Welcome to my world

I am sure there is probably a rule against this but we all have to vent from time to time and since my blog isn't read by millions of people yet I figure this is safe.

I try to follow up regularly with agents who have shown my listings to see if their buyer is interested in the home, get feedback (both positive and negative), and to let them know of other homes I have listed that may be a fit for their buyers as well. Just good follow up - simple stuff.

Well, I called on 4 listings from the last 2 days (it sometimes takes a day or two to reach them live) and on 3 of them I received very encouraging feedback meaning that their buyers were interested in each of the homes and would be viewing them again. Well, that was all good until I reached the 4th.

This agent - who has the same license credentials as I do unfortunately - answered the phone politely enough. I thanked her again for showing my home at xxx address. this is a showing that I set up through 2 conversations with this agent to verify the time and the logistics of the showing. Thorough enough. Well, she couldn't remember the home. She informed me that if I had experience showing homes that I would know it is hard to remember which ones. Well, I disagree. As a professional real estate consultant it is my job to know the inventory. This means everything in the area. At the very least know the homes you are showing.

Well, after describing the home in more detail, 2x, she still couldn't recall the home. All I was doing was trying to see if her buyer was interested and secondly if they had any feedback. Well, we looked up her volume and she has done $400,000 total year-to-date. If you are doing $10M a year, I can understand the difficulty of keeping track of all of that inventory but $400K? Looking in more detail it was her listing and her sale so it was a $200k home that she represented both the buyer and the seller. I remember when I sold my first home - I remembered every home we walked into! I was looking for my second successful customer and remembered every one.

Enough of that - I just had to vent a bit. My customers want feedback, I want feedback and to give it to them, but sometimes you have to work with what you are given.

What a place to live - good and bad

Wow. I am late in posting this but an event on the news today prompted me to act. first of all, I took my children to several neighborhoods this Halloween because I promised several customers that we would come by and I must say that the Old Northeast was off of the charts this year. As many of you know, the Old NE has always been one of the top destinations for Halloween revelry, but this year it seemed to be even better than before. it is always wonderful in the 17th Ave NE vicinity, but this year the cheer seemed to be on almost every block. I will post some pictures, I hope, in the coming weeks. My comment on this is that people always ask me why is the Old NE so attractive to people and my response always includes Halloween. This year, the weather was absolutely perfect - it was in the low 70's so you could wear the heavy duty costumes and not be uncomfortable. Maybe most importantly for us Floridians is that I could still wear my flip-flops and a short sleeve shirt to enjoy the fall weather! We saw several skits being put on in front of their homes, we enjoyed cotton candy being made in the yards, and most importantly we enjoyed the company of our neighbors and my kids had a great time - again - in a wonderful neighborhood in St Pete.

On the down side, I saw a video on the news today with 2 kids appearing to be fighting with their parents or guardians 'coaching' and pushing them to fight. I didn't get the full story, but I don't care. this is just great. Parents teaching their kids to fight. We wonder why some of the crimes are committed and why we have so many problems in our Country. Well, this has nothing to do with politics or socio-economic policies. Does anyone really wonder what will happen to these kids as they grow into adults? Do you think they are going to open a door for a date? Do you think they are going to congratulate an opponent in a true sport when they lose?

I know this has nothing to do with real estate, but evidently it happened in Pinellas county and it pains me to see this anywhere. Love your kids, teach them right from wrong, and teach them the value of working and competing hard and fairly. Simple stuff.

Halloween 2006 in Old NE

I am having trouble getting my pictures loaded, but I am going to post without pics. I took my family to the Old NE this year for trick or treating mainly since I had several customers there that I promised that I would take my kids to see their festivities. In my 7 years here in this neighborhood, I have to say that this year was the best for Halloween by far. 17Th Avenue NE was of course the core, but the big difference is that I didn't see many blocks that weren't rocking! I have friends all over the country that talk about Halloween, but I can't see anyone beating the Old NE. the weather was perfect (73 degrees or so) and just packed.

What a phenomenal place to live.