There is an old lawyer joke that is in need of update. It used to go something like, “what do you call one million lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.” I think the time has come to amend this slightly to include Realtors.
We just got so utterly squeezed by the buyer’s criminal agent and our part-time real estate agent on the sale of our estates in Virginia, that one wonders if any laws were broken. Just being told every day that “it’s a buyer’s market” and doing to us what Clinton had been doing to Monica is no way to earn a 6% sales commission. At least that’s my opinion. In fact, you’d have to have little pride in your industry to look someone straight in the face and say your industry deserves this commission – a supposedly negotiable percentage.
On second thought, there may be laws being broken by the agents. Take a look at the current housing market. We hear at least one story every day that the market is slowing and values are plummeting. Who says so? Realtors, of course. And what do Realtors have to benefit by a market in full plunge? Faster sales. So these so-called experts tell us what price to market our house and then let offers come in 20 percent below asking price and urge us to take it. I think there is collusion going on and should be investigated. It's tough being a commissioned sales agent, but have some respect and collectively advise your sellers to hold the line, not drop the price through the basement.
This is not just the comments of someone who ended up on a bad end of transaction, but someone who is seriously challenging whether or not agents are purposely driving down the price of housing to ensure more and faster real estate sales. Yes, I know there are people who made bad investments and got teased with teaser interest rates who unfortunately need to sell. But that is just more of the ginned-up sales cycle that real estate agents urged us to buy into. “Interest rates are the lowest in 40 years,” one ad would say, implying that if you don’t buy now and buy often, you’re a moron. And, naturally, let a Realtor navigate the tricky waters of buying something that ended up at the top of the market.
Whatever happened to the old investment advice of buying low and selling high? And whatever happened to real estate agents advising their buyers that they were purchasing at the top of the market? I suspect they were too busy trying to catch a quick wave that they didn’t pay attention to the sales figures.
Using the Virginia Estates as an example of the chicanery in the industry, we agreed upon a list price that was below our tax assessment. We were told up front that it was a good price. When we entered the market there were two other similar homes for sale and their asking price was about the same as ours. Within days of us entering the market, each dropped their price $30,000, no doubt urged by their agent to do so to make their properties more attractive. I sneered at their willingness to drop so readily, but after several months of no activity, we lowered our price to match them. Once again, within days, they dropped their prices another $20,000, again no doubt at the urging of their “it’s a soft-headed-market” real state agents.
So we have a running of the bears in the real estate market fueled by the chutzpah of real estate agents and the frayed nerves of the people to whom they provide counsel. In unison, it seems, we all became nervous that the value of our homes was plummeting and it would be years when the current value would return. Sell now or face worse choices, we were told.
When we finally got an illusive offer – from a young woman whose mother happened to be an agent – it was so depressing that we nearly rejected it without a counter-offer. Our part-time agents suggested a counter-offer that we normally would never consider. But we did and it barely budged them from their initial offer. To make a long story short, we did reach an agreement, but there is no joy in the end result. Sadly, when we go to buy in San Diego, we will find the meanest, nastiest buyer’s agent possible and do to others what has been done to us. Of course we will probably be told by our agent that it is now a seller’s market. Seems to be our dumb luck, anyway.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
100 Choices
Over the years I have had a number of grandiose ideas for novels. They usually lack a beginning, a middle or an end or, sometimes, all three. But they are ideas nonetheless, and some of them aren’t so bad.
A while back I had at least a good beginning with a novel about an amalgam of people I have known who make poor choices in life. The book was to be titled “100 Choices.”
Essentially the theory of the novel is that we are all given approximately 100 important choices to make in our lives and the number of times we make reasonably good choices will dictate the success of our lives. Assuming life to work along the lines of the Bell Curve, one could expect a fairly fulfilling life by making 50 essentially good choices. On one end, Bill Gates may have made 95 out of 100 correctly – although who knows if his billions make him happy – and perhaps Jeffrey Dahmer (and his parents) made fewer than 10 good choices during his brutal life.
This theory also requires a variant because it is important when the choices are made and how significant they may be. Melinda Gates made a good choice in who she married but this obviously differs from person to person. Michael Vick appeared to have made many good choices during his life, but he is about to nullify those good choices with his recent choice to kill and maim dogs.
While the above assumptions must be taken into account, my theory is aimed more for the average person being asked to make the average choices such as a decision to finish high school, to go to college, who to chose to be your friends, the job you choose, the mate you choose, where you live, buying real estate or not buying real estate, making a choice to drink to excess or use illegal drugs, how to spend your money, investments made, vacations taken, job changes, spousal changes, choices at moments when your integrity is on the line, deciding to work in politics instead of following your dreams, etc. I am sure there are dozens more if I am making the decision to keep thinking about this rather than send out an invoice and actually get a check faster (not sure how important that decision is).
There are also decisions that are very personal that stem from other decisions that you make. For example, I have made decisions in one or more of my businesses that have become important in other areas of my life – some good, some bad. And, of course, we always make decisions in our relationships and how we tend to them and this can amount to a good or a bad decision.
In my bad decision to not write my unwritten novel, my protagonist was going to be a person who basically was on a 0 for 100 run. Yes, the protagonist would have been based on people I know and, yes, they are still pitching a shutout. The only question remaining is, will they ever make a good choice and turn around their lives? The odds appear to be against it.
A while back I had at least a good beginning with a novel about an amalgam of people I have known who make poor choices in life. The book was to be titled “100 Choices.”
Essentially the theory of the novel is that we are all given approximately 100 important choices to make in our lives and the number of times we make reasonably good choices will dictate the success of our lives. Assuming life to work along the lines of the Bell Curve, one could expect a fairly fulfilling life by making 50 essentially good choices. On one end, Bill Gates may have made 95 out of 100 correctly – although who knows if his billions make him happy – and perhaps Jeffrey Dahmer (and his parents) made fewer than 10 good choices during his brutal life.
This theory also requires a variant because it is important when the choices are made and how significant they may be. Melinda Gates made a good choice in who she married but this obviously differs from person to person. Michael Vick appeared to have made many good choices during his life, but he is about to nullify those good choices with his recent choice to kill and maim dogs.
While the above assumptions must be taken into account, my theory is aimed more for the average person being asked to make the average choices such as a decision to finish high school, to go to college, who to chose to be your friends, the job you choose, the mate you choose, where you live, buying real estate or not buying real estate, making a choice to drink to excess or use illegal drugs, how to spend your money, investments made, vacations taken, job changes, spousal changes, choices at moments when your integrity is on the line, deciding to work in politics instead of following your dreams, etc. I am sure there are dozens more if I am making the decision to keep thinking about this rather than send out an invoice and actually get a check faster (not sure how important that decision is).
There are also decisions that are very personal that stem from other decisions that you make. For example, I have made decisions in one or more of my businesses that have become important in other areas of my life – some good, some bad. And, of course, we always make decisions in our relationships and how we tend to them and this can amount to a good or a bad decision.
In my bad decision to not write my unwritten novel, my protagonist was going to be a person who basically was on a 0 for 100 run. Yes, the protagonist would have been based on people I know and, yes, they are still pitching a shutout. The only question remaining is, will they ever make a good choice and turn around their lives? The odds appear to be against it.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Going Home
Could be that I am slow on the uptake, but it is just occurring to me that the Mrs. and I are moving to San Diego. The early signal that I missed is Mrs. Laz has been offered and accepted a job in San Diego and began working there about a month ago. This, coupled with the fact that we are actively looking for a house, are strong indicators that a move is in the works.
I don’t know why this moving business is sneaking up on me since it was first put out as a point of discussion a year ago. But it seemed to go from chin-scratching theory to gaining its own momentum while I wasn’t paying attention.
It’s actually an open secret that nobody in my family likes Sacramento so it should not be that big of a surprise that we have all sought to move elsewhere. I don’t want to say too much that would appear negative about Sacramento because I have plenty of friends who will continue to live here and what I may say will only accentuate the notion that I am a snob.
One thing that can be said that nobody can quarrel with is that Sacramento is hot. When it is 108 degrees, folks around here like to mention that it is a “dry heat.” Well, Hell may be a dry heat too, but it doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. Give me a good ol’ fashioned “night and morning low clouds” situation in San Diego any day of the week over dry heat.
Sacramento has an eclectic population; an odd mixture of farmers, state workers and Bay Area transplants. This makes driving between tomato trucks, 1972 Fords and the occasional Hummer a very interesting and dangerous activity. Fortunately for many there is plenty of room to park their cars in their front lawns – I guess because they can’t navigate past the collection of washing machines and rusted-out refrigerators to get in their garage (assuming the garage has not be converted to a family room).
OK, I got personal, but I guess I am trying to reassure myself that the brown grass in San Diego is greener. Or, better put, denigrating my relationship with Sacramento to ease the pain of separation.
I didn’t think of this until this morning, but I have lived here longer than any other place in my life, which is really quite strange because I have never thought of it as home. I have been here for nearly 20 years but still think of myself as being raised in Michigan (first 14 years) and going through my formative years in San Diego (the next 14 years). Absent a two-year sentence in Texas and two years of breathing hot air in Washington, DC, the rest of my life my home has been here in Sacramento.
The truth about any place you live is you choose to stay because of the people you have come to be friends with. That part is just sinking in as I have been gradually saying goodbye to friends and acquaintances the past several days.
Mind you this should not shock anyone, but I am overly-sentimental about people, places and things. I remember the last few days before moving from Michigan to California where every step I took on the sidewalk I cried a bit knowing I would never step on that section of sidewalk again. It wasn’t because I had so much affection for concrete that I cried; it was more because I didn’t give in to the deceit that my parents were peddling that we would be coming back to Michigan often and that we’d see our friends whenever we liked. It doesn’t work that way and it didn’t take long to learn that Thomas Wolfe was right about going home. When we leave, time leaves with us and we never quite know what we have lost until we take a trip back and realize the distance between us and our friends. People change in small, indecipherable ways that is difficult to notice when we’re together often. But when it’s been a few years, or even months, between visits, you notice the small changes even more.
While it should be easy to be going “home” again, I know there are people and parts of Sacramento I will miss. There is one person I will miss the most and we have done a pretty good job so far of pretending we’re not heading in separate directions. You see, unlike the Boy, the Girl has no interest in coming to San Diego. While she has no great love for the oven of Sacramento, she is working here and until she finds the job she is looking for in another city, she will be too far away for my tastes. I have said a few good-byes with a kiss or hearty handshake already, but saying goodbye to Em is an impossible thought at the moment. A kiss goodbye will never be enough as I can’t picture her not sitting in our family room hogging the remote control. But we will try to say goodbye with a kiss knowing that it may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.
I don’t know why this moving business is sneaking up on me since it was first put out as a point of discussion a year ago. But it seemed to go from chin-scratching theory to gaining its own momentum while I wasn’t paying attention.
It’s actually an open secret that nobody in my family likes Sacramento so it should not be that big of a surprise that we have all sought to move elsewhere. I don’t want to say too much that would appear negative about Sacramento because I have plenty of friends who will continue to live here and what I may say will only accentuate the notion that I am a snob.
One thing that can be said that nobody can quarrel with is that Sacramento is hot. When it is 108 degrees, folks around here like to mention that it is a “dry heat.” Well, Hell may be a dry heat too, but it doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. Give me a good ol’ fashioned “night and morning low clouds” situation in San Diego any day of the week over dry heat.
Sacramento has an eclectic population; an odd mixture of farmers, state workers and Bay Area transplants. This makes driving between tomato trucks, 1972 Fords and the occasional Hummer a very interesting and dangerous activity. Fortunately for many there is plenty of room to park their cars in their front lawns – I guess because they can’t navigate past the collection of washing machines and rusted-out refrigerators to get in their garage (assuming the garage has not be converted to a family room).
OK, I got personal, but I guess I am trying to reassure myself that the brown grass in San Diego is greener. Or, better put, denigrating my relationship with Sacramento to ease the pain of separation.
I didn’t think of this until this morning, but I have lived here longer than any other place in my life, which is really quite strange because I have never thought of it as home. I have been here for nearly 20 years but still think of myself as being raised in Michigan (first 14 years) and going through my formative years in San Diego (the next 14 years). Absent a two-year sentence in Texas and two years of breathing hot air in Washington, DC, the rest of my life my home has been here in Sacramento.
The truth about any place you live is you choose to stay because of the people you have come to be friends with. That part is just sinking in as I have been gradually saying goodbye to friends and acquaintances the past several days.
Mind you this should not shock anyone, but I am overly-sentimental about people, places and things. I remember the last few days before moving from Michigan to California where every step I took on the sidewalk I cried a bit knowing I would never step on that section of sidewalk again. It wasn’t because I had so much affection for concrete that I cried; it was more because I didn’t give in to the deceit that my parents were peddling that we would be coming back to Michigan often and that we’d see our friends whenever we liked. It doesn’t work that way and it didn’t take long to learn that Thomas Wolfe was right about going home. When we leave, time leaves with us and we never quite know what we have lost until we take a trip back and realize the distance between us and our friends. People change in small, indecipherable ways that is difficult to notice when we’re together often. But when it’s been a few years, or even months, between visits, you notice the small changes even more.
While it should be easy to be going “home” again, I know there are people and parts of Sacramento I will miss. There is one person I will miss the most and we have done a pretty good job so far of pretending we’re not heading in separate directions. You see, unlike the Boy, the Girl has no interest in coming to San Diego. While she has no great love for the oven of Sacramento, she is working here and until she finds the job she is looking for in another city, she will be too far away for my tastes. I have said a few good-byes with a kiss or hearty handshake already, but saying goodbye to Em is an impossible thought at the moment. A kiss goodbye will never be enough as I can’t picture her not sitting in our family room hogging the remote control. But we will try to say goodbye with a kiss knowing that it may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.
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