Team Reba Real Estate

Our friends, the Copelands, called today to find out what we are doing for the New Year’s Eve celebration tonight.  The last few years we’ve all hung out together but this year is a little different as Mrs. Copeland (ok, Amanda) is pregnant with their first child. Very exciting!  While that leaves Erik with a designated driver for the night we unfortunately hadn’t heard from them the past couple of weeks so we didn’t get to invite them to the private party we’ll be going to this evening.  A good friend is one of 4 hosts (all male) throwing a great bash so I’ll be leaving work shortly to go get ready and put on a fun “gown” for the evening.  It’s actually a 2 piece outfit but it looks like a full length gown of sorts.  Michael will be dolled up in his tuxedo.  He really does look good in one.

Anyhow, the flashback portion of this post refers to Dog-o-ween (yes, the dog version of Halloween).  We’ve attended this charitable howling good time for several years with the Copelands and this year we did a group costume.  I’m sorry to say that we didn’t get our photos all together but here are a few of the shots of our disparate group which was supposed to be the Village People.  We all got on stage for the competition with a boombox blaring out “YMCA!!!!”

  This is our group of dogs: Charlie (cowboy), Daisy (as a cow), and Jake (the Indian).  Married with the sailor, policeman, and construction worker we had a full crew. If I can get PhotoBucket to stop screwing up my size edits I’ll get the others on here in a day or so.

Back to his holiday and a Happy New Year to all!

A writer for RIS Media contacted me a while back to do an email interview.  I’d been told it would likely come out in December/January and I just found a copy of it today at this link.  It’s a good story about how 3 real estate teams are going to handle the coming months as the markets change in our various locations around the USA.  It also touches on how we apply our internet strategy.  I hope you’ll enjoy reading it.

Earlier this month I attended a one week class on Financial Analysis for Commercial Investment Real Estate.  This is the initial course for the CCIM designation program which stands for Certified Commercial Investment Member. The financials covered in this course are similar to taking a graduate level finance class.  It was a fun class for me (Really? Math is fun?) especially as I would have moments where concepts I’ve worked with since getting my license not only clicked but were solidified by my own newly developed skills in being able to run the numbers on my own (learning how to use a HP 10BII was fun!).

For those that have worked with me and my partner in the past, you’ll know that we have a team concept built on division of labor that highlights each of our prior work skill sets.  My background has been in sales, marketing, contract negotiation and management.  Michael came to this line of work with an accounting degree, financial analysis and technology development background.  We married those skills to make a team that could supply a high level of service and capabilities to our clients.  What that also meant was that I frequently leaned on my partner to do the financial analysis piece and then we’d cover the analysis forms together for our clients which many times helped determine the course of how we’d craft transactions.  It was always a bit intimidating for me to leave a piece of important information like this to someone else (yes, I can be a bit on the controlling side) but trust is also a necessary part of doing business together.  Goodness knows in former businesses I’ve been in there was always a bit of this happening as I dealt with lots of technical staff, development and support people.  However, I’ve always prided myself on knowing how things work even if I wasn’t the one developing the product.  In fact, it’s fair to say that I’ve always been a “geek wannabe” of sorts.

So, as I mentioned, it was with glee that I took my first step toward getting this great designation for the real estate world. Only 1% of all agents worldwide have this designation.  Part of it has to do with the complexity of the courses, the number of them, and the amount of time required to take them.  Each course is a week long - so many practitioners don’t feel they can take that much time out of their work schedule - especially if they’re a 1-person show.  Again, I thank my team for being a support for me as I took the class and for handling client issues during the work day while I was out and as I studied each evening.  Once you’ve taken all 4 of the required courses there is a final test that must be taken (usually held in a couple of major US cities each year) and you must submit a “body of work” or portfolio that meets CCIM criteria for volume, dollar amount and analysis complexity along with descriptions of each transaction and how the various concepts from the CCIM classes were applied.

My partner, Michael, has taken 2 of the 4 required courses and he’s slated to take a 3rd course in January. He’ll be closer to getting the designation than I am, since I’ve just started, but considering we work together on all of our investment deals we both get the benefit of anything he does and vice-versa.  I do have to say that I was thrilled to see that in my first course I got the same passing grade that he received - a 96 out of 100.

I look forward to the next class I get to take for this program.  I’ve already been scouring their education class list to see what is offered next although I could take the January class with Michael (if it’s not full) but then we’d both be out for a week and that likely wouldn’t be a fair trade off for us, our clients and our assistant. So, I’ll be looking for a spring or summer course.  In the meantime, I’ll continue adding other skills to my real estate repetoire and I’ll be getting even more friendly with my HP calculator!

I don’t know if it’s better to thank Al Gore for his focus on the planet or if we’ve really come to a place in time where people are starting to ”get it” and becoming more environmentally friendly is starting to truly kick in with the American public. For those folks that didn’t have an environmentally green thumb before there are cities around the country that are providing incentives to get their citizens to consider their imprint on the planet, or as some people like to call it, their carbon footprint.

Washington has its own set of incentives which having just purchased a different home for myself I have recently been getting plugs for their programs which include savings on energy efficient items such as siding, furnaces, windows and more.

If you’ve decided that 2008 is the year that you’ll start implementing eco-friendly and environmentally-friendly changes to your home, you are in good company.  Heck, even NYC has changed the crystal ball that is dropped on New Years to be an LED (light emitting diode) version instead of the incandescent form of the past (the last one was a combo of incandescent and flourescent).

Happy New Year to all!

REALTOR(R) Magazine online has an interesting grouping of smart home technologies (via the link) that are becoming quite popular.  A few of these I am interested in for myself and my own home.  Check them out and perhaps start putting them on your Christmas list for next year since Santa has already come to visit this month….

Insurance/Water Damage info PDFInsurance/Water Damage info PDF

A little while back (Dec 5th) one of our other contributors, Gerald Grinter, wrote this article about what kinds of water damage are/are not covered under typical insurance policies. At the time he was attempting to attach a PDF file that covered in detail some of the questions that are typically asked about various forms of water damage.  I’ve attached the file today (up above) for anyone that is interested in reading it - it was an eye opener for me.

Not only is flooding not typically covered, unless you have specific coverage, but neither are landslides.  I highly recommend everyone take a few minutes to read and learn.

and it’s looking for ugly properties to be the makeover subjects (read article here). Believe me, I’m not saying this is a bad thing but I will be interested to see how well they are able to actually get those property owners to clean up their collective act.  The makeover for the area will certainly help neighboring property values - and goodness knows I’ve dealt first hand with trying to sell a property with the 2 ugliest houses (and their garbage/broken down cars) across the street.  It can make a huge financial difference to the seller of a home to not have neighbors with trash and derelict cars around.

This article from the CIRE Magazine has some excellent ideas and commentary regarding end of year tax strategies for investors. One strategy in particular that I think many smaller sized investors don’t think about or who don’t have a CPA/tax strategist working for them (can you say Turbo Tax?) to recommend is cost segregation.  I’m not saying that this is something that ALL investors can utilize but if you have properties where this strategy could apply it would be in your best interests to check it out and see if it can save you money - because, as my partner, Michael, likes to say - it’s not about how much cash flow your property makes, but how much of it you get to keep that’s important.

This article on MSNBC highlights the results of the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index which states that Seattle and Portland (OR) are in the top 3 of nation in terms of value appreciation for single-family homes; number 1 went to Charlotte, NC.  Granted, we’re the only 3 of the top 20 metro areas that are tracked that had positive appreciation but the fact that we’re positive in prices versus double-digit declining like those harder hit areas such as Miami, San Diego, Phoenix and Detroit is good news for our area.  We continue to have strong jobs and economic growth, much like what they write about for the Charlotte area, which helps to support our local real estate values.

Overall, for a good housing market you typically want a range of appreciation that is 1-3% above inflation which is pretty much where we (Seattle) are now for average appreciation in the area, local markets will always have more specific rates so always do your homework when buying or selling.

We’ve been scurrying around trying to get our recent home purchase squared away with some of the final details of a fairly big renovation project.  No square footage was added but a whole lot of ugly was removed - in particular some not so good carpet color choices.  In it’s place is beautiful maple hardwoods and some walls were removed, a dropped ceiling lifted, and sparkly popcorn ceilings scraped. Lots of painting has been getting done and the final trim areas up in the vaulted living area was finally done over the weekend.  I can thank my partner, Michael, for braving the very tall ladder that was necessary to reach those spaces.  My phobic fear of heights kept me from doing it.

What’s kind of fun is “staging” my house for Christmas.  It’s not really the normal kind of decorating because I don’t have a tree and I can’t find my fake garland or my door wreath so I’m taking some of our staging stuff (including fake plants) and throwing some white lights on it and attempting to make my house look ready to live in.  We still have some work to finish but overall we thinks it’s ready for prime time (ok, pun intended because Michael always makes prime rib for Xmas).

As usual, we’ll be hosting our “chosen family Christmas” celebration where a bunch of friends that either have family far away, or who don’t have much family, or perhaps who want to avoid their family for other reasons, come over and we have a wonderful pot luck meal and hang out for hours chatting, playing games, listening to music, and maybe watching movies.  I’ve been hosting an event like this for coming up on about 15 years now and it’s always fun.  The mix of people is what really makes it great and it certainly helps that everyone is a food and wine lover.

Do I miss seeing my own family at the holidays?  Sure!  But, I’d rather save the money on travel at this time of year, as well as the hassle, and go to see them more often throughout the year or to have funds available to buy nicer gifts.  My guess is that they’d probably like to see me there but with all my siblings having spouses whose family are in the same city, I end up not seeing everyone as much as I would like because of the time split between in-laws and when I do go at other times of the year it makes for easier visits.  Less stress for everyone, which I think is a good thing.

My wish to all of you is that you have a safe and Happy Holiday season. 

Please be safe with “holiday cheer” because we all want to be here for the New Year and in the healthiest possible state we can be in.  My family has learned all to well this year how what you take for granted can be taken from you in an instant.

Many blessings to everyone!