Some Dollhouses Can't Be Found At Toy's R Us

My name means 'little girl' in Italian.

Like most young ladies in my day, I had the standard dollhouse on the left to play with.  Furniture, little plastic figurines.  I added my own touches with odds & ends that I collected from gumball machines.  My fav was the little hot dog...not exactly to scale but I didn't care.

In spite of my shoes, I'm not much taller today than I was back then.  The daughter of one of my clients told her parents to send her picture to the 'little girl that looks like a big

girl'...that was a first for me.  I kind of liked it.   I may be on the petite side still but my dollhouses are bigger these days.

I am hoping to list one in the next week or so. Every listing isn't eligible to be a dollhouse.  Not even all MY listings are dollhouses.  They are unique, hard to find properties that bring out the 'little girl' in this agent.   Properties that I make me feel like staying. Every square foot is utilized to it's utmost potential!  The furniture and dishes are eclectic, pillows you can't help but pick up and look at, a listing to linger in. 

You schedule a showing and arrive earlier than your buyer so you can walk through and look around some more. You just LIKE being there.  (NO, I don't riffle through the closets and dresser drawers...not that kind of behavior - I PROMISE).   A home that FITS, regardless of the size or style makes me say..."I would buy this house".   They come in

all sizes just like the dollhouses of my childhood.  Some are bungalows, some are mansions.  Remember Barbies Dream House?  I eventually upgraded from my tin version to her two story mansion with elevator.   I loved them both.  CLASSICS.

Dollhouses are rare finds today.  Too many short sales and foreclosures on the market.  Deferred maintenance on one hand or 'flipped' properties that all have the same flooring, paint colors and fixtures on the other.  No creativity.   Yes, I knoooow they are safe and sale-able, but they lack imagination.  They don't get much more than a casual nod on the Tuesday Morning Mandatory Tour.  I enjoy listings that make the wheels in  Ms. So and So Agent's pea brain start turning.  I can see it in her face!  She is wondering how I got this listing, and who

My buyer HAD to have this DOLLHOUSE

can she sell it to so she can have a piece of my dollhouse.  I understand, I am closing on one this week.  I have the buyer, not my listing.  But I LOVED the dollhouse - so I simply HAD TO $ELL IT!  At least five different buyers heard me say..."I have the best house!  You have to see it!  It's a DOLLHOUSE!"  Eventually, someone agreed with me.  Mark it sold.

Flocking through the house like a gaggle of geese, clucking and squawking!  Inevitably one will say, "I have someone for this...".  Then it's...'Isn't this Mr. or Ms. So and So's house...didn't Mr. or Ms. So and So used to live here?  Everyone wants to play in my dollhouse.  

Of course, some will ask...'Wasn't this listed with Mr. Discount Broker?'  They will make noises about the price, try to disqualify it in some way.  I know the deal.

Kiss my grits.  I'm getting paid on this one, and we all know it!

I'm Frightened Auntie Em!

I love scary.

I was raised on the undead.  Drive-in movies with the latest Vincent Price offering! Vintage Bela Lugosi on Saturday afternoon television. Lets not leave out the Saturday matinee movie remakes of Edgar Allen Poe - I could quote Poe at 8.  No clue what it meant but it sounded creepy and my mom liked it, so I quoted.  Poe is lost amongst the Freddie Kruger and Michael Meyers youth of the world today.

Poe spent 13 months in the low country on Sullivan’s Island – the island  had quite an effect on him; providing the setting for at least three of his stories: “The Gold Bug,” “The Balloon Hoax” and “The Oblong Box.”  I bet I could go around this office and not one agent would know Poe had ever resided in South Carolina. If it ain't Carolina or Clemson, it don't matter. 

I bring up scary to address the loss of a $599,900 sale.  A seven thousand sq ft, 6 BR 6 BA chunky slice of commi$$ion that should have been mine.  The buyers contacted me about previewing the home when they were planning a trip from Atlanta, they asked the right questions.  I scrambled around printing disclosures and looking up lot lines.  You name it.  Spent a week setting up the showing, chasing hard to reach sellers and listing agent. Then at 9:30 pm; the night before their arrival, they email they have changed their mind.  So sorry, we checked the crime stats.  We are scared to live in Orangeburg.  Seriously?

Try and find THIS in New York City!

The year is 2013 - the world is at your fingertips via the Internet and yet you send someone dancing around for a week and THEN check for community stats?

I sat there and GOOGLED so I could see what they saw.  Yup.
There is was. In all its black and white and 'It's on the Internet so it must be true' glory. Gorey glory.  I so scared glory.  You can compare Orangeburg to New York City if you want...the website will show you are safer in New York City, Los Angeles, even Washington DC than Orangeburg, SC.  Not Boston though, no one is safe in Boston.

People, you have to take into account what crimes are being committed, and well hello...apples to apples.

I tell my clients straight up whats going on in the Burg.  Theft/burglaries. Vandalism of vacant properties and HVAC thefts stack the numbers against us. Check out earlier BLOG regarding all that. Nothing new here.

Friendly Kwest Mortg candy giver

No shock, no surprises.
Try and find a lender like sweet Ms. Caroline in D.C., Los Angeles or New York we so special City.  She brings us candy (makes an awesome loan for our buyers too).  You can weigh the risk vs the benefits;  CRIME FREE ATLANTA as opposed to small town living where your neighbor will call you on your cell phone while you're picking up milk at the Piggly Wiggly cause they see someone suspicious just knocked on your front door.  To which you can reply 'just call Jeff' (local police officer who just happens to also have his number logged into every cellphone in the Burg).

The reality of the whole crime scenario dawned on me the other night while watching the updated version of Fright Night. I can't believe it didn't occur to me before.  Our company has a serious problem with missing signs.  Been going on for years.  The final scene in the movie where the vampire is killed was the revelation!  The vamp is killed by a Century 21 sign! Stabbed right through his cold non-beating heart.

Countless missing signs = how many DEAD VAMPS?

Dare we ask how many of these vandalized homes were actually the scene of our valiant, vigilante VAMP killers taking back our community from ruthless blood suckers?

What better use for a Century 21 sign?

There you have it.  Orangeburg in all its gorey glory.  CRIME?  We got it under control. Our company will suck up (no pun intended) the expense to keep you safe.  Gladly sacrifice our brand to cleanse our community.

Don't let those deceptive stats scare you away if you are looking for a close knit community with excellent home values.

Poe was inspired by South Carolina...works for me too.

Is Your Television Looking For A New Home?

It is our responsibility to educate our clients.

Potential buyers call with the understanding that we will provide assistance in the selection and purchase of a home.  The expectation is to address what types of homes are available at a particular price point, financing, amenities, negotiations and marketing trends.

Sadly, just as teachers in today's society are required to teach behavioral modification and social skills when parents are negligent in the home, as parents push to obligate schools to build a faith in God within their children rather than instill it in the home, REALTORS are finding they have to educate their buyers on the importance of defining and establishing core values.   If they don't already have them, or you are unable to help them define some, the home buying process will become a long, tiresome, and probably unsuccessful endeavor.

E.F. Schumacherm said:  "I'm not at all contemptuous of comforts, but they have their place and it is not first."

 I go over as many of those key areas at the first opportunity (makes the home selection process so much easier), buyer presentation folders and stats on hand at  first contact.  Inevitably, after the first home preview and 'so and so said we should...',  their character comes shining through.  Priorities come to light following a consistent trend with home buyers that I find dismaying.  The best value, location and condition will slam

 up against a brick wall when a suitable spot is not readily available for the almighty television set!

The property is everything they asked for and were dreaming of.  I knew, like I knew, like I knew...this would be the house.  Incredibly the wheels screech to a stop when the husband turns full circle and says...'But where will we put the tv?'   And the conversation goes on to the size...the GLORIOUS SIZE of this technological beast... (manhood issues?)  Seriously!  This is NEVER brought up by  single women buyers (theirs run along another vein entirely).  But, couples and single men inevitably bring up the television set.  And to allow (charming and alluring as she is) the tv to influence such a critical choice is beyond me.  Are they unable to grasp the concept of value?  The price of a home to a television set?  Seriously gentlemen, bigger is not always better.

One man's television set is another man's fire pit.  The recent sale of one of my listings by another agent was hinged on a fire pit.  Mr. So and So Agent had already addressed the placement of the television (fortunately my seller displayed his own formidable set) and he was able to sail past that road block.  Apparently for this buyer, the deal breaker was his FIRE PIT!  There must be a suitable spot for the FIRE PIT.  Even with four acres, a party house and screen porch, large deck, workshop, swimming pool, the FIRE PIT took precedence.  They have one child and another on the way, I don't know if schools were mentioned?  My commission - i.e. mortgage payment off a $284,000 listing was held hostage by a FIRE PIT?  Fortunately, they discovered  it would place nicely on the expansive deck.

I will not leave you with the impression that I am a sanctimonious cow.  That I feel myself above the behavior

KNOWN AS 'THE ARK'

of today's home buyer.  I have fallen prey to the god of things as well.
I found a waterbed at a yard sale about 25 years ago and absolutely HAD TO HAVE IT!  Nothing would do but I have that bed...it was BIG, and GRAND.  And somebody slap me...a waterbed.  With a canopy and mirrors.  My own BEAST!  We had to re beam the floor (kitchen ceiling) to hold the weight of it in all its glory.  Which in turn necessitated the remodeling of the kitchen after we tore out the ceiling.  I have to say the end results were truly lovely.  I enjoyed the finished kitchen exactly 6 weeks before my husband lost his job and we were relocated to South Carolina.  Hence my new found wisdom in the elusive value in things, (it sprang a leak soon after it's relocation to The South and was replaced by a more traditional model). No water, canopies or mirrors.

What does this say about us ladies?  Our priorities lie elsewhere...no pun intended!

Sorry, no new home until we shovel all the BULLSHIT out (you can live out of boxes, right?)

I have said it before, I am saying it now.

If it looks like BULLSHIT, smells like BULLSHIT...I don't need to taste it to verify that it is BULLSHIT.

Real estate is a BULLSHIT business.  It is tossed, thrown and hidden from the unsuspecting every day.

YES, I am a tad TICKED OFF!   I called BULLSHIT weeks ago...and oh yes...it is BULLSHIT still today.  Buyers and sellers should never be jerked around over dotting an i, crossing a T, a misplaced email or fax.  Running from their jobs to rework addendum after addendum, sign and fax paperwork two, three and four times before some 'assistant' says 'oh, HERE it is'...duh

At some point (which should be ALL THE TIME).  The real estate deal should be about the BUYERS AND SELLERS.  Not the lenders, not the attorney, nor the REALTORS.

It is time for the clients to pick up the UGLY STICK and start whacking at the lenders, appraisers and inspectors.  Yes, even the real estate agents.  It's coming.  Mark my words.  They have HAD ENOUGH

BULLSHIT.

I am going on record...right now, ...and offer a clear forecast so you can put on your boots and CYA.  The BULLSHIT is coming to and end!!!  Buyers and seller have been strung out, strung along and strung up for so long the entire home buying process is about to transition from BULLSHIT to a SHIT STORM.

I don't have the patience for BULLSHIT and I am going to start rousing the rabble to march in the streets, order a review and QUESTION, QUESTION, QUESTION...the status quo  that has become BULLSHIT!

It is time to get to work and actually WORK.  Stop pushing the BULLSHIT button.   It's been played one too many times.

John Q. Public is looking a bit closer at your credentials (?)

Taking Your Personal Fantasy To Personal Branding

The world of real estate offers the opportunity for real estate agents to 'recreate' themselves.  We can live out our fantasies, create an image of how we want the public to view us, market the crap out of it, call it personal branding and before you know it, you ARE it!

Goodwill 'Dorothy' Shoes

Want to work your life away in shorts and a T-shirt?  Sell ONE house on the lake.  Then identify yourself as the 'lake' man (or woman-though I think I would come up with something else if I went that route) put on some shorts, take a couple photos of your fine self smiling on a boat (a couple of nice fish on line)  - send out some post cards sporting a creative tag line.  Then USE IT, USE IT, USE IT.  Before you know it - THEY will be using it. Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public will only know you as 'The Lake Guy'.  No one will raise an eyebrow when you show up at a closing smiling in shorts.  I promise.  Seen it all over Chapin, SC when I worked relocation in that market.   Just make certain there are enough properties ON the lake (or your chosen market) that are sell able so you can actually make a living doing that.  (and know HOW to fish)

I started about 7 years ago sending out monthly newsletters to my neighborhood.  Called myself 'Your Neighborhood REALTOR'.  But guess what?  I actually lived in the neighborhood.  Walked by their houses EVERY day, attended their yard sales, they saw me mowing my own lawn.  I don't market myself as the neighborhood REALTOR to the whole town for crying out loud.  That's just ridiculous, people know better. They know B.S. when they hear it, they don't have to smell it or taste it to know what it is.

When I emailed those newsletters I included a watermark so my 'work' couldn't be stolen easily. (by fellow agents)  I am flattered if they like it enough to copy certainly, but at least retype it or something.  Don't make a photo copy and keep as yours.  My watermark prevented such blatant theft.

My Yard Sale Pin

I found a cute pin at a yard sale, took a photo of it, and made it my trademark so to speak.  My website is www.JustCallTina.com and using those red shoes has been a cake walk to creative marketing!  Also allows me an excuse to purchase the much needed red shoes for myself as well.  Sparkly ones!

Friends are very thoughtful about finding 'Dorothy' items for me to use.  Some are helpful, some just make you roll your eyes but they ARE thinking of me and that is everything.

Creative marketing really isn't about the home.  It's about the agent.  Driving the business to YOU. Buyers

Dorothy In My Office

and sellers, so you can in turn make the deal.  Kind of like a matchmaker for real estate.  The days of one side against the other is soooo passe'. With financing and

FALL FESTIVAL Booth
Before NEW 'Dorothy' shoes

conditional issues as they are you will be dead in the water before you get started with that confrontational 'steal a house' attitude.

Personal branding keeps you geared up to a higher level when things are starting to stink, clients are a pain, lenders aren't getting it done and appraisers are begging for a beating.  You can regroup and focus on something positive, yourself.  Find your happy place and stay there for a few hours and before you know it, you no longer want to slam their face into the desk.  Trust me, it works.

A friend offered me the opportunity to set up a booth last Halloween and hand out candy at her daughters school.  That's me, in my Dorothy costume - purchased from Goodwill!   (I have since made some more fitting shoes) but it got the job done.  I gained a listing off that stint.  If you look closely you will see I am wearing the actual pin from my 'logo'.

As luck (?) would have it, our REALTOR Association performed a skit at our April Membership Luncheon for Fair Housing Month. Filmed and produced by our members and posted to YouTube.  Can you guess the theme?
See what has happened here?  I AM Dorothy.  A tad older to be sure, can't sing for squat...but DOROTHY nonetheless!

I think next year I would like to be Mrs. Nicholas Cage...

Who Do Voodoo?

Real estate is full of nefarious practices.  In these trying times stories of the professional and unprofessional abound. The levels to which buyers/sellers (and their agents) will go can be funny, frightening and occasionally... unethical and even illegal.

I want to focus on some of the things that make you go hmmmm.

There are agents in this market that bury a St. Joseph statue in the yard of their sellers.  Face down, in the front yard, to elicit a faster sale. Typically this is done AFTER the home has been on the market some 400 + days, so I don't think it can be deemed very reliable. Keep in mind we are in the Land of Baptists so whether it is a lack of faith or last resort (maybe the Catholics have a different pipeline so to speak) who can say?   I would categorize it under the old school way of doing real estate called Practice the THREE P's.  Put a sign in the yard. Put it in MLS, and PRAY!

Who needs a market analysis?

Seriously, there is a website devoted to this whole practice  www.buryjoe.com   It just doesn't sound right to me, they don't even call him a SAINT.   There is an agent in our office who buys them by the case.  She gave one as an award to another agent during our Mandatory Tuesday Sales Meeting a couple of months ago because the other agent had a listing with the dubious honor of the longest days on the market.  Ms. So and So Realtor doesn't grant every listing a St. Joseph statue, just the reeealy long overdue to sell listings.  You have to wonder why she wouldn't bury them right off the bat?  If she invests in that many of them, why would she wait?  Could it be she subliminally doesn't WANT them to sell quickly?  Does she like having ALL THOSE LISTINGS?  Is she a collector or (gasp) a borderline hoarder?  I have to wonder what her sellers think when she shows up with the St. Joseph statue.  Do they imagine she has just thrown her hands up in the air?

Maybe, just maybe before pulling out the shovel one might take a look at the condition of the home and the list price?  Just a thought.

I started something totally innocent, but with intent, to be sure.  A GRATITUDE book.  It is actually a combination of gratitude and vision.  The intent was to help me to focus on the positive things in my life that are already in abundance, to express gratitude for them, but also to develop clear vision of  my goals - to draw the positive, joyful experiences I desire into my life.  Guess what?  I think it's working!

I just listed a home that is owned by someone who graduated from the same high school I did.  Three years behind me.  Now, keep in mind I lived in MAINE then, not South Carolina.  A town smaller than this one.  I had never even heard of this couple-didn't have the house they bought listed, and didn't represent them as buyers.   They just asked a colleague for the name of someone NOT local to sell their home, they were given mine.  They know all the same people I know back home.  Then a few days later I got a call from another man who found me on the Internet...wants to list some land in the area.  He doesn't live here.  He DID however live in Maine for 20 years.  And he is ITALIAN.  Almost no one is Italian here.  I can name one other person I have met in 22 years in Orangeburg that is Italian.  But he found ME.  And called ME.  We again traded stories about the lovely food we miss 'back there'.  REAL Italian food.  He was even wearing a ring almost exactly like one I wear every day (I think his is real gold - mine is silver).  All within one week.  Within days of my Tour of Italy and Real Estate gratitude pages.

I am sure there are people who would scoff at my 'Gratitude Book' as surely as people scoff at prayer ( I also practice this-goes hand in hand with gratitude).  Of course, I continue to aggressively market my

STATISTICS, TRENDS, PROJECTIONS

properties, monitor the sales in MLS, keep my market analysis up to date, investigate new trends and opportunities-all that good stuff.   But if something is working...it's working.  We do what we do for that little extra 'edge'.  However, sometimes it may appear the agent has stepped over the edge of the cliff!

 What can I say?  

Picking a Scab

Scab?  Sounds gross, I know.

There is nothing quite as dismaying for a real estate agent as a scabbed house.  This is my own term.  Came up with it after a recent rant.  I had just returned from previewing an upcoming listing.  I sold the current sellers into the home a short time ago, they are moving again and called me since I helped them find the home.  It was a dollhouse when they bought it.

I LOVED this house.  Pushed it hard when it was on the market.  Agents do that.  Usually it's their own listing, but I will do it when I come across a property that I think is a particular value.  This home was that.  Was, it is no longer.  The warm fuzzy feeling has turned to cold terror.

The yard looked a little rough when I arrived but there had been a lot of rain and it was the end of winter.  I made excuses in my mind.  I couldn't uphold the delusion once inside though.  I am not a neat freak - not on any level.  And home maintenance is a chore for me too.  But seriously?  How can you completely trash a home in such a short amount of time? (less that 2 years)

From DOLLHOUSE to dog house.  Literally.  New puppy tearing through the house.  Cats, (don't let them out please) they only stay inside, AND eat on the counters (that's where their food bowls sit).  You can see them in the listing photos.  REAL special.

Keep in mind, just a short time ago, these sellers were buyers.  They picked apart homes left and right.  Opened closet doors, peered under cupboards and critiqued paint colors as viciously as a mad dog.  Now

the colors on the walls would send Martha Stewart into hysterics.

I can talk around most things.  I truly can.  But at a particular point a buyer shuts down, they stop listening.  Sensory overload.  The piles on top of the refrigerator, clothes (BRAS) hanging from door knobs, power tools in the family room.  They simply shut down, and walk away.  A buyer will suck up just so much and then will write off the house.  If the seller doesn't care enough about their own property to present it in an appealing fashion - why would they imagine that a buyer would find it something to invest their future in?  The buyer questions what is going on with the home that CAN'T be seen?

I have had to listen to 'feedback' from the showing agents  'Did they know we were coming'?  Buyers riding by to check out the location, 'It looks like rednecks live there'. The former owners (What happened? They were thinking foreclosure).  Even a call from an appraiser, 'uhhhh...did you price the home to sell while they were still living in it?' she asked.  'No', I said.  'I priced it to sell as soon as they move out'.  Somebody just slap me.

Do the sellers realize what their home looks like?  Yes, they do.  If they didn't they wouldn't say things like 'don't take pictures of this or that room'.  They wouldn't make comments about how 'Down to Earth' they are (I just loooove that one).   They talk circles around me in my effort to 'improve' the marketability of their home.

The home is not SHARK BAIT ( see previous BLOG), but a scabbed house.  What you see is the result of an infection.  The house is infested.  And because of that infestation it has scabbed over.  You know how scabs are... REALTORS, buyers and even appraisers are picking at it.

My poor listing.  She can't help it if she is sick and wounded.  I shall do what I can to the Visual Tour photos with PHOTO SHOP; crop, clone, EDIT the crap out of them...just as soon as I finish my coffee.