HOUSING MARKET ANALOGY: A Giant Bloodsucker Feeding On Itself After Sucking the life out of the American Dream.. The housing market is like a giant blood sucker feeding on itself --the market needs "blood" or money to survive--(to be able to sell those troubled houses), and there is so little of it and money is so hard to borrow that in order to survive, the sucker has turned inward on itself and the houses that can't sell now are added to the huge pile of already distressed homes. There is now a never ending supply of vacant, empty shells (Bloodless) rotting into the ground! I have always heard that an empty house deteriorates much faster than one that is occupied....that is a fact and  there is evidence of it everywhere now! (Like carcasses across the land!)     With getting a loan di... 10/08/2011

THE THIRD WAVE: Look who is going into foreclosure NOW!!! There is going to be a Congressional hearing in the next day or so to evaluate the results of TARP on financial institutions and on the housing market...wonder what they will find out?---and what they will tell us??? I have heard rumors that some of the banks used their funds that were designated to help out the homeowners, to pay off their "bailout" money. One of the contingencies of the bailout was that the banks would remain under the microscope of the government as long as they owed the Tarp money. Some financial institutions paid off the "loans" in order to escape the scrutiny of the government! Meanwhile, the next wave of foreclosures is starting--this time it's the homeowner who has never had financial problems during the ... 10/06/2011

"CHAFF!...SCHMAFF!"...A bad attitude or just a better way of doing business??? I don't know about you but I want to be recognized as the Wheat, not the chaff!....I want to be the person who is recognized for the "focused" approach, not the laid back, non-communicative attitude that homeowners complain about today....I would rather be the agent who needs to make marketing, market research data and feedback their focus. Homeowners want full attention; they want and expect  expert market data. They want and need focused attention. They are seeking the agent who treats them as their sole client. When it comes to their searching for a qualified agent for their property, they are looking for the best, not the busiest! They are looking for the "WHEAT"...not the "chaff" A while ago,  I wrote a ... 09/25/2011

Do you give yourself the credit you deserve?...No One Else Will If You Don't!!!   No one else but you will give you the credit for who you are and what you have accomplished. It was not that long ago that I finally got the nerve together to ask my manager just how was it that the new agents with the firm (the ones who had been in the business for years and were just joining our company) were coming on board with titles, like V.P. or S.V.P. I was told to look at a list he had at hand and see if I fit any of the criteria; sure enough, I am an Associate Broker with awards of great significance...in fact I am the only agent in the office who has earned "Diamond" status and so it happens that because I have reached all required levels of sales, I am now a Senior Vice President!! I never woul... 09/16/2011

STRESS GOT YOU DOWN???...The STRESS FACTOR In Real Estate Getting To You Too?As real estate professionals, we are up against almost insurmountable challenges everyday. We deal with people where they live! We have a responsibility that not many other professions have to fulfill: The Home is the place where emotional, financial and survival mechanisms are rooted. Not one other thing that an individual owns or manages is anything like the Home. Families laugh there, cry there, play there and raise children there--memories are in the walls and the floors in layers.These STRESS FACTORS are embedded in our profession and need to  be recognized by each of us in order to become a polished and ethical professional.I find the stress from real estate is one of the most overwhelming of all the othe... 09/03/2011

Want a better way to BECOME A LOCAL EXPERT??? Over the past few years I have shared with all of you here on AR what my thinking is about being or becoming a LOCAL EXPERT. As we appear to be moving tentatively out of the depths of the Great Real Estate Recession, there are questions we need to ask our buyers and sellers. As real estate professionals. we know what is REALLY going on. We can pull this information together, USE IT FOR OUR "NEW" MARKETING and FARMING EFFORTS and we can even put it out there for our buyers and sellers too! We can actually be in a better position to serve the public in a more efficient manner.   We can, and should be, the guiding light  when working with new buyers toward home ownership and giving sellers the confidence needed to list their homes and to NOT ov... 09/01/2011

HAVE A WINDERFUL DAY!!!..The only thing I can say under the circumstances! NO BATTERIES FOR YOU!!! I just got back form the stores looking for batteries--none left anywhere  out here! I looked for straps this morning or bungie cords too, so I could tie down my lawn furniture---no such luck!!! This was a full 2 days before the hurricane is expected to hit out here in the Hamptons!! Ahh well, it may be a good sign? I am going to hunker down and just wait it out---without a radio, perhaps and with out elecricity--it will be quite interesting! I wish all my East Coast friends good luck during this especailly those along the coastlines and may the wind be at your back!!! 08/26/2011

What Do you Have To Lose???...How About Everything? What do you do if you can't handle a situation, a shaky deal that is about to go South? a buyer who wants a house but does not step up to the plate? A deal that is contingent on financing and is about to be rejected?  What do you do? Since we are in a very different real estate market today, it is critical that we ask for help from those who may know how to handle something that we are having difficulty with. We don't know where our next buyer or seller is coming from---so ask for help if you need it! I have talked to a few newer agents who think they have a handle on a situation and the next thing you hear is "I lost my deal because....." In one case I was very up set because I told the agent that if she needed my help, I was there fo... 08/24/2011

HOW DO YOU MEASURE YOUR SUCCESS?...Many Real Estate agents measure it only through their commission checks!!! We are in a very different profession today--after this recession, tolerance for the abusive agent who thinks they are better than anyone else is GONE! No more room for ill-treatment of agents who work so hard for the sellers; and no more working for sellers who are not happy about paying the agents!  No, this real estate market is like no other!  Short-cuts don't work; give-away fees are no longer the way you survive. Good, hard work is what is needed now--A good reputation, a positive attitude and an abundance of local knowledge are the ONLY assets that will pull in business in today's market. It is a very dangerous thing indeed, for me to look at my real estate business as a ... 08/20/2011

DO YOU WANT A PIECE OF THE LOCAL ADVERTISING PIE?...... BETTER GRAB IT!!! I hear that great numbers of Realtors are completely out of the print advertising business!....Not that they are thinking about it or analyzing it or even doing research on if they should do it or not---no! They are completely out of the print advertising business. REASONS TO NOT DO PRINT ADS ARE: "too expensive", "my customers only use the internet", "print ads never pull!" or "print ads are dead!" REASONS TO DO PRINTS ADS ARE: You can present yourself and your listings in your own market place; become the "local expert" in your niche area; take the step first before your competition does---and they will! IS PRINT ADVERTISING DEAD? Several months back I asked a question of ActiveRainers and I got some surprising ... 08/17/2011

WHAT DO I DO NOW???....How Do I Go Forward On This Roller-Coaster Ride??  I asked myself that this morning---after I ran through my day in my mind and thought about the things that have not happened even with all my hard work and effort...  I asked myself: "What can I do now? What can I do that will create a more stable and concrete business for myself? I came to some conclusions that I thought I would share here on ActiveRain..maybe it will help some other agent who is wondering the same thing right now. Maybe with all the chaos, the unrest, the calamities that are happening, we can take a deep breath and a new approach to our businesses in this brave "New World"!   Now that we have all arrived in the 21st century, and are fully engaged in the "Changes" that we were promised and warned... 08/16/2011

DOES GOOGLE + MAKE THIS HAPPEN???....Please tell me (if you know)...I can't see why or how, but when someone Googles Prudential Southampton to get the office phone number---they get me!!!  Now, I am not complaining---just have a lot of my fellow agents asking me things like: "How did you do that?" or " Paula must be paying someone off!"...and various and sundry other not-so-nice remarks...my manager came into my office the other day and said "Are you busy?", and I got so paranoid, thinking: "Is he asking because he thinks I am getting all the up calls?" ....and "I wonder if I can get fired for being the first on a Google search?" Does anyone out there know what is going on? (Not that I want to change it or anything...:)   I joined Google + and never gave it another thought--now I just r... 08/15/2011

WHAT DOES THE VENUE OF VIOLENCE IN LONDON HAVE TO DO WITH US??....The same Social Media Phenomenon  May Already Be Here! In London tonight, there were interviews of some these young thugs who are creating the awful chaos in the streets in several cities in Briton.  What is the reason they are doing this? "We want our taxes back"...says one woman: "It's the rich that are causing this---we want to show the rich that we can do anything we want to do!"...and:"We want the same things that others have"! These are poor people, unemployed; most of who live in a city that feeds them, clothes them and gives them free medical care.... The evening news tonight mentions that the NYPD is planning a way to track Blackberry usage in New York City, in the event that what has happened in Philadelphia sta... 08/10/2011

A BIG dose of REAL ESTATE  Reality!...and it shook me out of a day dream! WHAT WOULD YOU  HAVE DONE IN THIS SITUATION??? I thought I was actually going to get a full priced offer on a wonderful house in Southampton Village, the "hot" place to be this summer. I met the buyer and her agent 4 days ago and the showing went very well. The agent called me right away after the showing, to tell me the buyer was VERY interested in the house and would be making an offer in the next day or so---just wanted to do some due-diligence beforehand. I made sure the buyers agent knew that there was another offer on the table. The owner had not yet countered and therefore she needed to advise her buyer accordingly and act quickly. She told me she would do her best but she was positive that the offer would ... 08/02/2011

MARKET MADNESS....Where do you see the markets heading, now that we have a "Deal"??? I got up early today, just to see if we were still among the living! The living markets, I mean. Do we have a chance at NOT being downgraded and becoming a second rate country in the world of finance? Are we going to survive in this chaos created out of of overspending and a lack of austerity in these most difficult and complicated of times? I wanted to see what the overseas markets were doing and if they responded well or poorly to our weak attempt to rescue ourselves and our financial reputation at the final hour? We pulled something off, it appears.....The overseas markets are doing quite well! European markets are humming.....All Asian markets were ahead this morning and our futures appear to be on ... 07/31/2011

OLD POSTS NEVER DIE; THEY JUST FADE AWAY!...Have You Looked At Your First Blog Post Lately??? My very first blog post was not easy. ...As you all know, it is very hard to sit down for the first time,  face the computerand put down something of consequence. I thought this morning, as I sat down to write a post: "Maybe I need to review what I have written in the past...maybe something will trigger a new post.     Well, THAT was a thought that triggered a whole lot of stuff--especially my own inability to want to go back and read what I first wrote--when I did not have a clue about what blogging was or where it could take me!! I was so naive at that time---Wondering: What if what I was about to do comes back to haunt me one day?...Am I going to be looked upon as a real loser in my business... 07/31/2011

WAS THAT A DEPRESSION I JUST SAW???...Just what are the current housing figures telling us?  I ask this question because, after a terrific 2nd quarter here in the Hamptons, especially here in Southampton Village, I still feel like we have a long way to go to meet the expectations that the sellers have about prices. The biggest mistake homeowners make is right after a good or even moderately successful season, they start to think: "Maybe I can put my house on the market now at that price I tried in '07!" ...NO, NO, NO!!! This is not the time to experiment! We are not that far away from one of the worst housing recessions ever! When the dust settles, we are going to see the real facts about how close we came to a housing "Depression"---We may even find out, afer all is said and done, that... 07/26/2011

THE BIG NEWS OF THE WEEK: HAMPTON'S LUXURY MARKET TURNS REAL ESTATE ON IT'S HEAD!!! I am always leery of an article that comes on so strong as several did this past week, talking about the record sales in the high end of the Hamtpons real estate market. We have seen improvements as I have reported in the recent past, but to say that prices are now on the upswing here is a very audacious statement at best--we have had several $5 Million + sales here but that does not mean everything is coming up roses here in this very fragile marketplace. In fact those few high end sales have distorted the facts and the prices and have made it appear that the "meat and potatos" end of the market is trending up at the moment....In fact, it is NOT trending up. Moderate proces have been affected by the rec... 07/23/2011

HAMPTONS/NORTH FORK 2ND QUARTER RESULTS...Showing encouraging optimism results have just been released and is shown in the link below: http://update.prudentialelliman.com/exchange/Paula.Hathaway/Inbox/JUST%20RELEASED:%20Our%20exclusive%202nd%20Quarter%202011%20Hamptons%20%26%20North%20Fork%20Market%20Overview.EML/HNF_Q2_2011_highlights.pdf/C58EA28C-18C0-4a97-9AF2-036E93DDAFB3/HNF_Q2_2011_highlights.pdf?attach=1 "ALL REAL ESTATE IS LOCAL"...has never been more accurate. I will say, however, with the increase in the high-end sales and the lower inventories over-all, we are in great shape going into the second half of 2011. We have seen a rough go of it in the last few weeks--the public is waiting for a"plan" to get passed for the Government's debt problems and we can only hope that happen... 07/21/2011

"LOCAL IS AS LOCAL DOES"..Maybe A "NEW" tag-line for ACTIVE real estate markets will work!!! I wrote this post on June 15---exactly 1 month ago and had a modest response to the question: ARE YOU IN A REAL ESTATE MARKET PLACE THAT IS GROWING DESPITE WHAT WE ARE HEARING IN THE NATIONAL NEWS? I thank those who responded early on and it made me realize that the local market place is extremely vulnerable right now to National news reports about how bad the real estate market is---Yesterday I heard that the media is now predicting it will take until 2017 before the real estate market begins to improve!!!  IT CAN NOT BE STATED TOO MUCH: "ALL REAL ESTATE IS LOCAL!" Here in The Hamptons, I reported a few weeks back that we are seeing a serge of sales with a well defined separation between new c... 07/14/2011