Hi folks.  I haven’t written much lately.  You know, you go through times when you think you don’t have anything to say anyway…at least I do.  And then there are times when I do have something to say but I’m an introvert, so I don’t find it necessary to make noise come out of my head all of the time.  Anyway,  it’s hard to know where to start these days, with everything going on in the world to which we have access.  And then there’s the media slant.

I’m loving the pictures of Donald Trump, for example.  ALL photographs depict him with his face scrunched up or have him looking REAL mean…which I LOVE.  Makes me laugh out loud.  Point is, liberal media will not ever publish a good photo of him because, well, they despise him.

But you know, the smooth-brains won’t get the subliminal nuances and will just think he’s mean.  CLEARLY there’s more to him than meanness, but back to the smooth-brains.  I am smart enough to see the manipulations and actually get a kick out of them.  But it frightens me to think that this stuff actually influences my future.  I’m watching the candidates with an eye to who is pulling their strings, funding their OWN agendas, mastering the puppets.  Now that’s scary.

I have to laugh at what I imagine to be the Politically Correct knee-jerk reactions to Trump’s outlandish rhetoric.  Point is, it’s just enjoyable to hear somebody who isn’t answering to someone’s wallet, somebody with audacity and somebody who says exactly what we say when we are not on stage…well not always, but you get my drift.  Translation: I despise political correctness.

I read a lot of news online and see accompanying photographs, and I can’t help but notice how much of the time my back-of-the-mind-cut is, “I wonder how much of this I can believe?”  Now that’s a shame.  I can’t look at a single photograph without wondering whether or not it’s been photoshopped.

Ah, I remember the good old days (violins please) when a newspaper was a NEWS paper.  It had the news, just that.  And it was a big paper, not a placemat sized junk publication with mostly ads and the rest so slanted you couldn’t rest a round object on it.  We could trust that the media were sure their facts were accurate and what they published was true.  Now, I fish out the crossword puzzle and chuck the rest.  Wish they wouldn’t drop it on my lawn anyway; I don’t pay for it.  But hey, free crossword puzzle.

But printed news isn’t news anymore like it used to be.  Hmmm, I wonder how much of that was really true.

SEE WHAT I MEAN?  Check you later.

Not much worse than a raging case of the flu, particularly when you can’t stand to be still.  This is happening to me, but I have made it to the doctor. Tired of feeling sick. BUT I’m so excited about my latest discovery, made while I was flat on my back, stuck in bed.

I have discovered the most beautiful person on the planet!  Well, he is new to me anyway. I watched the movie, Unbroken and was stunned by the performance of Miyavi. From the first moment his face shows up on the screen, he captivates. His performance was perfect and you can’t miss the fact that he is simply beautiful. I am convinced we will be seeing a LOT of this young man.

Sick as I was, I googled him, and discovered this to be his acting debut and that he is a trendsetting musician. I watched some of his music videos and my admiration grew. Listen. Don’t miss this young man. He is a force.  I felt so bad to have lost Michael Jackson from among us, but Miyavi might just be a light beginning to burn brightly into that dark place.

Check him out. You won’t be sorry. As for his performance in the movie?  It was the first time I actually looked beyond the brutality of this character type into the soul. I’m betting you will feel the same. He stole the show. Not the story, the show.

I am working with five buyers, and ALL have been in multiple offer situations.  This is crazy.  I know; there is a housing shortage, not unexpected and loudly discussed in the news as one after the other builder went bankrupt during the downturn.  But this is beyond the ridiculous.  It’s like a feeding frenzy.  So here we are.  For a time the only homes that stayed on the market were the dog houses…the ones that needed some “TLC”.  Now, even they are getting multiple offers.  It takes above list price to ‘win’, and that’s often with zero concessions requested.

I remember how sellers got the stew beaten out of them during the market downturn.  They had to paint, install new carpet, dance, give up the firstborn child and give away the house to get it sold.  Maybe this is the universe balancing, but I see major issues arising.

Listen, there’s no question that the sellers benefit from this crazy market.  But here’s what’s happening.  House prices are being artificially inflated due to the high demand/low supply paradigm, and I don’t think many of them will appraise for these ludicrous prices.  I see a future of offers falling out during the appraisal process and buyers losing that chunk of money…because the lenders will SURELY make that a non-refundable, pay-up-front fee.  They’d be nuts not to.  Then, we’re going to have a boatload of people who buy high and get stuck when the market comes to its senses.  First time buyers don’t have the money to make up the difference between their offer and a lower appraised value, so in many cases they will lose the appraisal fee.  They can’t afford that.  Agents should protect these buyers.

I know, realtors get a bigger commission from a higher sales price, but the problem is, the buyer clients most certainly will feel the pain later when they try to sell and the feeding frenzy is over.  And let’s don’t forget the builder new home prices.  One builder company who started their pricing at 170 two years ago are now starting at 240.  That’s a huge jump in pricing in that amount of time and guess what?  They can do it and get away with it.  But it’s a bad idea.

I’m warning my clients up front about this situation, and most of them resist the urge to offer too much money…and of course some of the homes do justify the prices…but everybody needs to remember that we are going to be listing these artificially high priced homes down the road, and I remember how painful that was for sellers.

Of course it’s up to the buyer how they want to proceed, but good buyer agents should be spending time explaining what’s going on here.  And yes, I like to make money too, but not at the expense of my buyer clients.

I will say this though: It’s a snooze-you-lose situation out there.  Better have the OTP partially filled out and ready to fly when you go house hunting.  Man, it’s a fast market out there.  So I tell my clients this:  If you HAVE TO HAVE this house, expect to pay full list price and don’t even think about asking for the moon with regard to concessions.  And I remind them that there ARE other houses out there.

I’ve made a change, or ANOTHER change I should say.  I said goodbye to my Fonville Morisey family a few weeks ago and joined Coldwell Banker Howard Perry and Walston, Strickland Road office.  It was a bittersweet transition, as I left behind a company I loved and people whom I love as well.  These folks will remain family to me.  But I am excited about my future.

I am now a new family member at Coldwell Banker Howard Perry and Walston and am excited about this new part of my journey.  I hope you will stay in touch and wish me well in my transition.  So far it has been a very busy time.

Have a lovely day!

What a great time to talk about ice…when you feel like you’re frozen.  But you know… we’ve had some opportunity once again to see how the human mind (doesn’t) work.  Here’s how.

First of all, a sheet of ice is not the same thing as a few inches of fluffy snow, and while you shouldn’t drive fast in either, if you MUST overdrive conditions, it’s better to do it in snow.  Not snow dusted on top of ICE, like we had, but just pure snow…which we didn’t have.  BUT!

How many SUVs zipped by you as you carefully made your way home in the ice storm?  Welllll, I can’t remember EXACTLY, but I can say that EVERY car that did ZIP by me was an SUV…or a 4-wheel-drive monster pick-up truck.

People.  Four wheel drive does NOT KEEP YOU FROM SLIDING ON ICE.  No, it doesn’t.  No.  Don’t argue with me.  I know physics.

Really, I don’t care if YOU slide, even if its into the ditch, because if you’re driving too fast, well, you kind of deserve it.  Unless your kids are in the car with you, in which case you should be spanked immediately by every passing driver who wants to stop.  I kind of like that idea.

The PROBLEM with the smooth-bain speeders is the sane people, the ones driving at a safe speed, that they crash into when they lose control of their four wheel drive.  Last year, I was sitting STILL and was in a head-on collision.  WHY?  Somebody driving TOO FAST ON A SHEET OF ICE SLID INTO THE FRONT OF MY CAR.  People!  Did you go to school at all?

Oh, and here’s a good one for you.  If you ARE driving too fast and the light turns red, as traffic lights are wont to do…yes, that’s a word…well then you are supposed to STOP.  if you are driving like a bat out of Hell, you’re gonna have to either run the light (risk killing someone), or slam on brakes on ICE and risk killing somebody by sliding into them.  I mean, are people really this stupid?

Why yes they are!  I don’t know why I’m laughing right now.  Well at least this time most of the smart people stayed home and let the smooth brains have the rink…I mean road.  And if you passed someone yelling, “You idiot!” well that was me.