondering why the grandkids made out like bandits at Christmas this year, that could very well be the answer.

For the same period of time let’s have two investors, one in the S & P, the other in real estate. They both have a hundred grand to invest. The real estate guy is at a little disadvantage though because he’ll need to hold some of his cash back as reserves. The S & P investor can afford to put his entire hundred grand into his investment.

So the real estate guy finds three duplexes for $200k apiece. (Remember, even though it’s San Diego, it’s 2001.) He puts 10% down on each one. His total investment including closing costs was about $75k. He put the remaining $25k in the bank as a cash reserve account. The duplexes all provided about $100 monthly positive cash flow, though our investor was just hoping they’d at least break even.

Note: My office structured transactions like this a few times a month back then, month in and month out.

Even though the real estate appreciation rate was three times what we’re assigning to the S & P for these five years, we’re going to limit it for this example to 10% a year for the real estate also. This results in a value of roughly $254k half way through Read more

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Have you ever called an agent’s office and asked, “May I please speak with John?”, and find yourself sent directly to John’s voice mail? Does it irritate you? It is one of my pet peeves. Or how about email? How many times have you sent information by email, or a series of questions to someone during an escrow, only to have them call you with several questions which were answered in your initial message — Or answer only two of the five questions you asked.

Ever found yourself after lunch waiting for a response from an email you sent in the morning, only to find out they hadn’t even looked at their mail yet? Often these are the same people who fancy themselves as being part of a ‘hi-tech’ operation.

Faxes too have become a major headache in our business. By the time a document has done a few fax-laps it may resemble pages copied from the Red Sea scrolls. With the cost of scanners down these days to just above a case of Pepsi Vanilla, (Less that is unless you’re selling it to The Phoenix Real Estate Guy :-)) scanning signed docs for emailing makes a lot of sense. It also has saved hours of needless conversations between agents and escrow, lenders, and other agents. How many times would you have given serious money just to have a readable contract when time mattered? This is where scanning, and the use of pdf’s are simply a no-brainer.

All this can cost the agent money, and worse, clients. In the short run clients will accept the fact that others are slowing you down through poor performance. But eventually the failures of those upon whom you rely will be associated with you. And if the offender is you, your clients will not long think of you as a real pro.

I offer the solutions we’ve installed in our office. They’re surely not the only way to go, but they work for us.

• With rare exception the phone will be answered before the third ring by a live voice.
• If the person called is unavailable, a time for the returned Read more

by Kris Berg

Realtor, Associate Broker

Author website

This is the comment I found on my own blog Christmas morning:

I can honestly say I wish there were fewer agents like you… Buyer beware, right?

Joy to the world! This from a gentleman whose own blog promotes his mission as sharing his vast research of the Pacific Beach, San Diego real estate market. Specifically, he says, “I plan to focus on listings where the seller is taking a loss”. His most recent post is titled “Another Notice of Default Filed in PB”. Lovely. Notice, I don’t provide a link, because I am finding this recent proliferation of to-hell-in-a-hand-basket reporting nothing more than childish, ambulance chasing tripe of which I have grown weary. Get a hobby, read a book, play with your children, but stop taking perverse pleasure in the misfortune of others. Grow up and stop blaming your personal unrest on NAR, economists, real estate agents, mortgage lending practices and everything and everybody in between.

His little holiday message to me was an epiphany of sorts, and in my typical around the block fashion, I will attempt to explain.

It has been a long-standing tradition in our family to spend the week at our cabin in Lake Arrowhead. Steve and I have been fortunate to be able to offer our children many opportunities, but we are not blessed with a large extended family, the kind that you see in the warm and fuzzy Christmas movies. So each year we pack up Simon-the-world’s-dumbest-dog and the NSYNC Christmas CD and head out of Dodge. Each year has seemingly been better than the last; we look forward to the opportunity for sledding, hiking, entire “Jammie Days” and the annual 007 Days of Christmas. (The girls prefer Pierce Brosnan, while I am still partial to the Sean Connery Bond, for whatever it’s worth).

So, with the greatest of expectations, we headed off for our little definition of family bliss as soon as school was out. Actually, we left a day late due to illness. Fluffy, the family feline, picked the morning of our departure to show the first serious symptoms of Something Is Very Wrong With The Cat Read more