Chico area items of interest?

I've been sleeping at the switch I guess, but news is almost non-existent. Unless you pay attention to the media type of news. Moody's chief honcho is providing statistics to demonstrate that the real estate sky is precariously perched and is likely to fall. The financial boys in Chicago have fashioned some futures contracts based on the expectation of real estate values falling. That fact is worth noting because these guys are betting with real money, not just an ivory tower measure of data and a guess as to the meaning of same. Worth noting, but probably not all that scary since these same folks are constantly devising things to bet on. Keep in mind also that futures contracts require two players, one thinks up, the other thinks down, or at least that's the way it usually works. In the midst of this non-news and speculation about where things are going, and the size of the hand-basket required to get it there, how about these real facts. Interest rates are low. Gas prices are low. Employment is high. Home prices have stabilized, although California generally is still seeing a very modest appreciation, the speculative factor has been removed. Is this a good time to buy a house? You bet it is. Huge inventory to pick from and sales moving along just fine for those homes appropriately priced. Good time to sell a house? Sure is, unless you're unrealistic about the value of your home.
One of the personality features of sales people generally, and real estate sales people being no exception, is that they themselves are pretty easily sold things. Glossy printed things, bright objects with emblems on them, sales courses with the magic answer to millions without effort, and the magnetic attraction of affiliating with a shiny new fast growing franchise. The new franchise will have all the benefits the old franchise had, before the luster wore off, plus a whole bunch of new stuff. A dear friend, also an associate in our office, was a manager in the early days of franchising for some offices of one of the very biggest. His perception then, and continuing to today was that the business of franchises was selling franchises. It had nothing to do with selling real estate. It's so bad today that multiple offices operating under the same franchise banner appear in the same market area, each independently owned, competing with each other but each sending a significant part of their income to the franchise owner. Pretty slick sales job.
The reason for mentioning franchises at all is there is a certain amount of "excitement" in the Chico market at the imminent arrival of Keller-Williams in town, presumably the second fastest growing franchise in the real estate industry. Why salespeople would be "excited" about signing on to donate some of their income to a franchise is beyond my belief, but then spending a large amount of money for some sales training system guaranteed to make you successful is beyond my belief also. Gullible is as gullible does. If you can sell real estate why not just sell real estate? We do. We're an independent office with standards at least the equal of any other office, and since we don't pay homage, or cash, for the privilege of conducting our business, we offer very low fees and substantial savings to our clients. Other independents can do the same thing. We hope they come to town. Watching agents playing musical chairs in pursuit of some magic answer to success in real estate will be amusing, and will allow us an opportunity for further market penetration while they are distracted.
Thanks for reading.

Gloom and Doom?

This post is a little earlier than intended and I'll get to the points I wanted to make in a minute, but first, the evening news just came on and true to form a report from Moodys predicting the end of the world as we know it, at least the real estate world, came in for prominent attention. In one of the markets we serve, Chico, actual predictions of the probable percentage home values will decline in the near future were offered up as fact. They did say also, however, that they would go back up again. Amazing. I hope someone has the time to delve into the track record of Moodys' predictions for perhaps the past decade or two, just to see if their accuracy is sufficient to cause us to commit suicide, or perhaps just ignore the whole sorry bunch of these doom and gloomers. If you think of buying a home as an investment vehicle, much as you might consider buying shares of stock, then listening to the gurus and seers peddling their tip sheets might be interesting to you. Interesting, but probably not profitable,since if these people knew what they were talking about they'd be doing it profitably instead of talking about it for profit. To say again what I've said before. Right now, interest rates are as low as they have been all year, hovering around 6% for 30 year fixed rate mortgages. Gas prices are low. Opec is threatening to reduce supplies because crude prices are dropping too low. Employment is stable. Home prices are stable. If you want to buy a home to live in and call your own, this is as good a time as any. Is it tough for many people to qualify? Of course. It always has been. A home is a very expensive commodity and requires some maturity in employment and financial management and ability to plan to bring the dream to fruition. A responsible real estate broker and mortgage broker can help with the planning and offer some guidance in financial decisions, but the basic maturity has to reside in you. It's not possible to gloss over the fact that there are some serious problems in real estate, and the real estate industry. Real estate people and mortgage people have helped create a mountain of debt for a great number of people by pursuing their own interests rather than that of their clients. An in-depth look at one aspect of that problem is examined in a recent Business Week article. This office has never placed a client in an option arm mortgage. They are a vehicle which can damage even the very sophisticated, and our business is primarily aiding normal family homebuyers or sellers. We think, and this "we" means every member of our organization, we think that there is no amount of commission income that would justify using our knowledge or our license status to put a client at risk. Period. And that finally brings me to the real reason for this blog.
Reading blogs from other real estate people indicates a serious attempt to denigrate real estate offices that don't subscribe to the classic percentage business model. Flat fee offices and discount offices are equated with limited service. As with all arguments some element of truth is assumed to make the whole argument true. Good debate strategy but bad logic. Some flat fee brokers do indeed do nothing except put the listing on the mls. Some discount brokers do indeed offer limited services. However at least one, namely us, and I'm sure there must be others, offer the exact same level of service as the best in the industry in both the flat fee listing, and in the cash back to buyer. No one does more than we do, yet we list for a flat fee for the sellers and when we represent the buyer we give back the equivalent of 50% of the commission we receive. Conventional brokers spend a lot of time trying to teach their agents how to sell the value of their services to justify the high commissions they require. We provide the exact same services for less money. More actually, because we're a mortgage broker as well. If you haven't already, visit our site and look around. Thanks for visiting.