Your best interest

I don't want to admit it but when I put in 50 plus hours a week things just seam to come together.
The reason I don't want to admit working 50 plus hours a week makes thing happen is because I want to believe they will happen on their own.
Everyone out there knows they want to have their cake and eat it too. I do.
The real estate market has been pretty slow up until about a week ago. If you were to ask any agent in the city how things are going they would more than likely tell you "it's slow".
Toledo is probably one of the worst city's to be selling real estate right now and I'm in the middle of it all.
Imaging this, my perception of the economy in this little big city is that things are looking up. You have to make things happen when they aren't happening for you.
Tomorrow I have the feeling I'm going to be put into an awkward situation.
I have 2 different clients looking at the same house. One of them told me today over the phone he wants to see the home tomorrow and is pretty sure he's going to write an offer.
The other client is going back to the same house for the third (3) time. This is a pretty sure sign they are seriously considering writing an offer.
The whole situation will work out fine I'm sure. Or I'll have to refer one of them to another agent.
Referring one of the clients out isn't a necessity but I would like to make sure I'm not in the middle of anything. The clients best interest believe it or not is also mine even if I have to loose a few bucks.
See the thing is I want you the client to always call me when your ready to make a real estat move buying or selling. And I truly believe being honest will have a bigger reward in the end.
There are other agents out there willing to sacrafice your best interest just to make sure they make a few extra dollars.
I'll add to this tomorrow after the showings.

Calm Down

USPS Continued:
Maybe I over reacted a little.
I contacted the manager of the post office I had mailed the package from and he was extremely cooperative.
Not only did he apologize for the teller being rude but he arranged it so I could resent the package without incurring any additional charges!
I'm still a little angry with Canadian customs for holding the package for at least 2 weeks until sending it back.
When filling out customs forms make sure you fill them out completely as to avoid them coming back just because they don't have the recipients last name on it.
Even if it is my fault that the damn teller should not have let me sent the package without having a last name. I told her I didn't know the last persons name to begin with.
Enough about that. Just make sure to fill your forms out completely.

p.s.
I went to another post office and was shipping another package to Canada so the event came up and I found out the teller that this office didn't know about Canada requiring first and last names on all packages.

USPS

When I started this blog I told myself I wouldn't gripe about issues that didn't pertain to real estate but I'm going to today.
A few nights ago a friend of mine (I used to live with) calls me to tell me I have something from the post office.
I ask, do you know what it is? He reads it and from what he understood a package i mailed has been returned to sender. That's all he got out of it.
Yesterday I picked up the notice and headed over to the post office to find out what is going on.
I wait in line for about 10 minutes and then I am helped by a very nice women. She looks up why the package has been returned.
"sir the package has been returned because there isn't a last name on it"
So I ask what has to be done?
"well to send it back we need to have a last name on the package. Customs in Canada is very strict"
So tell the clerk I will step aside and make a phone call to find out what the last name is.
I call a friend and heve them look into a few of my accounts to find thename of the recipiant. He finds the name and get back in line.
I'm helped again and now I have been at this post office for I would say 30 minutes, so I can hear this clerk tell me there isn't anything she can do other than charge me to ship the package again. How Nice.
Now I'm starting to remember some of the original transaction and I tell the nice clerk a little bit about the visit.
The nice clerk tells me if I know the other clerks name I should talk to a manager at the other branch and see what he can do for me.
The package was originals mailed from a different post office (Reynolds/corner). It was near closing time the day I mailed the package, which the clerk at the counter made very clear with her poor attitude and lack of cooperation.
She had me fill out a customs slip and when I was finished she noticed I hadn't put a name on the slip for the person receiving the package.
I told her I didn't have a name, she said well it has to have a name so I put STEVE.
The clerk new I put steve and only steve and if she didn't she should have.
She shipped my $22 package without checking to see if the form was filled out completely.
The package was originally shipped on December 31 2005 and I just picked it up from the post office yesterday January 23 2006.
It's only been 24 days and I'm sure the recipient of this package isn't pissed.
Now I'm told I have to pay to ship it again.
Lets take a minute to see what's going on at the post office.

1. Never enough people working = lower overhead = more profit
2. Postage just went up $.02 per letter = more profit
3. Post office has implemented automated postage machines = lower overhead = more profit
4. Most post offices have little thrift like stores = more profit
5. Online shipping = less overhead = more profit
6. And now I have to pay to ship the same package again = more profit.

This story isn't over I'll keep you posted no pun intended

Keepemcomin

This has been a pretty good week so far.
The week started on Monday which you might wonder wy I would mention this and it's because I work seven (7) days a week. Yes I do work seven days a week.
I don't mind and I kinda like it sometimes but and you had to know there was a but coming. It makes things difficult sometimes, like when you want to spend time with your family and you know you have an appointment or deadlines.
An example of a deadline would be a BPO (Brokers Price opinion) which is pretty much the same as an appraisal. I get paid about a sixth of what an appraiser gets though and I do about the same amount of work. Godda make money somehow.
Now back to what I was saying about this week. I started on Monday and had a pretty full day of work about 9 hours, Then on Tuesday I worked for only about 3-4 hours. That day was nice and easy.
Christie and I went up to the Detroit auto show. It was a good time but not worth the money this year. We spent I would say about $60.00 to see 3 cars. boo
The main reason for me to go to the show is to see the concept cars. And there were 2 that really caught my eye. We also got to see a Toyota I think Christie and I agreed would be practical car for us to buy next. I don't remember the name but the price is around $10k.
Wednesday I had another decent day picking up a few new clients I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Participated in my typical Wednesday night ritual playing pool. I had my behind handed to me.
Thursday I picked up another client. I tell you this city gets smaller and smaller all the time. One of the floor calls I got this day was someone whose son attends the same school as my son.
Thursday night we went out again downtown. This was a mistake. You see two night of heavy drinking isn't something I can do anymore. I felt like garbage today and I didn't get up until 1:00pm. I usualy get up either at 8:00am or by 10:00am. not today
So today Friday which it's really Saturday morning but for my sake it's still Friday.
So Friday I made a few calls and then was afforded the opertunity to drive to Indiana to pick Mikayla up.
Don't get me wrong I don't mind driving for the most part but tonight was horible. between the rain, fog, and semis it was bad.
Good night

Motivation !

Today is the 4th workday in a row that I have gotten out of bed early enough to be able to say by 5:00 p.m. that I have worked a full day.
I do have the advantage of sitting on my own couch and saying that I'm working. I don't have to puncha atime card or check in with anyone but that is what makes it hard sometimes.
I like being able to start my daily grind without even putting pants on.
Staying motivated and finding creative ways to generate buisness is something I need to keep on top of.
Business really slowed down around the holidays and it was very easy to sit back and do nothing, or at least find excuses to do nothing. Now that the holidays are over I need to kick it into high gear and get the ball rolling again.
I'm still new enough to the buisness that I don't have enough contacts (clients) to fill a 40-50 hour work week with telephone calls, listing updates, showings.........
There are a few ideas I have come up with to try and generate some new leads and listings. Getting out there and trying them is now what I have to do.
If anyone has any ideas please forward them on to me.







Please don't judge my writing based on the accuracy of the spelling, grammer, and punctuation. The purpose of this blog is to entertain, educated, make fun of the industry and make new friends. I do not know everything or claim to know everything about real estate.
I'm a professional and I'm writning from personal experiances and stories I've heard in the field.

Listing expiration

Yesterday I spent the majority of the day driving around with one of my clients looking for a new home for him.
This particular client is looking for the "needle in the hay stack" home.
We drove around looking in neighborhoods that have been established for quite awhile. I would say the average age of the homes we looked at were 40-50 years old.
Mr. client liked the exterior look of many of the homes we passed but didn't like any that were actually listed (on the market). So we started aimlessly wondering until we came across a newer development called Waterside.
Mr. Client and I went into the main model home and looked around to find out that the development had about 7 open houses so we took a look at most of them.
We started at the least expensive home moving up to the most expensive home. Of course the home my client like the most was the most expensive. We found out the last home was the most expensive. About $100,000.00 too expensive.
I wish I could find this client a home he would be happy with. He's a really nice guy and I think it's going to be real hard to find him what he'll like in the price range he would like to be in.
He already has a really nice home with some acreage that he has landscaped very nicely himself.
This means he's going to expect quite a bit out of a home and then the land makes it that much more difficult.
We'll find something that he likes I'm optimistic.


Please don't judge my writing based on the accuracy of the spelling, grammer, and punctuation.
The purpose of this blog is to entertain, educated, make fun of the industry and make new friends.
I do not know everything or claim to know everything about real estate.
I'm a professional and I'm writning from personal experiances and stories I've heard in the field.

Times are tuff

OK ive gone over 4 weeks now without a sale. Its going to push me over the edge.
I know the market nation wide is bad. and stocks have been down over-all. The state of Ohio has the highest forclosure rate and Toledo leads the state in forclosures, But come on what the heck is going on?
Well I guess I'll have to go to work earlier in the morning.
If anyone has any suggestions please feel free to suggest them.
BBS

TGIF

Well it's Friday and I don't think I've been so happy for it to be here in a long time.
We'll have the kids this weekend and I'm sooking forward to spending some time with them. I also would like to go out of town somewhere this weekend just for the day. A little get-a-way.
Work has been pretty slow and I don't know what to do. I haven't had a good lead for over 2 weeks.
The last guy I wrot an offer with backed out which really pissed me off. It was the second time he's writen an offer and then doesn't do anything with it.
Stop wasting my time.
I have a few leads but have no idea how true they are so we'll have to wait and see.
Anyone out there have any good suggestion on how to generate good leads that wont cost me any money?

Club SIN

OK I went, I saw. it's ok. Beers were $3.00 each which I didn't agree with since you can buy them from a carry out for an average of $0.75.
I have a buddy who had a rather interesting yet valid comment about the prices there. He said it's a little more for a drink but it helps keep the riff raff out.
I couldn't believe how packed this place was. I was upstairs and made a comment to Christie about the amount of people on the dance floor.
When lookig down from upstairs you couldn't see an open square foot of floor space. it was literally shoulder to shoulder and I'm sure this would have broke a fire code.
At 12:00 when the ball dropped Christie and I were on our way down the stairs and we were forced to wait on the landing cause there were to many people in the way of the stairs.
I don't think I'll ever go back unless i was single cause there was way to many people there. I don't like fighting crowds. I actualy get really frustrated and feel like I'm going to flip out. Maybe I'm closterfobic.