We went and looked up the old file to see what had happened during the transaction, and soon realized that my friend had done everything right and more. This buyer had signed a form that we have stating they are not going to have a survey done and they hold the brokerage harmless, and she had initialed a particular line in the contract that had been written by the agent concerning this particular issue. There were other things in the file that showed that my friend had done his due diligence and had been very careful to point out the importance of having a survey done.

I know of other stories that are similar from this area, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to make the case for having a survey done. There is a lot of vacant land here, and when I take a listing I go out and try to find pins that match the plat map I’m looking at, but those pins are sometimes very hard to find, and many times have no markings on them. Sometimes I can measure from a pin that is marked, or a road, and figure “this is probably where it’s at”, but who really knows? Unless you have a survey done.

This is a little like buying tires. No one wants to buy tires right? But when you start seeing threads where tread used to be, you have a pretty good idea that you are about to spend some time walking if you don’t replace them right? A survey is not the place to cut corners when buying land either.

Consider a scenario with me: One day after a beautiful monsoon rain, the road grader comes along on his blade making the road a much nicer place for my hiney to ride on, and he’s cutting relief’s in the side of the road so that the next rain will have a place to drain. Now he’s one of the good guys around here, but he doesn’t notice that he’s just knocked down four pins and now they’re laying out there on the side of the road. The owner comes along a few weeks later (we’ll call him Duke) and see’s them laying there and says “oh well, I know where they’re supposed to be, I’ll just put them back”. A few years go by and Duke calls me and tells me he’d like to list two of the four pieces of land. So I go out and find the properties, everything looks in order, I sell one of the properties, and the buyer (we’ll call him Bo) says “nah, I can see the pins are marked, it would be a waste of money to have it surveyed”. A few years go by and Bo has built a home, drilled a well, installed a septic system, put up fencing all around his property, and sunk lots of money into his land. Bo likes his life here on The Mountain. Now comes Susie Q, and she buys the property next to Bo, but she has a survey done, and finds out she actually owns the property Bo is on.

During the ensuing court battle it’s revealed that Duke put the pins back almost exactly where they should have been, except that he accidentally switched two of them. RUH ROH, Houston, we have a problem.

After the dust settles, Susie sells her new home to Bo for a very low price of $350,000 with one stipulation, that he give her the land that she thought she was buying in the first place. Poor Bo, but it could have all been avoided if Bo would’ve just done a survey.

At this point I have to tell you, this has never happened to me, but I do have nightmares about it! I try my best to be comfortable about where I pound my sign, but don’t go by that sign, have a survey done, you’ll be glad you did.

Anybody else have a story to tell along these lines? Leave it in the comments section, I’d love to hear it.

The highlights are, unit 1’s inventory dropped by five, unit 4 dropped by six, and unit 9A dropped by six. It’s very nice to see some movement. I think this is an indicator of what’s happening on the Mountain right now, and I really hope things are starting to break loose a little. I can say my life has been quite busy over the past few weeks, which I’m happy for.

I get that! I avoid the same things, and I want anyone who is contemplating the idea of contacting me, to know how they will be treated.

If you email me, I will email you back. I will not spam you. If you are a potential buyer, I will send you things periodically that I think you may be interested in. The same goes for sellers, but if you would like to be taken off my email list, please understand, all you have to do is return the email and ask me to stop. I won’t take it personally, and you *will* be taken off my mailing list. No questions asked, period, end of story. If later you decide you would like to be back on my list, just let me know.

If you call me, I will normally ask you what your email address is, so that I can send you what you’re asking about. This way you can look through it on your own schedule, when the time is right for you. If you don’t have an email address, I’ll work around it, but it’s more convenient for you if you have one. There’s a lot of info in a listing, and if I can send it to you to look over, you’ll be able to take your time and have a better idea of what it is you’re looking at.

If we do have to do everything on the phone, please understand: I’m not a pushy kind of a person anyway, so I’m not going to call you during the most inopportune times of the day, and try to get you to make a decision, when I think I might be able wear you down.

I believe this is the only way to *attract* business, and not run it off. I’m not about chasing you down, I’ll work hard for you, but I won’t try to take control of you as a “lead”. So if you’re thinking of contacting me, be not afraid, it should be fairly painless.

MLS Statistics Oct ‘07 thru Feb ‘08

Notice the inventory under “Total Listed” is more than doubled, which is to be expected in this market. But look at the “Avg List Price Sold” and the “Avg Sale Price Sold” for the two years.

MLS Statistics Oct ‘06 thru Feb ‘07

Now look at the numbers here for early ‘06. We’ve actually come pretty close to these numbers now. Days on the market has also dropped to almost early ‘06 levels. That’s good news.

MLS Statistics Jan ‘06 thru June ‘06

What I see here is that things may be getting back to normal. 2006 was a good year here, and notice how quickly the sold price shot up from June to October of ‘06. That’s volatile baby!

It’s going to be a year or so before we’re really back to normal, <IMHO> but it’s looking better and better. The key here is for people to continue to be realistic in their asking price when they put something out there. Again here I have to say, when I do a search on the MLS for a potential buyer, I take the 5 lowest prices and email those to them. If the price is too high, very few people ever know it’s there, and if they ever see it they just completely put it out of their mind in favor of one that’s a more realistic number.

I hope this is helpful for everyone, I know I found it very interesting. If you see something in the numbers above, that I didn’t catch, or you just want to expand on something, tell everyone else about it by leaving a comment.

Please keep in mind; The prices listed here are asking prices only. If you’d like to know more about what things are selling for in the area, please contact me.

So watch me go. You’ll be able to see my “tweets” in that new sidebar gadget, things you may or may not want to know, where I’m at, what I’m doing, or little pieces of conversation with other - what should I call them - tweeters?

There aren’t very many people out there like this. So when you find them, they stand out, and you can tell they’re different from the rest. These people are who I want to work with.

This is where trust comes into play. I won’t trust someone who is only thinking of me as a paycheck. But if you genuinely care about me, (and I can tell) you’ll see me whenever I need something you have to offer. I look for people like you, to send all my friends to, and more importantly my family. But you can’t fake it, because I know when you’re faking. It may not be all that evident at first, but at some point I will figure it out. I won’t make a big deal about it, but you won’t see me anymore in the realm of business.

I’ve had this discussion many times with good friends. My point being you don’t just wake up one day and have trust. You build it, and it takes many years sometimes. It’s an investment of your time, blood, sweat, and tears. It’s a long term investment, as apposed to a get rich quick scheme.

I say this affectionately, and if you’re a sales person take it from me, IR12. Many of my friends are sales people. Some get it, some don’t, but I still love them.:D If you ever get the chance to get to know someone who’s in sales personally, I would really recommend it. Sales people make a living by thinking on their feet, and many times the consequence of this is an excellent sense of humor. Most of the sales people I know, are the best of people to hang out with.

This is one of the best things about real estate for me. I live and breath by the words I’ve written above. Some people would say that I won’t last because I won’t “hard sell”. But I think it’s the exact opposite. The consumer today has a hard spot in their hearts for people who push things on them when they’re not ready to buy. I think society has changed over the years, and I would suggest that this is one of the reasons the internet is so heavily used today. People are doing their own research before they ever see a sales person, and already know what they want. But you say “they don’t know what they want until they see and touch it”, and that is true to some extent. I would keep in mind though, they’ve done their research, and they may never tell you what they know.

I think about spammers and telemarketers. I mean we all love these guys right? If I get a phone call from someone who’s going to sell me something in 30 seconds or less, they don’t get a chance to finish the first sentence normally. And one of the best things about Gmail is how good they screen the spam from getting through. But in the end, these people are really going to sell me something right? Speaking for myself, if I want buy something I do my research first. I don’t want to buy something to find out if it will work for what I want it for. And I won’t take the word of someone I don’t trust, as to whether it will.

Just a thought. All IMHO of course. I’d love to hear what you think, because I could be wrong. Seriously, I’ve been told by some before that “I want to be sold”. If that means they want someone to work hard for them, educate them and so on, I’m all over that!

But how do you shop for new things? What do you look for in a sales person?

This is just something that interests me, and I’d love to know what you think.

I’m in the process of writing some posts about local services in the area, so I called Terry this morning to ask him some questions, (he’s the first on my list, because he’s normally one of the first people I put buyers in touch with). I was asking if he would send me a picture of himself or of his equipment, when he told me the unfortunate news.

Everyone got out of the house safely, but he told me the smoke detectors saved their lives. Terry’s two young boys and fiance were all in the house with him, all sleeping if I have my facts right, when the smoke detectors went off. Terry said the house is a total loss.

If you would like to help this family, please contact me. I would be happy to hear your ideas on how to help as well.

Most importantly, please keep Terry and his family in your prayers.

If you are in a position to give, please click the Donate button. I first found out about this on Christoph’s page this morning. The real estate blogging community, starting with Agent Genius, Jay Thompson, and Bloodhound have all gotten together to make a drive for the Red Cross, to help victims of these deadly tornado’s. So If you can help it would be much appreciated. And if you have a web site or blog, please check the links above and put the button your page. Thank you in advance for your help.