Bill Blog

I had a pretty busy day today. I started my day running my kids to where they had to go (band camp, vacation bible school). Then I went by a couple of "For sale by Owners" to set some door hangers. Then I went to do my floor duty at the office for 4 hours.

While I was on floor duty, a guy called before they went to drive by a house they were interested in. They wanted directions. The house was one of our listings so I had to try to give directions on a house I wasn't familar with. The map in the MLS provided by MapQuest was way wrong so I found it on Google instead. Was able to give directions to the interested party using Google. The home he was interested in has been on the market for nearly a year. It includes 33 acres and about 20 minutes from here. The asking price has slowly been dropping.

After floor duty I went looking for more FSBOs. Every single one of them appeared to be gone, not one person came to the door. Tried calling one or two only to get voicemails.

The party that called about the house called again. Said the house looked like it needed new floors from looking in the windows. Had a few junk cars sitting around the property. He can make the repairs but would want to make a lower offer. He's going to talk to his bank and get back to me by the end of the week.

Got a call from a buyer's agent regarding a listing of mine. Got the offer from the agent and took it to the sellers. The offer was significantly under the asking price. The buyers were approved for an FHA loan and wanted the sellers to pay 3% for closing costs and 3% for their down payment. Offer was rejected.

Stopped by Popeyes on the way home to feed the family. Didn't enjoy it like I normally would.  :-(

Coincidentally, my 13 year old daughter went to bed around 8:00pm. She had her first day of band camp. They've been learning how to march in the hot sun. Several of the kids, including mine, had to stop when they got really hot. Teachers thought she might have a slight case of athsma.

I think my back hurts from riding around in my car most of the day. Expect to talk to two buyers tomorrow to look at houses.

Here in Paducah, KY, population approximately 27,000 people, a small business opened a few months ago. It's called Segway of Paducah. I don't know how successful the business has been yet as I rarely see anyone riding around town on one. I haven't yet taken a ride on one myself.

One of the offerings they have is a tour of the LowerTown district. This portion of town has been in the revitalization process for the past several years. This program has greatly improved this part of town from the dilapidated homes it once contained. City officials began offering a program called the Artist Relocation Program in 2001. This program offers acquired properties to artists at a substantial discount if the artist agrees to renovate the property or build a new structure on it. The program has been extremely successful. Artists from all over the country have relocated, to Paducah! This area has several eating establishments and galleries. Each year they have several events that draw a growing number for a good time.

Atmos Energy, the local natural gas company, used to use the the Segways, and they may still. Their meter readers would ride around on them. I haven't seen them doing that in a while either. At my my wife's business she had a gas company employee ride one right into her store to check the meter. She called Atmos to complain and was told he wasn't supposed to be riding them into stores.

Notice the pic has a golfer carrying golf clubs. Seen many golfers riding one on the course? I heard on the news last week there was talk of making golf carts street legal due to the increase in the fuel costs.

If you're interested in the Artist Relocation Program (NY Times), search your favorite search engine and you'll find many links to choose from.

Besides real estate I still do some web site design and programming on the side. I design my own site (RealtorBillDunn.com) and am still adding features to it. I even download the raw data from the MLS, parse it and put in the database. Then I write web pages to display that info.

While writing a new page for email alerts, I ran across this issue again that I wasn't sure how to handle. The issue being the number of baths. The MLS's raw data provides the number of half baths and full baths. The issue is when you display the number of "baths". How do you report that some are half and some are full. I was going to use this formular but I realized it was wrong - baths = full baths + (half baths x .5)  This formula is wrong when the number of half baths is greater than 2.

Example: 2 full baths + ( 2 half baths   x  .5) = 3  (wrong!)

I found an example in the MLS and checked Realtor.com to see how they addressed this. To my surprise it was wrong! The example I checked was 802 Jefferson in Paducah, KY. This home has 2 full baths and 2 half baths. Realtor.com says this home has 3 baths - wrong!

I checked another home at 845 Palisades Drive in Eddyville, KY. It also has 2 full baths and 2 half baths. Realtor.com says it has 3 baths.

I think I'll change my formula to just add the half baths and full baths and not differntiate between the size of the bath.

 Two half baths shouldn't count as a single bath.

I get asked about rental homes by potential clients planning to move to the Paducah, KY area. These movers want to rent before purchasing for a variety of reasons. We don't really have a lot of these in the MLS. There isn't a good central location for rentals besides the newspaper, which they can't get. The online version doesn't let the public view the classifieds so I go out of my way to send them a screenshot of the PDF version of the "houses for sale" from the newspaper's classifieds.

How do other agents address this question?

Recently, a developer here in Paducah, KY decided he didn't have the time to continue development of his new "subdivision". I use that term loosely because the project changed a few times. At one time it was planned to be residential and at some point changed into residential and commercial area for businesses and possibly a hotel.

This land is adjacent to interstate 24 and close to an onramp which obviously makes it more valuable. It's amazing that it's been undeveloped for so long.

After wranging with the neighbors over burning the trees and such that was left from clearing the land, the city got involved and decided he needed to haul these trees off instead of burning them near these houses. Supposedly, the brush had poison ivy in it that was supposed to be a factor for not burning it. The city expanded their incentives they had already given the developer to compensate for the added expense involved in hauling off the brush and trees.

A few weeks ago that developer cancelled the project. The land was to be auctioned in 3 tracts. A local auctioneer and RE broker was going to do the auctioning. Before the land even got to auction two of the tracts were given an option to purchase, reportedly for $1,000,000, by Murray State University so they could build a small campus in Paducah.

The third tract was sold at auction last night to a local business owner for a mere $160,000. The newspaper said he hopes MSU will purchase it from him and he'll profit from that purchase.

My point of this entry is concerning taking advantage of the adjacent neighbors. Some of these neighborhood residents don't appreciate the changes taking place in their neighborhood. When you hear of events like this in your community do you go door to door or send mailings to these people offering your home selling services in the event they decide to move?

Coincidentally, there is another neighborhood in this situation near the Ohio River. A coal to diesel plant is being planned that could have many residents in that same situation. Another plant in this area was not approved by the planning commission because of the potential of coal dust. Besides the area residents complaining there is a Harrah's Casino across the river in Metropolis, IL that could be affected by that dust. The plant said the dust would not be an issue because they had measures to prevent that.

A few months ago I had a client come in from Maryland for the weekend. While making arrangements to meet he mentioned he was going to bring his Garmin. I thought, "Oh yeah, like that toy will be useful." I went ahead and got my maps and routes ready.

He brought it with him, stuck it to the windshield and plugged it into the cigarette lighter. The first few houses were closeby so I didn't need the maps. I listened to it while it gave directions. During the short trip to one house the buyer seemed a little disturbed when I didn't go the way the Garmin said to. After I went a different direction through the intersection I heard it say "Recalculating". That peaked my interest. It actually knew I didn't turn there and was determining a new route. Cool!

Anyway, I listened to it for the next few houses while I used my maps. At that time the lowlands in the area were flooded. We ran into a couple of spots that were inpassable due to flooded roads. These were out in the country. We turned around and he pushed an option that said something like alternate route. A little further along we ran into another flooded area. I turned around and went a completely different way the Garmin was directing us.

By the end of the day my maps and routes were in the backseat. I didn't need them anymore. The following week I purchased one on eBay after I reviewed what I wanted at a local store (BestBuy and Circuit City).

I was unable to continue showing him homes on Monday so I had to let another agent in the office show him around and take over the sale. I told her he had a Garmin and it was really fantastic. To my surprise she said that's what she had. Since then I've talked to other agents that use GPS. I didn't realize that many agents had them.

Another client that came up from Chattanooga was using his phone that had built in GPS. I had mine by then but I really didn't want one built into my phone.

I thought I'd share some unfortunate news that happened to my neighbor today.

I got home a little while ago and found my neighbor's house a disaster. He had a large pine tree cut down that was literally about 5 feet from his house. He had it removed because some of the limbs have been falling from it and making holes in the roof shingles and the pine needles are always clogging up the gutters.

The "company" doing the work first cut off all the limbs. Then they cut the trunk as one, large piece. My neighbor, with his backhoe, had a large rope tied to the tree and was nearly 150 feet away from the tree was pulling the tree his direction (over toward my property).

My neigbhor now says they didn't know what they were doing. The guys cutting the tree were apparently amateurs - not that I know anything about cutting trees. When they cut the tree trunk they were supposed to cut it in a particular fashion to ensure it fell whatever direction they needed.

When the tree fell it fell on my neighbors house!

You can see in the photo the damage that was done. I haven't seen what it looks like under the tarp but he said there isn't any noticable damage on the inside but it destroyed about a third of the overhang on  the house. A window in the back of the house was completely knocked off. It barely missed the electricity and phone line. The small white porch is completely destroyed.

Fortunately, this "company" had insurance so he has already gotten the ball rolling with them.

To cut the tree, remove the stump and hall off the wood would normally be about a $1,500 - $2,000 job. This "company" cut the tree down and left it for $275.

Incidentally, my wife was complaining to me that these people were bad news when they were cutting down a tree at another neighbor's house. That house had a much, much larger tree. This could have been my house.

I often take time to read the "In the Trenches" stories on Realtor.org. This section of their web site has stores sent in from agents across the country. Each of these agents are very different and have different ways of doing things. The stories are sometimes odd or strange but mostly funny.

One story from an agent described how he was touring an empty home. As he was walking down a dark stairway he suddenly jumped and shrieked to the top of his lungs. Notice I said "he". He, was a 200 pound agent with 12 years of experience. He screamed after he saw hisself in a full length mirror.  :-)

Google's start page allows you to customize a homepage. I use it often as it allows me to be at any computer and use a consistent set of tools and links from that page. One of the gadgets I added to my start page a few weeks ago was a gadget by the License Professor of http://www.licenseprofessor.com/  I figured this would be a good way to stay abreast of terms I don't always use and I could learn something new.

One question a few days ago was regarding discrimination. When I starting reading the question I immediately thought this would be a simple question to answer. Well, I got the answer wrong but I disagree with the entire question now that I know what they wanted for the answer.

The question went like this... a seller instructs me to discriminate potential buyers when he's at home. He doesn't want these buyers to view his home when he's there. Something to that effect. The seller';s instructions were pertaining to when he's home and not the race, ethnicity, etc, of the actual buyer. The correct answer was "This is legal in federal and state laws"

Frankly, I don't consider this proper use of the word "discrimination". Like another recent AR blog post that mentioned "blackballing", I consider this a dirty word best avoided in conversation because it's more commonly used in reference to illegal activities.

I'm sure not many people have ever heard the term "negative equity". Let's discuss what it means to me.

I'm told, and from what I read quite frequently, that many people in states like Florida and California are finding themselves "upside down" in their mortgage. The term "upside down" means they owe more on their home than what it's worth because they paid an amount higher than what it's currently worth. Upside down sort of means you have "negative equity".

Positive equity, good. Negative equity, bad.

Being upside down isn't typically a problem unless the home owner has a rising "adjustable rate mortgage" or ARM. People in these states have found themselves upside down with an increasing adjustable rate mortgage. This combination is where the disaster lies.

As the ARM increases, the monthly payment increases. Eventually these home owners find themselves with a mortgage payment higher than what they can afford. So, they decide to refinance. Here lies a major problem. They can't refinance because they are upside down. The lender won't refinance because the house is worth less than the amount needed to refinance. Thus, the home owner has a high mortgage payment which they can't afford and may eventually face foreclosure.

Yesterdays post mentions a way to avoid foreclosure - the short sale.