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July 3, 2008
(poached from the blog of my Mississippi friend, Phil Hardwick)
The United States observes no national holidays, that is, holidays mandated across all 50 states by the Federal government. The United States Congress and/or President can only legally establish an “official” holiday for its “federal” employees and the District of Columbia. States and municipalities are free to adopt holidays enjoyed by the federal government or to create their own.
Boston was the first municipality (city/town) to officially designate July Fourth as a holiday, in 1783.
The Declaration of Independence, unanimously declared by the thirteen United States of America, was adopted by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. The task of getting the document signed began on August 2, 1776. Congress made sure that all states would have access to an authenticated copy of the Declaration by ordering a special printing of multiple copies on January 18, 1777.
In Philadelphia the Declaration of Independence was publicly read on July 8, 1776.
1776- The Pennsylvania Evening Post is the first newspaper to print the Declaration of Independence
1791- The only Fourth of July address ever made by George Washington occurs at Lancaster, Pa.
1802- The U.S. Military Academy at West Point is formally opened
1875- In Augusta, Georgia, the white military celebrates the Fourth, the first time in that town since the Civil War; several blacks and possibly one white are killed when a fray erupts at a Fourth of July celebration held at the Court House in Vicksburg, Miss.
2006- The first ever launch of a space shuttle on Independence Day occurs when shuttle Discovery lifts off at Kennedy Space Center
Source:
James Heintze, Librarian at American University, Washington, D.C http://gurukul.american.edu/heintze/fourth.htm#Designation
In case you hadn’t heard, a law that took effect in Virginia on July 1 requires that lenders and mortgage-service companies “send delinquent borrowers with high-interest loans the names of housing counselors who can provide foreclosure-prevention guidance,” to quote from PilotOnline.
The new law requires that lenders and companies that collect mortgage payments make available a 30-day grace period to borrowers who ask for help.
By slowing down the foreclosure process, the new regulations could buy time for homeowners seeking to work out arrangements with their lenders.
Maybe I’ve been under a rock, but I had no idea NAR Legal Affairs produces regular podcasts on LEGAL issues related to real estate and associations. In case you’ve been under the same rock, here’s the link to subscribe via iTunes:
http://www.realtor.org/letterlw.nsf/pages/legalaffairspodcast
Some Realtors view the industry as a sales profession — I don’t always see it that way.
When I am representing a seller, I am indeed in a sales role — I am working diligently to sell their house. But when I am representing a buyer, I view my role a bit differently….
Salesman vs. Consultant
When I am working with buyer clients, looking at homes, I am never trying to convince them to buy a particular home. I am not trying to sell them on the merits of a particular house. What I am doing is trying to understand their housing needs and desires and to help them evaluate each home to determine whether it will meet their needs, and fulfill their desires. I am a real estate consultant, helping them to examine each critical aspect of a home to make a wise buying decision.
And yet sometimes (in retrospect) it would have helped my buyer clients if I were a bit more coercive!
I have now had two clients in the past several weeks who knew what house they were going to buy, but held off (for valid reasons) on making an offer. Then, in the time that they waited, interest rates went up, the associated monthly payment increased, and they were not comfortable buying anymore. If they had made an offer sooner, they would have finalized their financing, locked in their rate, and they would have been able to buy the house they had hoped to live in.
I don’t think that rates are likely to go up drastically in the next few weeks or months, but they are increasing — and an increased rate changes your monthly housing costs.
Given this interest rate context — I will likely adjust how I work with my buyer clients to make sure they understand the urgency of making a buying decision expediently.
July 2, 2008
Really, really, REALLY interesting piece in this month’s Atlantic Monthly on the impact Google (and the general ubiquity of information now available Internet-wide) may be having on our cognitive processes and attention spans. The author posits, in effect, that as we’re becoming intellectually broader, we’re also growing shallower; our attention is being scattered as our concentration is diffused. It’s well worth reading.
Some key points (all of the following are direct quotes from the story):
As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our “intellectual technologies”—the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities—we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies. The mechanical clock, which came into common use in the 14th century, provides a compelling example. In Technics and Civilization, the historian and cultural critic Lewis Mumford described how the clock “disassociated time from human events and helped create the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences.” The “abstract framework of divided time” became “the point of reference for both action and thought.”
The clock’s methodical ticking helped bring into being the scientific mind and the scientific man. But it also took something away. As the late MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum observed in his 1976 book, Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, the conception of the world that emerged from the widespread use of timekeeping instruments “remains an impoverished version of the older one, for it rests on a rejection of those direct experiences that formed the basis for, and indeed constituted, the old reality.” In deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock.
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The Internet promises to have particularly far-reaching effects on cognition. In a paper published in 1936, the British mathematician Alan Turing proved that a digital computer, which at the time existed only as a theoretical machine, could be programmed to perform the function of any other information-processing device. And that’s what we’re seeing today. The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It’s becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV.
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The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the network’s reigning business model as well. The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements. Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.
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“…we risk turning into ‘pancake people’ — spread wide and thin as we connect with a vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.”
July 1, 2008
This is why I’m a homeowner and not a REALTOR® — I never knew you had to check vinyl siding. Don’t those ads talk about it lasting forever?
I mean, really, it’s plastic. In a few thousand years maybe it would start to show wear, but the whole point of plastic is that it’s a permanent monument to our civilization.
Well, shows what I know. Thanks to Jonathan Bunn at the Real Estate Bakery (get it?) who pointed me to this article on Raleigh Real Estate Talk.
Have you ever seen a home where the vinyl siding has buckled? Especially during the hot North Carolina summer days. If so, this was most likely because the siding was installed too tight. Our inspector told us that every piece should be able to move 1/4″ to 1/2″ when you grab the edge and give it a good pull.
[This is a true -- and ongoing -- story. Please note that it ONLY reflects the opinion of the author based on his experiences and NOT that of the Virginia Association of REALTORS® or any of its staff or affiliates.]
I have this house, see, and I want to sell it. Have to sell it, actually — I don’t live there anymore. But I’m getting some interesting lessons in short sales, real estate law, and lender incompetence in the process.
It’s like this: We own a house in Roanoke — I should say I own it, because my wife’s name isn’t on the deed. Anyway, I lost my job when the newspaper I worked for decided it didn’t need this technology reporter anymore. Luckily, my wife was just about to accept a kick-butt job in Richmond. So we moved and rented a house in “The 804.”
Therein lies the problem: Until we sell the house in Roanoke, we’re paying mortgage and rent. That’s tough on one income, and until my freelance writing gets off the ground, that’s what we have.
So scratching my chin one day, I checked out the Web site of my lender. (Let’s just say its name begins with "N" and ends with "ational City Mortgage.") Lo and behold, there was a link, “Having trouble paying your mortgage?” Ah, I thought, maybe they have some programs to help us reduce payments or something.
I had several options, the site explained, depending in part on whether I wanted to keep or give up the house. Step number one: Fill out a form detailing my financial info so they could tell me what might work.
I did this. The form asks for a listing of my income and my expenses, what the house is worth, a copy of the listing agreement with the REALTOR®, etc. Simple. I awaited a response.
I didn’t get it. Instead, a couple of weeks later, my REALTOR® called to say that National City had called her. “Are you short-selling your house?” she asked. National City wanted to get an appraiser in, she told me, and was prepared to take 83 percent of the loan in a short sale.
“Huh?” I said. At that point, I had no clue what a short sale was. Was this some sort of scam? All I did was fill out a form asking what kind of programs I might be eligible for.
But wait, there was more. My REALTOR® told me that the National City rep had given her plenty of info [...]
Read the rest of this entry »
June 30, 2008
1. Dual Agency - The potential (and existence) of a conflict of interest is so overwhelming that there could never be a good argument for dual agency. If it was appropriate, attorneys would do it.
2 . Commission Structure - The unwillingness to separate the commission and allow the consumer to negotiate each side individually says to the consumer that we are perpetrating a scam and deteriorates our standing with them.
3. NAR Website and Advertising Campaigns - Just try and find anything on this website. It is beyond horrible. And the advertising campaigns make us look like total idiots. Our hard earned dues are continually flushed down a toilet by the management of the Association. Check out Narwisdom.com for more blunders and gaffes.
4. Ethics and Regulatory Enforcement - No one gets thrown out of the NAR for violating the Code of Ethics. And very few if any real estate agents lose their licenses to practice. The states and the associations make their money by having more members, therefore it is counterproductive to toss out any potential dues paying agents.
5. Banks - Banks are the reason for almost all of the market problems. Their lax monetary policies created a hyperinflated market that has caused all of the current foreclosure and short sale problems of today. They don’t care about people, their policies and procedures are ridiculously antiquated, they answer to no one and they create this same indifference in the agents that are working with them. The management teams at banks are the worst executives in America.
6. Licensing Requirements - The barrier to entry is a pulse and a check. No need to speak English or have any reading comprehension.
7. Brokerage Business Model - Hire anybody with a license, charge them as much as you can and hope someone sells a home to their aunt, cousin, brother or sister. Collect your cut. Repeat. No need for training or minimum sales requirements. In fact, lets create a multi-level marketing company (pyramid scheme) where you don’t even need to sell homes. Be sure to bring your cards to church this Sunday.
8. MLS Companies - A worse run organization can only be found running Realtor.com. Build higher walls around the data, fine agents for giving you the data, waste millions on unneccesary programs and sit in your ivory towers collecting my money.
9. Ourselves - We need to stand up and demand that changes be made. We need to stop accepting the status quo as the only way to do business. In some areas, we need to rebel against that which is destroying this industry, be it our own association, our own brokers or our own complacency.
Did I miss anything? Let me know.
Previously published here.
July 1 means we’re half-way through 2008. It also means there are several new laws, rules and regulations going into effect that impact the real estate business in Virginia. Here are some of the highlights in case you missed them in earlier VAR communications:
- A bushel of new Virginia laws affecting real estate professionals will be enforced beginning tomorrow. You can download a convenient two-sided legal-size summary (PDF) of the new laws to get more information. If the print is too small for your taste, try the whitepaper version (PDF).
- Changes to the laws governing property owners associations passed in the 2008 Virginia General Assembly (also effective beginning July 1) are so sweeping, we’ve created a special webcast with VAR’s special counsel Lem Marshall to address them. Watch it here.
- Related to the property owners association act, VREB has just released an FAQ document about the Common Interest Community Board and the Office of the Common Interest Community Ombudsman. Download it (PDF) here.
- All real estate brokers with VREB license renewals due on or after July 1, 2008 must complete eight hours of broker management and agent supervision CE in their two year renewal cycle. Download a letter (PDF) from VREB for full details.
- The IRS raises its mileage reimbursement rate tomorrow to $0.585 per mile.
- Tomorrow (but not before), you can toast all these new rules and regulations with a glass of sangria at your favorite Spanish tapas restaurant. That’s right, Virginia restaurants can serve drinks that mix beer or wine with liquors without fear of prosecution beginning tomorrow.
For reasons I honestly can’t remember, I was browsing through some real-estate books and came upon this one, published in early 2006.
According to the publisher’s description, the book
…shows why the real estate market is poised to climb higher over the next decade–and explains what you can do to profit from it.
Lereah calls today’s market a "once-in-every-other generation opportunity." Today’s boom is not just driven by low interest rates–there are a host of demographic and economic reasons why real estate will continue to outpace other investments, from the growing needs of the baby-boomer generation and the rise of the "echo" boomer generation to the new ways real estate is marketed and sold.
And one review reads, "Today’s real estate markets are booming and Lereah makes a convincing case for why the real estate expansion will continue into the next decade."
The author of the review? Dewey Daane, former governor of the Federal Reserve Board Of Governors.
I believe the word I’m looking for is "Oops."
