We ate too much!!!! We had great fellowship!! We were also reminded the camera images are not the same as being with the grand babies! Since they are scattered over three states, it’s a bit hard to be with them all anyway. Overall we felt really blessed! We pray that was your Thanksgiving experience also.
As I prepared to begin writing this, Fox was headlining that the Phoenix market was in the middle of rebounding. My ears perked up and I paused to listen to the story. Turns out some big English developer and a few other such entities had bought some downtown high rise condos in Phoenix and Scottsdale that have been setting for the last couple of years and completed them. They had done their market launch and sold a featured building out at half the price of what it had been introduced to the market for a few years back.
All of us like to hear stories that provide encouragement that the real estate market is moving in the right direction but they aren’t much use if they are just hype. I had to chuckle a bit in this case and wonder how these promoters got this on national news. Realistically a few hundred condo units in the highly specialized high rise market doesn’t impact the Valley market! As I was waiting for our MLS system to load on the computer yesterday, I checked the number of active listings in the valley: still over 38,000.
This little news story couples with other experiences of the past few days to urge me to write this caveat. Be wise—wise as a servant; gentle as a dove the Bible says! We need to carefully filter and analyze the information we are presented with so we can react in an intelligent and wise way. Certainly in this period of political turmoil and campaigns, that statement seems a “no brainier”. Can you beleive that twelve of our elected representatives played such ridiculous partisan politics that they did put differences aside and come up with a realistic agreement to cut our outrageous national debt. Their actions further jeopardized our weak economic situation. Present administration insists on the Keynesian model of economics that all but a few die-hard followers finally labeled as way to risky way back the last time Jimmy Carter ran it up the flagpole in the 80’s with such disastrous results. We survived that last experiment. Many smaller, weaker economies that tried it world-wide completely collapsed!
The last paragraph to say, the politics going on now will affect you. Get yourself educated as to what these clowns are doing with your tax dollars and your country. When you see a politician acting in their interest or their lobbyist interest instead of the nation’s interest; vote them out! Put someone like Cody Cardon, running to fill Kyl’s Senate seat, in place. Give him a chance to see if his talk matches his walk!
Another set of experiences occurred in the same general vein. Friends and clients are getting ready to purchase a home, so we started the “hunt.” I set them up with an auto search. I also helped them to understand the IDX feature which allowed me to create a link on my website where they can do their own searches. They love this as it gives them full access to the information and pictures for each listing. We had a couple of “flips” on yesterday’s tour. The pictures were dynamite! As we all “oooed and awed” our way through, my friends obviously began placing themselves in the home. They are great cooks—at one point even operated a catering service! The shiny new stainless in the kitchen looked so inviting! Check out the size of the oven! Open the new dishwasher to see how many racks and sprayers it has! Woops!!! The dishwasher is too close to the corner so that it hits the handle on the oven and won’t open! Granite tops, fancy stainless appliances and whoever is installing them does not have the experience, concern, or presence of mind to know that dishwasher has to have at least a 3” spacer out of the corner for clearance? Will the ultimate buyer be wise enough to catch it and get the seller to go back and do their job right???
There were several homes in between, one with scary stuff growing under a vanity sink! One home looked pretty average in the pictures but had a couple of really cool features—surprise, the pictures were misleading in a positive way!! Then ironically, the last one on the drive list had been the “gotta see” for the day. Granite, stainless, a pool, a Jacuzzi.etc. Excitement built. Again, it went down the kitchen drain! Expensive replacement cabinet hardware kept the cool roll out base cabinet shelves from working. Above the really cool combo convection flat top was the expected built in microwave. Are you kidding???? It sets in the cabinets in such a way that it can’t open!!! Then there is the brand new French door set in an “out of square” opening. No worries—take the ramset and fire several shots, leaving ugly fastener heads and a door that still binds! The topper was the master suite and its beautiful bath added to the old home! Jacuzzi, double vanity sinks, cool tile! A peak in the vanities shows no plumbing! The listing sheet declares “Sold AS IS.”
Then there was the reverse situation. My bud had bought a home and cosmetically dolled it all up. It sold quickly. Mr. Home Inspector had come out and his little “canned computer” program spit out all kinds of ominous warnings so Mr. Uneducated Client would think he had a real advocate on his side. I got an acrimonious email from a like kind agent telling me they would move ahead if the Seller was willing to fix the deficiencies in this “un-safe and non code compliant home.” The agent had a million reasons why she and her client could not do a “face to face.” Finally when she took a breath and agreed to talk to us, the Seller explained that the items listed were code-compliant from grandfather status. He explained that most of us who knew the problems with the outside ground faults which lobbyists had forced down our throats were smart enough to not use an outside plug in a rain storm. The constant tripping and device failure to protect idiots that do is not a good trade for those who can choose. On the other hand, a couple of legitimate items were caught and gladly corrected.
We realize we are in challenging times but we are also in times of great opportunity. Be wise! Grow past a maturity where you hear someone’s sound bite and fear mongering or view their carefully framed picture as a basis for life changing decisions. This applies from politics to real estate! There are sharks out there pushing “smelly stuff.” Wisdom will steer you around them! Be wise! Do your home work! Dig to find the real answer! Work with trustworthy, experienced people, like Lamplighter, and move yourself forward to wisely and successfully mine today’s opportunities.
Learn about Lamplighter Realty, Lamplighter Financial, and Distressed Property Academy at callgene4realestate.com. Watch for revisions of his new web-site as well as the opportunity to receive these articles to your email if you choose. For your real estate needs, call Gene’s message center for Lamplighter Realty 866-931-4684 or dash off an email to him at gene@lamplighteraz.com. God Bless!
