real estate 2 - Crossland Real Estate

What Does it Take to Succeed as a Realtor?

I was at the TAR (Texas Association of Realtors) Winter Meetings in Austin yesterday. One of the events I dropped in on was the Professional Development Open Forum. It was announced at the forum that the Texas Association of Realtors is going to start providing a pre-license course for those thinking of obtaining a real estate license in Texas.

The course will provide an opportunity for those thinking of becoming a Realtor to get the straight skinny on what being a Realtor in Texas is really all about. This way, before you waste a bunch of money taking classes that don’t really teach you anything useful about succeeding as a Realtor in Texas (but which are required before you can obtain a Texas Real Estate License), you can decide if you’re willing to do what it takes to thrive in this profession.

This idea is a result of complaints from Texas Brokers about the the fact that most newly minted real estate agents are fairly clueless about and unprepared for the real estate career they just entered into. The state-required classes that are mandatory to become a real estate agent do not prepare one to become a successful practitioner. Those classes are designed to help you pass the real estate exam, that’s it. Your ability to pass the Texas real estate exam does not at all correlate with the actual skills and attributes needed to be a successful Realtor. In fact, few, if any, newly minted real estate agents are ready and able to write up a mistake-free sales contract, or even properly explain the real life implications of each paragraph of a standard contract.

This pre-license education makes sense to me. If was the instructor, I’d make sure those contemplating real estate as a career know about the extremely high failure rate and why the failure rate is so high. I’d make sure they know the truth about what “business” you are really thinking about entering. (hint: it’s not really a “real estate” business). And I’d make sure you understand the harsh financial realities of being self-employed with a highly unpredictable monthly income stream.Let’s see what it takes to become successful Realtor.

what does it take to succeed as a Realtor ?

Austin office market back to pre-recession levels

by Steve Crossland

This from the Austin Business Journal today, Austin office market back to pre-recession levels. Let’s review a few snippets from the news article.

The Austin office market saw a trifecta of positive developments in the third quarter with a dramatic boost in absorption, decrease in sublease and large corporate move-ins. The shift is the best the local office market has seen since the recession began, according to Oxford Commercial’s latest quarterly report released Wednesday.

“I think you can now say that we’ve turned the darkest corner and have a stabilized market that has signs of further improving into the next two quarters,” Oxford Partner Kevin Kimbrough said.

Read the full story for more positive data points.

What does this commercial real estate news mean for the residential home sales market?

More than you might think.

Will Web 2.0 Render the Full Service Real Estate Agent Obsolete?

by Steve Crossland

I just wrapped up 5 days at SXSW Interactive. It was a fantastic conference with many great workshops, panels and discussion events related to technology, business, the internet and social networking. Much of it was relevant to the real estate business and small business in general, which surprised me.In fact, I attended two discussion workshops dedicated to real estate.

The first was “Making the Move from California to Austin“. Lots of good interaction, insight and questions regarding the differences between the larger California cities (the Bay Area in particular) and Austin. There were many Californians in attendance and it was fun to hear why so many feel drawn to make the move to Austin. I could say more, but that’s not the topic of this article.

The other real estate related event I attended was titled “Can Web 2.0 Kill the Real Estate Industry?“. This one surprised me because I actually got pretty worked up and steamed at how completely uniformed those are who dismiss the real estate agent as an obsolete, useless tour/taxi driver. It’s extremely irritating to listen to people who don’t know what they don’t know speak as if they know everything.

Interestingly, the folks in the audience who had actually purchased or sold a home recently defended real estate agents and said they greatly valued the services received. This sentiment is reflected in the internal surveys we sent our own clients after the close of each sale, which uniformly rate the experience as a very good one (whoa, I need to update that page on our site!).

Anyway, the discussion that took place stirred up some thoughts regarding my profession, what we do and how we are paid, and how the internet has changed things. Since I wasn’t able to fully make my points in a couple of short soundbites during the open discussion, I’m going to expand on my thoughts here.

So, with almost all MLS listings online and so much information available to real estate consumers nowadays, why is it that an agent is still needed? Why can’t we just be replaced by the internet? And, as one grouchy know-it-all complained about repeatedly, why should the listing data be controlled and disseminated only through private MLS Associations with strict rules on how the data is used and displayed online? Why isn’t all this MLS listing data free for the public to see and use?

I’m going to answer those questions, and others, by starting at the beginning – with the Seller.

Everything Begins With the Seller

Let’s say that Ms. Home Owner is happily living in Austin TX, working in an industry she loves, doing well, and one day she gets an unexpected job offer that will require her relocation out of state. The offer is too good to pass up, so she makes plans to move in two weeks and sell her house.

Why I Don’t Like “Book Rate” Repair Vendors

by Steve Crossland

My long time appliance repairman John at Austin Appliance informed me today that he’s only coming into Austin once a week now, and will eventually stop serving Austin altogether. He lives in Spicewood and mainly works Marble Falls now.

Darn it. My veteran vendor team people keep getting older and retiring on me. John’s also working now as a fishing guide on Lake LBJ. Sounds better than fixing dishwashers and refrigerators I must admit. I’ve use him since the early 1990s, and I hate to lose a trusted service call vendor.

So today I put my feelers out for a new appliance company or person. I’ve had many good recommendations already but the problem I keep running into is the pricing structure that seems to be more prevalent now than it was 10+ years ago. It seems most service companies nowadays want to bill a service charge just for showing up, usually $50 to $92, then, once there, they want to quote a price based on the “book rate” of the repair, and then do the job only after the price is approved.

That doesn’t cut it for me. I don’t use “book rate” vendors because book rate pricing is a poor value for my property management owners. It’s inefficient and expensive, two things I despise. Maybe for Joe or Jane Homeowner who only need a service call once every few years, it’s not such a bad deal. You know the cost before the work is started and exactly what will be done. But I can’t operate a property management business under that pricing scheme. Instead, I need my guy to show up, fix the problem, and bill me a fair rate for time plus materials. I’m not worried about getting ripped off because, after nearly 20 years of managing and fixing rentals, I know what it should cost to fix things.

Here’s why my way is better and why I don’t use book rate people.

Study Finds 20 Percent of Mortgage Underwater – I say so what?

by Steve Crossland

From my Realtor email newsletter today:

Nearly 20 percent of home owners owe more on their homes than their properties are worth, finds a new study by First American CoreLogic. About 8.31 million properties were underwater at the end of 2008, up 9 percent from 7.63 million at the end of September. Corelogic predicts about 2.16 million properties will be underwater if home prices fall another 5 percent. The problem is the worst in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Ohio.

Nationwide, 68 percent of U.S. adults own their own homes, and about two-thirds have mortgages.
Source: Reuters News (03/04/2009)

So what? Being underwater is not the same as not being able to make the payment. You know, we keep hearing politicians and talking heads and consumer advocates using the term “under water”, as if this is something new and to be avoided.

The truth is, most people are under water on just about everything in life, and there has never been the sort of outcry about it that we now hear. Under water on their new car 2 minutes after they drive it off the lot. Under water on just about everything they purchase, including new furniture, clothing, boats, vehicles, computers, TVs, video games, etc. – all loaded up on the credit card.

Where is the bailout plan to cram down those 7 year auto loans so people are not “under water” on the car? Hmm?

Austin Real Estate Market Update – Oct 2008 Sales

by Steve Crossland

The number of residential single family home sales in Austin took a 28% dip for Oct 2008 compared to a year ago. The number of “Not Solds” (expired or withdrawn) took a big jump also, to 59% of all listings that departed the Austin MLS in October. These are grim numbers, but the remaining metrics that we track are again holding up pretty well nonetheless. In short, fewer homes are selling, but the ones that do sell are fetching prices near or or above last year’s sales. Most sales currently are for homes selling below $200K.

Let’s look at the breakdown:

• Number of homes sold is down 28% (was down 14% last month) from 1,717 Oct 2007 to 1,227 Oct 2008. Last month (Sept) saw a decrease in the slowing of sales, but this month (Oct) headed back the other way again. I think the remainder of this year is going to be very slow as well.
• Average list prices in Austin were up 1.16% over the same month last year to $259,128.
• Average sold prices in Austin were down 0.29% over the same month last year to $247,687.
• Median sold price was up 5.46% to $195,000.
• Average List to Sold price ratio is 95.58%, down from 96.42% the same month last year.
• Avg sold price per square foot is down 2.13% to $115 compared to $117 a year ago in October.
• Avg days on market is up 4 days (6.15%) from 65 last year to 69 this October.
• Median days on market is up 7 days (16%) from 43 days last year to 50 this year.
• Number of “Not Sold” (exp or withdrawn) is up 29% over the same month last year, to 59% of all removed listings compared to 46% for the same month last year.

The stats outlined above are shown in the chart below.

Austin Real Estate Sales Market Update October 2008
Homes only (condos, duplexes, etc. not included) compiled from Austin MLS data
	Sep 2008	Oct 2008	Oct 2007	Yr % Change
# Sold	1512	1227	1717	-28.54%
Avg List	$257,761	$259,128	$256,148	1.16%
Med List	$189,900	$199,900	$189,900	5.27%
Avg Sold	$248,026	$247,687	$246,978	0.29%
Med Sold	$185,000	$195,000	$184,900	5.46%
Sold/List %	96.22%	95.58%	96.42%	-0.87%
Avg SQFT	2131	2156	2104	2.47%
Med SQFT	1924	1986	1919	3.49%
Avg $ SQFT	$116.39	$114.88	$117.38	-2.13%
Avg DOM	67	69	65	6.15%
Median DOM	48	50	43	16.28%
# Expired	797	666	628	6.05%
# Withdrawn	891	1070	806	32.75%
Not Sold	1688	1736	1434	21.06%
Not Sold %	52.75%	58.59%	45.51%	28.74%

The Year-to-Date figures through Oct 2008 tell a similar story, though less pronounced than Oct. See the chart below:

What Does it Take to Succeed as a Realtor?

Austin office market back to pre-recession levels

Will Web 2.0 Render the Full Service Real Estate Agent Obsolete?

Why I Don’t Like “Book Rate” Repair Vendors

Study Finds 20 Percent of Mortgage Underwater – I say so what?

Austin Real Estate Market Update – Oct 2008 Sales

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