Gary Woltal's Blog

There's just something about how you price something. With gasoline prices, that little 9/10 of a penny just does make a gallon look a little cheaper doesn't it? With home pricing it turns out now there is a bit of psychology behind that too.

REALTORS and sellers try to offer prices on their homes near market value most of the time with a little 3% wiggle room on the top side. I've heard that realistically homes are selling for 93 to 95% of asking these days.

But what about the FORMAT of the price? A report out by Cornell University says all zeroes at the end of the price does not sell as well as a specific price. Don't set it at $326,000 but rather $325, 425 for a faster sale. Does this make sense? Having three zeroes they say lowered the sales price by 0.73 percent. The house with the more "precise" list price will sell for more the study says. Online firm Redfin said the optimum price was ending in $500, such as $391,500. Try it and see if it helps sell more houses. Who knows in today's wacky market?

In riding around with buyers as a REALTOR you very much get to share personal lives with each other. Where you came from, what's important to you, your successes, your setbacks, your hopes and dreams. Not just about that next house, but about life. You share and learn.

I have earlier commented about capturing special moments on life's journey via the mind or with a camera. Life and time is swift.

But taking it one step further are those collections of minutes or hours in life (like hugging your dog), or eating an ice cream cone, that you have to step back and declare you have made it to

PRIMO TIME.

We all know this as

It just doesn't get any better than this.

If there is such a thing as this, keep the best of the best in your mind, AND NEVER LET GO OF THESE RARE ONES.

Like,

a hole in one in golf

a baby being born

the winning shot in a basketball game or the winning field goal in a football game

the winning home run in a baseball game

a baby's first steps or first words

fishing on a quiet lake with a beer on a Saturday morning

sitting on a park bench on the perfect temperature day with peace and quiet and the birds chirping

rocking on a chair on a cabin porch early in the morning breathing in the fresh mountain air

Add your own, there are so many ~ but do capture and remind yourself at least for this instance of time

It just doesn't get any better than this!!

One thing REALTORS get to do in working with a range of clients and a spectrum of priced homes is see how the "rich and famous" live. A $100,000 home is definitely "different" than a $1,000,000 home. I had a new home construction salesman, maybe envious of the "rich", tell me people just stuff more junk in the higher end homes. Two diswashers, an outside kitchen, a free standing marble garden tub. You get the picture.

But happiness in people does not depend on income. I have found happy AND unhappy people on both ends of the income strata and size homes.

Stagers can tell you much can be made with little and many modest homes look terrific.

So too, with being rich. Much can be made of what little we have.

RICH IS A STATE OF MIND.

If we are happy where we are, we will be at peace. Sure, we all want to climb in income, prestige, achievement, recognition and the like. But our possessions are not what makes us rich. Don't think of rich as getting to that point some day. Think of it as being there today. If you have good friends, a reasonably good family as a support system, have food to eat, and a roof over your head, you know what? Life is good.

You are RICH baby. Count your blessings in so many ways, and remember you ALREADY are rich!!

Another writer told me if I wanted to see my views of a blog really shoot up just put the word SEX anywhere in the title and watch what happens. I suppose that word or XXX in the text would do the same thing so here goes. I'll let you know what happens. But seriously, this is not a tawdry tale of any sort. I just wanted to make an observation about sex and real estate. I mean by that, gender. In residential real estate it used to be dominated by females. Now it is more evenly balanced with about 55% women and 45% men in the field. I think this balance is good for working with clients from all walks of life.

Many of the women came out of teaching, nursing, and various customer service professions. From what I've found out on the men side, their background is very diverse, coming out of management, sales, business owners, etc.

In contrast if you look at "commercial" real estate it is dominated on the male side of things. Maybe warehouses and shopping centers are more fun to men.

Women are better naturally at the nuturing side of life. They assist in answering questions about the kitchens, closets, socializing, and raising families. I don't mean to be stereotypical but most men really do like power tools, garages, and things like barbeques in the backyard. The women have come around though to liking the game rooms with the Plasma TVs.

So there's my little discussion on "Sex." I know it would have been better with a church secretary turned buyers agent who was hitting on all the married men buyer clients as a story, but you'll have to talk to a Realtor driving around in their car to get those juicy tidbits and the real dirt. Suffice it to say, life is interesting with men and women and I know we all think we do come from different planets some days, whether out in the real estate world or back at the ranch. Enjoy the differences, that's why we were made that way!

In the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, the little boy Jack's family falls on hard times and when their cow stops producing milk he trades it in for some magic beans. The magic beans grow this enormous bean stalk into the clouds where Jack has an adventure with a giant. He ends up eventually coming down with a golden harp and a hen that lays golden eggs. All is restored and Jack marries a great princess and lives happily ever after.

In real estate, I keep hearing those who are searching for the magic beans to get their businesses to make money and thrive especially in a downturn. They are searching for what may be likened to what you hear called a "silver bullet." Magic doesn't just "happen" in real life. People who work hard are often called "lucky." But real success requires planning, adjustment to reality, and this:

HARD WORK!!

Everyone can see the fruits of your labor after the fact but they don't often see the preparation that went into it beforehand. You can't skip the fundamental steps that are required to build a solid business like lead generation, systems, and building your relationships. You must be willing to do the work to get the business off the ground.

Hard work is the magic beans in the real world that will allow you to live happily ever after.

In North Texas over the weekend they had a Foreclosure Prevention Fair near the Cotton Bowl in Fair Park. The event was part of a national series sponsored by ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Basically they are trying to help people in trouble stave off foreclosure. This story about foreclosures is serious. Nationally in 2007 1.25 million homes were in foreclosure. I hear that banks and lenders don't want houses back, but weren't they the ones that set up this house of cards to fall?

Adjustable rate mortgages are going from 6% to 13%. Payments are going from $1,500 per month to $3,500 per month. Yikes! Anyone would be terrified.

It all has to do with fuzzy math. The lenders want business and don't communicate clearly. The homeowners "say" they hadn't read all the paperwork and didn't realize the teaser rates would adjust so drastically or assumed home prices would appreciate significantly over time. That last one didn't happen!

As a community we all need to pull through difficult times and identify resources that homeowners can work with.

There's a new expression with foreclosures. Now people aren't even so ashamed of the situation as in yesteryear. It's called "jingle mail." Just mail the keys back to the bank. People just want OUT!! They can't handle the stress!!

Let's hope as a society we can find solutions and make our way through these times.

While taking digital photos of rooms and the exterior of a house to list it dawned on me how still photos represent

                     SNIPPETS OF TIME.

I have always been the photographer in my family from Brownie cameras to 35 mm to Digital. Why I am the archivisit I don't know? Maybe I have Japanese family culture in my background. I think I enjoy creating photos and the scenes. I KNOW I love looking back at the frozen memories as years go by seeing people change and their smiles. Sometimes I think it is preserving something that you will lose someday. Life changes. People go in and out of your life. You live different places. You vacation or travel to different areas.

These memories are all in your head too. One time, going unconscious after running too fast anaerobically in a 10K race, I experienced this life flashing before you effect and my brain randomly sequenced through my memories like snapshots. This is due to lack of oxygen. The memories are all there.

So if it is you, or someone in your family who naturally likes taking photos for all those memorable events, thank God you have a recorder in your midst. If they are really good they assemble them into albums or frames. Life is definitely about moments. Make sure you capture them in photos or in your mind. There's that saying you know. Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by every moment that takes your breath away.

Ever since the Internet morphed into the WWW, the world wide web in 1994, I have been a profuse reader of all sorts of web sites. There is so much information out there it is mind boggling.

I find all sorts of focused web sites that put little areas of life into categories and I am constantly creating folders, for example in real estate, and making boomark after bookmark of my favorites. New ones pop up every day it seems.

Two I'll share today you may or may not have seen but here are the links:

SquidZipper - info about a specific Zip Code

Zilpy - Neighborhood search on Rentals

I take all new web sites with a grain of salt. Sometimes like the early days of Zillow, the data can be incredibly flawed or not up to date with what you know to be true. How many times are the satellite images like in Google Maps over five years old? Or, it says you have an independent grocery store 1/2 mile away named Fred's but they miss the major chain or a WalMart. The Internet is fun but keep it in perspective and use common sense with the information you find.

Records were meant to be broken. Although I don't think that is necessarily a good thing. In the foreclosures area for the quarter, with postings through March, the Dallas Ft. Worth area had more than 13,000 residential properties posted by lenders, up 21 percent from the same period in 2007. A new record for us!

This to me, has the feeling of a runaway train. Being a long time resident of the area, I had seen the big oil bust and savings and loan debacle of the mid to late '80's take its toll on housing. Especially prices that took deep dives and took a decade to recover. This go round the Foreclosure Listing Services experts thought our foreclosure numbers wouldn't hit the 1980's numbers.

On a per capita basis we are not in as bad a shape as the population of the area has increased to around 6 million making it one of the largest metro areas in the country. As little as four or five years ago Texas, Utah, and Indiana were trading top spots for foreclosures, being overbuilt with unlimited land and the economy going in the tank. Now, even though we set a record, nationally DFW is ONLY 11th in foreclosure numbers. These foreclosures are still due to loans being adusted to new rates. The lower interest rates in the market will not help some who owe more on their properties than they can be appraised at. The negative for the market is the increased supply of unoccupied properties to compete with new construction and "normal" pre-owned homes for sale.

The positive, or silver lining for our area of the country, is prices are stable increasing 0.5% year over year in Q4. Affordability is extremely good with a median price of $145,000 in Dallas-Ft. Worth. Your money goes a long way here and the economy is strong with adding jobs.

Between 50 and 60% of foreclosures result in a forced sale. The other sales are delayed or the borrower reaches a new agreement with the lender. As a buyer, it is also important to remember that ALL foreclosures are not good deals compared with other properties.

This runaway train will have to continue down the track some more in 2008 derailing some before we get it over to the side and calm its effect on the economy. But hang on for what still appears to be a wild ride!

While out looking at houses, it happened AGAIN. It was another rock flying out of nowhere and popping my windshield. I wasn't even driving behind a gravel truck this time. These pot shots at my windshield of my SUV are getting annoying. They can stay as little pebble size dings or as you see in this picture, with temperature changes, can spread as a crack all across the window. Definitely spoiling your view! And giving more business to the Auto Glass Replacement companies.

I've come to expect these dings in life. John F. Kennedy Jr. said, "in life, we all take our hits." Just like these unexpected rocks that come flying out of nowhere, DON'T LET THEM SPOIL YOUR VIEW.

You need to have patience.

I think this comes with getting older, but just think of all the rocks that hit you. An unexpected illness. A financial problem. Family concerns. A new ache or pain. A nagging wife or irresponsible husband. A kid that just won't behave. What is important in life is your "reaction" to your circumstances. Norman Vincent Peale, father of positive thinking, said only dead people don't have problems. You can control your thoughts, and your "reaction" to your environment. Create the best environment possible, but be aware of that which you have no control over, and let it go.

That way, in life, as in driving down the highway, you'll learn to enjoy the view (despite the rocks). And oh what a view!!