Tony & Darcy - The C Team's Blog

This past week, prior to our vacation to Indio, California, Darcy and I had the opportunity to help our niece, who lives with us, with a report on The Crucible, by Arthur Miller.  What a great play, it provides tremendous insight into turbulent times.  It is set during the Salem Witch trials in the late 1600's in Salem, Massechusetts.  It is also a thinly veiled attack on the witch trials of the 20^th Century the McCarthy communist hunt.

The amazing insight is that regardless of how upstanding a member of the community was, a young person, with little or no standing in the community was able to accuse the former and the normally level headed judges would accept the latters accusations as absolute fact.  Even upstanding citizens like the Corry's who had helped so many people were caught up in the feeding frenzy that occurred at the time.

The resulting upswelling of support, from normally upstanding citizen's as they rushed to accept the wild tales from these young women.  Who were really the only ones guilty of doing what they had accused the others of doing.  

Strangely, I see similarities with today's media frenzy.  It is stirred up by people that aren't in the business or have a grudge against Realtors, and the media spins it so it seems that only Realtors or people in the Real Estate industry are to blame for the woes that now face the market in many areas.  Instead of talking to people who are Realtors, they talk to the others and make them into "experts" in the market.  

These are just some of my thoughts, good luck and keep smiling, eventually the truth does come out!

Hello all, we had a 2 day school holiday, so we packed up and headed to California for a short vacation.  We ended up in beautiful Indio.  It is sure nice to get away once in a while even for a short break.  The devastating fires have created a lot of smoke out here, but  other than that it is beautiful.  It is hot, in the 90's so if you come bring the shorts!

Just have a short time to write, but just wanted to let everyone know that it is a good idea to get away every once in a while, even if it is only for a couple of days.  We will be back on Wednesday in Cedar City, but other than check email and blog, we have been able to sneak in some much needed time away from the hustle and bustle of work.  See you all later

In a stunning reversal Wednesday Night, the Cedar City Council went against it city manager's recommendation and approved the Heritage Development.  The Heritage Development is a large development on the west side of the city.  It is a self contained community with shopping and recreation planned into the development.

The best part of the project(to me) is that the developer Goodboro Development, is planning affordable housing.  They are mixing home sizes.  They are putting smaller starter homes on the same street with large more custom sized homes.  They have planned schools, shopping and parks all within the community.  I know that they have done the same kind of thing in other parts of the Unites States.

The design of the project is that of what we call here Pioneer homes.  They are styled after the homes that were built by the early settlers of the area in the 1850's.  They have large porches and lots of shade.  I am excited about the development, and other than maybe taking a buyer to purchase, I have nothing to do with the project. 

The big argument with the city manager seemed to be a personality conflict, wrapped into an argument over street width and alignment.  It had become pretty ugly, with lawsuits being threatened on either side, gratefully, none of that will be necessary.  I think that sometimes, city officials, (here especially) begin to believe that they and their opinion is what is best for the city and it's residents.  Regardless of public sentiment, this is a great project allowing the one thing that we so desperately need, affordable housing in nice neighborhoods. 

It isn't that we have really bad neighborhoods, it is more that most of the affordable areas, are in older areas.  It will be exciting to have people that need affordable housing be able to buy a new house, not a twin home or a town home but a house with a private yard in a highly desirable area.  It also seems that the idea of blending income levels in neighborhoods, will create a sense of community that some of us have never experienced.  My mother and father were both raised in small towns, where everyone knew and played with everyone when they were kids.  Everyone, regardless of social status knew each other and for the most part, were friends.  There didn't seem to be a separation that we see today.  I congradulate the Cedar City Council for doing the right thing and not following the party line of the city manager.

The World Series starts tonight, and I am excited!  Although I am not a huge fan of either team, I am a huge fan of baseball.  This World Series is an interesting contrast, one high payroll team (Boston) vs an upstart young team (Colorado),   Colorado has a team payroll roughly 1/3 of Boston's, which really doesn't mean much, it is just an interesting contrast in management styles.  It was interesting that of the 4 teams than reached the two League Championship Series three of the teams had a payroll roughly equal to that of the 4th team by it's self. 

Where I am going with this, is that there are various ways to success.  You can pay a lot of money to have veteran players that execute the fundamentals of the game very well.  These players are generally more experienced, yet have not forgotten what it takes to make themselves very successful.  There are usually 1 or 2 younger guys that learn from veterans and take in that experience to excel.

The other model is the one that Colorado has used, young players that have been coached in the fundamentals with a few veteran players that steady the ship so to speak.  They may or may not have been to the World Series previously, but do know how to win.  The good thing with each is that as long as everyone does what they're supposed to do, there is a good chance that the team will be succesful.  That doesn't mean that they will win everytime that they play, it just means that they will win most of the time. 

That is the beauty of Baseball, unlike Football, it takes a majority of wins in a series to advance, not one..  One bad game, followed by 4 or 5 good games the better team should advance, in Football, it's one and done if you have an a bad day or if the other(lesser) team plays a great game against your good game, it's still over.  That doesn't insure that the better team will always win a series in baseball, but it does increase the odds. 

I think that in Real Estate, it is similar, with your team, (even if it is a team of 1)if you do the fundamentals well all of the time, working to be better each day, you will succeed more often than not.  You will eventually get the listings and find the buyers to be successful.  It doesn't mean that you have to have the most money (payroll) to begin with, if you work hard at the fundamentals, asking the veterans (at the office or here for example) for direction, you can still be as successful.

I am not sure what memories have to do with what I am thinking, other than this is the title to my favorite Jim Croce song.  Although Time in a Bottle is a real close second.  Enough of that, what I was thinking about as far as Real Estate is concerned is photographs. 

I know that most Realtors take the photos of a property when it is listed.  I also know that there have most likely been several blogs on this very subject on Active Rain.  I wish that I had the time to go back and read all of the blogs that have been posted because they contain great information, and I learn a great deal from them.  But I, like everyone else has to make a living.  I was wondering how many Realtors have someone come in and do the photography on their listings, like a professional photographer. 

The reason that I was asking this question is that I was researching homes the other night, and was amazed at how many awful pictures there are out there.  I tried to enlarge the main photo of the house on several listings, only to be looking at an out of focus blob of some sort.  There were others that honestly were so dark, I think thay they were of a Kitchen, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to purchase a house with a kitchen that was that dark.  One of the listings had amazing pictures of the bedroom set, the sofa, and an armoir, I wanted to call the listing agent and ask if they were selling the house or the furniture.

I guess what I found discouraging about this was the question of how much were these Realtors serving their client's interests.  With it being a buyers market, I would think that the main focus would be setting their listing apart from the other listings out there.   I know that everyone is busy, I guess that is why I asked the question how many Realtors use a photographer to photograph their listings?  I was wondering if it is cost effective, and if anyone has had a success with Virtual Tours?  I know an agent in our office sold a million dollar listing that the buyer first saw on a Virtual Tour, but I want to know how much success Realtors actually have with them.  Thank you.