"For Sale By Owner" Outreach...



Realtor Drive By Shooting!



Sounds Like a Country Song!

 If you are brave enough to be attempting to sell your home on your own...
in the roughest, toughest real estate market since the end of WWII...
you probably did it before and tasted success.

What I would give right now for a taste of the wild rides of 1985-1990... or 2000-2006!  Heck, I'd settle for the balanced and calm years of 1993-1999.  But this?  Who saw this coming?  (Oh, right - all the politicians with 20-20 hindsight).  I mean come on, man!  We here in Palm Coast and Flagler Beach enjoyed being "The Fastest Growing County in the USA" for most of 2003, 2004, and 2005!


Age Has Its Privileges!



FACT:  If we had continued that rate of escalation in value (about 25% per year), our median priced home would have jumped from about $230K to over $1,000,000 by 2012!  And that for a standard 2,000 sq.ft., 3/2/2 on a normal lot.  That great ocean front home in The Hammock or on Flagler Beach, which was $2,000,000 in 2005 would have teetered near a staggering $10,000,000.  We would have been a mirror image of Southern California, except with no jobs of that caliber.  Absolutely unsustainable!  It's almost good news that it happened when it did... because it could have become far worse.

Most real estate agents are a bit wary of "FSBO's."  You know why?  I'm guessing that you are seen as being "too savvy" or perhaps "too unmotivated."  Also probably "anti-real estate agent" and, of course, "anti-commission."  It's a mindset thing.  If an agent, at their core, doesn't believe you need them, then you probably don't!


If You Are In Trouble,
Don't Let Foreclosure Happen!
I Can Help.



My belief is this: 

• Truly motivated sellers want a highly motivated, aggressive, experienced, well trained, real estate expert to help in these challenging times.  One who can take charge of the situation, who understands the business, and who will tell them the truth about the market... not just what you want to hear!
• They want someone who can take an ordinary thing and do it in an extraordinary way.
• They want the real estate holy grail:
• Can my agent be trusted (with the keys to my house and input to my financial decisions)
• Does my agent really care about my personal outcome?  Are they empathetic and compassionate and ethically centered?
• And finally... Are they competent... Can they get the job done?



Don't Let This Happen To You.
The Market "is what it is."
Make the Most of It!



I believe that a "For Sale By Owner" sign is a call to action...  a request to "Apply Within!"

"Code of Ethics for Realtors"



Ethics: A Standard Higher Than The Law



 "Ethics"...

Talk about a hot topic!  What does it mean?  And by whose definition?  And by what moral code?



Politicians Sure Take a Hit!



Personally, I see evidence that we are in a "crisis of ethics" (or, rather, lack thereof).  We are, as a nation, in a moral drift away from what made us great.  But hey, just because our prison population has increased from 250,000 to over 2,300,000 in a little over 20 years?  Yes, I know there's a lot more to it! 

I get to teach this topic to the Flagler County, Florida, Association of Realtors.  It's humbling, to say the least.  Especially knowing how many times I've erred personally.  I recount to the class a glaring ethical error I made, as a new sales agent in 1986.  It seemed to make "good business sense" to me at the time.  Yet, I must have dozed off during that session of my "new agent training!"

I was born the day WWII ended.  You could say I'm the first Baby Boomer.  My parent's generation defined us then as "hard working, patriotic, and morally centered (with the one glaring disgrace of racial ignorance)."  Then my generation, starting about 1968, fueled the national push towards, "If it feels good, do it!"  This, as an aside, was Sigmund Freud's take on ethics and morality.  How could a guy so smart... be so dumb?


Ethics Continuing Education



As Realtors, we are challenged to behave ethically today in a very tumultuous arena.  The bubble has burst.  Our homes are worth less than half of their 2005/2006 value.  Our neighbors and friends are being foreclosed upon.  People are hurting.  And surely you recall the saying that, "Desperate times require desperate measures!"

Our Realtor Code of Ethics Manual acquiesces that:

• There is no idea which cannot be misapplied.
• No faith which cannot be exploited.
• No concept which cannot be abused.
• And no principle which cannot be perverted.

Well, I guess that about covers our human nature tendencies!  In our defense, our manual states:  "In the interpretation of this (ethical) obligation, Realtors can take no safer guide than that which has been handed down through the centuries, embodied in The Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Can I get an "Amen?"

Big Bank Curiosity

Before I start, I think it's ok - and healthy - for banks to make a profit.  I mean they are, after all, the clearing houses for $Money$, the lubricant of our global economy.  I'm a politically conservative, business oriented, limited government, free market advocate... and as such, I like to see people working and making money, feeding their families, taking vacations... and keeping their homes!

I'm also in complete understanding of our frail human nature, where pride and greed are at our core... and where qualities such as humility are often thought of as "quaint."  It's all about corporate culture and in circles where enormously obscene profits are for the picking, smoky back rooms are heard to say, "Do them, before they do you!"  I can't wait to see the new film, "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," with Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, and Josh Brolin.  Talk about great timing for a film release!  It plays on the bursting of the housing bubble and our current economic turmoil like a concert violin.  And from a recent critique:  "In Money Never Sleeps, greed is a constant high, with everyone chasing the dragon."

So, help me with this.  A family buys a house in 2004 for $350,000.  They can afford it, as both Mom and Dad have secure jobs and money in the bank.  They even put a 20%, $70,000 down payment in the deal and secure a $280,000 mortgage.  Almost everything in their monthly payment is interest and escrows for taxes and insurance.  By 2009, their balance is $270,000.  She loses her $48,000 job at the accounting firm and eventually gets one at Target for minimum wage.  He is devastated when he is let go from his marketing position, where he had been earning $75,000 per year.  By early 2010, they had missed 5 mortgage payments and were in a panic.  They had always paid their bills on time and had great credit!  The foreclosure notices started coming and the credit card companies called non-stop.  All unfamiliar territory for this family.

To save them from foreclosure, their Real Estate Agent, and experienced CDPE (Certified Distressed Property Expert) at Parkside Realty Group, LLC in Palm Coast, FL, helps them in a complicated "Short Sale" transaction.  Their home sells, after several months of negotiation with their bank, at the 2010 "new market value" of $175,000.  That's $95,000 shy of the mortgage balance... and 50% less than they paid for the house in 2004.  They walk away with nothing, except the knowledge that their Real Estate Agent helped them dodge the foreclosure bullet.

Question:  If it cost the bank about $40,000 in admin and carrying costs and professional legal and Realtor fees to do this deal... Why not evaluate the situation and do the same deal for the current owner?  You know - keep this family in the house and the kids in the same school, etc.  Their new payment would be where they could now afford it (similar to the rent they'd have to pay down the street to the guy who is also upside down on that house).
If it saves the bank $40,000 in the reality of the current situation, am I being naive to think this is a better solution?