| Landlord 101 by: Tamara Simon, Owner of Koss Property Management and a licensed Real Estate Broker since 1983. |
| Thursday, September 6, 2007
Location |
Just a test of the author links.
Virtual flyers (vFlyers), they clog my inbox every day, and what for? Do the listing agents that use them really think that if I’ve got a client that fits the parameters of their property for sale that I somehow missed it when searching the NWMLS? While it might look pretty, and maybe it impresses a seller, it really is like SPAM to me.
The way I see it, is if I have done a good job of qualifying my client’s needs and wants then I am already going to have search criteria set up that looks specifically for the property they are interested in buying. Furthermore, when we get through the initial crowd of possibilities and also look at the daily “new listings” we’ll get, at some point if we haven’t found something in a few weeks, to where I’ll start doing more creative type searches. These rarely, if ever, include looking at email like these.
About the only way a vFlyer might get my attention other than to delete it would be if a property suddenly dropped into my client’s price range when it hadn’t been before. Even then an agent will only have a few seconds to capture my attention – so those flyers that have the agent’s info splashed all over it and one photo of the property are almost always discarded immediately. Oh, agent, why are you promoting yourself to your competition? Why don’t you save your personal marketing for the consumer and use your selling skills for me and my clients?
One exception – I get when commercial agents use these because a lot of commercial buildings don’t go on a typical MLS type of system. If you’re a residential agent think about who your target audience is and why you are contacting them. It will improve your marketing and selling skills just by doing this simple thing.
Coming soon – the 24th Annual Feast at the Market benefit!!!! A “who’s who” list of fantastic restaurants downtown will be serving up fantastic plates of food and you won’t want to miss it.
In my mailbox today was a notice for the annual event that includes a majority of the fine eateries located down at Pike Place Market. The event will be held on October 2nd, starting around 5:30pm. Info can be found at www.pikemed.org/feast along with a list of the restaurants and other details.
The event is to benefit the Pike Market Medical Clinic, which provides healthcare to low-income and uninsured people in the core Seattle area. Being self-employed and knowing the high cost of medical care personally, it’s important to be sure for the community that those who can least afford it can still have access to good care.
A short list of some participating restaurants:
Cafe’ Campagne
Chez Shea
Etta’s
Matt’s in the Market
The Pink Door
Il Bistro
Place Pigalle
Typhoon
My partner, Michael, got a nice call today from one of our investment clients. A couple of years ago we helped him and his wife out in buying an 8-plex building in the south end. Ok, maybe Renton isn’t too “south end” but it’s south enough for us here in Seattle.
Some of the good news he was sharing with us was that the building is almost completely remodeled and he’s down to only one more unit. What’s been interesting for him is that the tenant in that last unit has been getting his rent increased regularly (he’s on a month-to-month lease) but apparently it hasn’t been enough to cause him to move just yet. Rents are up in the building from around $550 a unit to $700 per unit in just the last 2 years.
Granted, there were some initial surprises – they found out one tenant had been accumulating stolen cars on the property site. This was discovered when the police broke down this tenant’s door and hauled him off to jail. Guess that meant they didn’t have to go through an eviction process on that guy. 
With the raising of rents and the improved condition of the property we are very certain that this property has also gone up considerably in value. All good news for these clients. Buying the property in a distressed condition was a purposeful move on our client’s part and was calculated into the overall cost of acquisition for the property so we expect the analysis we did at the time of purchase proved well for them.
We’re always happy to hear when our clients are making more money on a property we helped to sell to them. Congrats to this client and best wishes for many more years of profits to you!!!
So, over on Rain City Guide where I also do some writing there is a hailstorm of commentary going on about my article referencing Eric’s post on Countrywide. Personally, and for my own reasons that can be my own and don’t need to be posted for everyone’s consideration, I am not freaked out by what is happening at Countrywide. In fact, I decided to buy some of their stock instead. But, due to the interesting commentary coming from my post on RCG I thought I’d do some more research and subsequently found this very interesting Reuters story about GreenPoint Mortgage. I can’t stand this company personally because of how I’ve seen them treat consumers throughout the years frequently gouging them at the end of a transaction and at a time where a consumer was most vulnerable to the tactic. For your review below is the Reuters article I found:
ReutersWRAPUP 3-Capital One slashes jobs, mortgage industry swoons
(Adds details in paragraphs 2-3, Capital One CEO comment)
By Dan Wilchins
NEW YORK, Aug 20 (Reuters) – The U.S. mortgage industry took another battering on Monday, as Capital One Financial Corp said it will shut a lending unit it bought less than a year ago, while two mortgage companies took steps to bolster liquidity as losses piled up.
Capital One, best known as a credit card issuer, said it will cut 1,900 jobs and take $860 million in charges as it closes its GreenPoint Mortgage unit, which it acquired last December when it paid $13.2 billion for North Fork Bancorp Inc.
McLean, Virginia-based Capital One plans to close GreenPoint’s headquarters in Novato, California as well as 31 offices in 19 states, and will stop offering mortgages through brokers.
It also cut its 2007 profit forecast to $5.00 per share from $7.15.
“GreenPoint has run into unforeseen challenges that are beyond its control,” Capital One Chief Executive Richard Fairbank said in a memo to employees, adding the closure “is the function of an unprecedented set of market circumstances.”
GreenPoint has specialized in “Alt-A” mortgages, which often go to people who do not qualify for “prime” mortgages or cannot fully document income or assets.
Capital One shares closed down 3 percent at $66.72 on the New York Stock Exchange. They fell an additional 2.4 percent to $65.08 in extended trading after Capital One’s announcement.
Not long ago my team was in the process of selling a condo down in the Renton valley area in a pretty popular condo development. At the time, we were competing with about 3-5 similar condos plus there were other townhome style units for sale as well in the same complex. Since the community had a place for a single sales sign and a few flyer boxes at the entrance to the community we tried to use that first in our work to sell the client’s property. Because there were more units for sale than flyer boxes it turned into a battle over who could usurp another person’s flyers to get attention of buyers looking in the boxes including people taking out another person’s flyers and supplanting them with their own. We had to ask our client to regularly check the boxes to make sure his flyers were showing up and not taken out or covered up.
After a while I tried to get a little creative and I started thinking about how we could get a sign and a flyer box away from the competition. The result was that we put a sign closer out to the main road that passed by this development. That worked for a while, but lo and behold, at some point my assistant drove by the property one day to check our flyer box contents and the whole yard arm and sign was gone!!!! Where o’ where could it be? For now, we are stumped.
My first thought was that the City of Renton may have decided we couldn’t have the sign near or on the public R.O.W. and they took it down. But, in researching it they don’t have any (pardon the pun) sign of it in the place that they would put a confiscated sign. We also called the sign company (Sign Pros) to see if perhaps they had been called to take it down – no such luck, they hadn’t been called. So, now we’re wondering who would care to take a Team Reba sign? They are custom designed (and paid for) so perhaps the thief doesn’t realize the financial pain they inflict on a small business owner by stealing something such as this.
If anyone happens to see our sign around, please do let me know so we can reclaim it.
I hope that you are enjoying your summer so far. I was out of town for a few days on a fishing trip to Canada when a bunch of news reports hit the air this week. The fishing was great and Countrywide is just fine. And that’s no fish story.
News about the current state of the mortgage industry can be unsettling for those of us who make our living in this business. This challenging time has brought about greater than usual media coverage of our sector, including coverage about Countrywide.
With all the information that’s being distributed, I wanted to take a moment to personally update you on what’s going on at Countrywide.
<!We have supplemented our existing liquidity options by infusing an additional $11.5 billion in to our operation through a syndicate of 40 of the world’s largest banks. More than 70 percent of this facility has an existing term or greater than four years.
<!We announced that our strategy to fund a significant portion of loans through Countrywide Bank, which has approximately $107 Billion in assets. Today, we fund approximately 70 percent of our loans through Countrywide Bank, and expect that nearly all of our loan volume will be funded through the bank by the end of September.
WWe expect that approximately 90 percent of the loans we originate will be eligible for funding through Countrywide Bank or the Government Sponsored Entities (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac).
JuJust this week, we increased our product options for fully documented Jumbo loans.
I want to let you know that while this industry turmoil may continue for some time, Countrywide is here to assist you and meet your home loan needs.
While the current industry news can be unsettling, know that I am here, backed by Countrywide, to meet your mortgage lending needs.
So get back to enjoying your summer, and please feel free to contact me if I can answer any questions.
Well, we’d heard about it before but we weren’t sure if it would get approved. Seattle’s Smith Tower, an icon of the city with its copper elevators, is going condo. The landmark will have the zoning for it change from office building to condominium and chances are good they won’t be your typical condo conversion since the article in the Seattle Times notes, “a prevailing number of them were swayed by a desire to have more upscale residences in Pioneer Square.” “Them” being the folks at the Pioneer Square Preservation Board. An article is also posted in the online version of Seattle PI from back in July.
It will be a while till the conversion is even started but in the meantime we’re wondering what the means for the couple that have been living in the top 3 stories of the tower – yes, that pointed top of the building has been an apartment that has even been highlighted in several home magazines over the years. You have to scroll down on this link to photos of the architect’s (Castanes Architects) work.
I wonder how the neighbors at Union Gospel Mission will view the direct comparison of poverty to prestige. Perhaps it will bring a new flood of donations due to increased visibility. We can hope.
To beat the fall and winter rush of getting your furnace serviced, and to find out early if you have any furnace problems, you should put this on your “to-do” or “honey-do” list in the next month. You don’t want to get caught on one of those rare really cold days without a working furnace – particularly if you don’t have an alternate form of heating such as a gas or wood burning fireplace or a wood stove to get you through.
We have a furnace guy we’ve used for years listed at: http://teamreba.com/resourcecenter.htm#heatingCooling
One short term method I used back when I had this unfortunate cold situation happen to me was to boil water on the stove. The moist, heated air helped raise the temperature in my 1-story house from 55 to 74 degrees while I waited for a repairman to show up. Oh, and that brings up another suggestion… check the battery in your digital thermostat – I was a big dork and that was my minor problem that I paid $100 to find out – the battery had died. Put this battery swap-out on your list with Daylight Saving’s when you change the batteries on your smoke detectors.