Pat Kennedy - Your Washington, DC Real Estate Connection

A bunch of years ago, Washington, DC was in the strongest buyer’s market you could imagine.  Nothing was selling?  Why?

Our citizens elected a mayor who had just gotten out of the slammer for a cocaine conviction.

Some idiot was driving around a formerly popular downtown neighborhood shooting people.

City services became non-existant.  Schools were literally falling down.  We didn’t have pot holes.  We had cocaine holes.

Things were looking pretty bleak.  And in this context, I got a call from some old friends who had moved to Ireland and wanted to sell a house they had been renting out near Dupont Circle.

When I made arrangements to see the place, I was horrified.  The house had been rented to a bunch of graduate students from Johns Hopkins School of International Studies.  And they had a pet – a billy goat who was not quite house-broken and had eaten the antique stair rail.

My friends thought I was exaggerating the condition of the house, and we listed the place at just a hair above market.

The tenants moved out, and I was planning my first Open House for a Sunday afternoon.  Writing an ad was pretty daunting.  What could I say about the place?  A favorite colleague came to my rescue, and the two of us came up with an inspired ad:

Abominable Condition
Formerly gorgeous 4-story
Victorian bay-front has
seen too many toga parties!

We included the address and price and Open hours.

The Open House was mobbed.  Everyone assumed it couldn’t be as bad as I said it was – after all, real estate agents tend to exaggerate!  Their expectations were really low and the house was really awful.  And it worked!  By Monday morning, we had three offers on the table.

So, what did I learn that applies to this market?  Sure, you can write an ad that makes a listing sound a palace, and that will get lots of people in the door.  But if the place is not a palace, it will have attracted all the wrong buyers!  If you use humor and try to reach the actual target for your listing (in this case, it was someone willing to renovate) you’re more likely to get it sold!

And of course, the price has to be right, or at least almost right.

OK, so I’m on breathtakingly beautiful Cape Cod.  My beach cottage has Internet access – sometimes.  My cell phone works perfectly – sporatically.

I’m staying in a picturesque village called Chatham, and there are lots of  For Sale signs all over town.  Maybe there will be some Open Houses Sunday afternoon to check out.  Not that I’m interested in buying a house in Chatham right now, but it’s hard to totally decompress in just two and a half days.

Yikes!

This could be clear evidence that Opens are not totally productive.  I could drop into one of the may real estate offices in town and tantalize the duty agent.  But that would be mean.

Today’s successful real estate professional must speak four languages:

Listing and Buyer Brokerage:  these are the two main languages that every agent speaks.

Sellers’ Market:  This is a dialect of the first two languages, and there are idioms within them.  For listing and buyer broker speakers, there are phrases like “multiple offers”, “bidding wars” and “escalator clauses”.   As a Listing speaker, you must learn vocabulary that helps you to advise your clients on which of the dozens of offers on the table is the best – not just on price, but also on terms that increase the likelihood of the offer they select successfully closing.   The Buyer Broker speakers need to learn a dialect that helps their clients be the one whose offers are selected by the listing agent’s clients.  There are more phrases like “huge earnest money check”, “Have the home inspected before you make and offer”, “You gotta scratch the financing and appraisal contingencies” and “How much above the asking price are you willing to pay?”

Buyers’ Market:  This is a language that is gaining popularity, although many listing agents around the country are struggling with the basics.  They are having to repeat, over and over again every day, “You must lower your expectations.”  Then there is “It’s time for a price reduction,” and “No, you do not reject this offer outright – you make a counter offer!”   Those agents who do a lot of buyer representation are having a somewhat easier time, with phrases like, “I think the price is way on the high side, and you ought to be able to get it for less.”  Then, there is “It is very important to include all of the consumer protections the contract offers, including a home inspection contingency and especially one for a satisfactory appraisal,” and "If you include the cute Labradoodle puppy on your list of things that convey, they're desperate enough to say YES!"

I guess I am very, very lucky to have learned Buyers’ Market as a new agent in the last century.  And I, for one, am having a great time brushing up on its vocabulary!  It sure does beat speaking Sellers’ Market with all of those bloody bidding wars!  But that’s just my preference!

Back in the 80s, I spent two weeks in Detroit at a Bill Barrett workishop for real estate branch managers.

I thought of some great advice he gave as I listened to the news this morning.  It was all intensely negative.  There was Iraq, the Attorney General and, closest to my heart, the housing market.  

So what is the one thing I remember from those two weeks all these years later?  To paraphrase:

Don't watch news unless it's on Public Television.

Don't listen to news on the radio, except for National Public Radio.

Don't read the newspapers, except for your horoscope and the comics.

And I wonder if today, he's make an exception for NPR and PBS?

I have some favorite clients who have been looking for something wonderful, and we’ve seen a bunch of houses. It’s gotten to the point where I look at a listing, and I’m not certain whether or not we’ve already been there. So we’ve got a system. Each house gets a nickname that helps us trigger our recollection of the place.

There was “Falling Water on Acid”, a mid-century contemporary home with no walls around the master bathroom – including the designer bidet or toilet. I don't know about you, but I've never had a husband (or other sweetie) who I'd feel comfortable without a wall between him and me and the john.

Next was "Peeling Paint", a lovely Pre-War (not sure which one) place with a beautiful door and squirrels running around loopy on the lead paint chips they'd been munching.

Then we looked at “Taxidermy Décor”, a tastefully outfitted home with some amazingly beautiful stuffed birds on tables, Bambi’s dad’s head hanging on the wall and a poor dead mouse lying on the stairs to the attic.

We saw “Rabbit Hutch”, a stately brick Georgian colonial with cute brown rabbits running all over the front yards up and down the block.

One house was potentially spectacular, but it was hard to see how great is was through the sellers’ housekeeping. They were unbelievable slobs – worse than me (although my house isn’t on the market). And the basement carpet reeked from accidents perpetrated by some poor dog who didn’t get walked nearly often enough, certaninly not as often as I walk Mr. Willy, the hyper-active Labradoodle puppy. So what to call this one? Perhaps “Martha Stewart – Not!”

This system works after a fashion. I’ve used it for years and can still recall details of “Bun House”, with sellers who were a husband/wife proctologist team – they had a collage of photos of rear ends hanging above the toilet in the powder room of this otherwise unremarkable home. There was another one with particularly “Carnivorous Wallpaper” in the dining room that still triggers a memory of its fabulous kitchen when I drive past it.

We also had "Cooking Show Kitchen" house, and that one comes close. What they're holding out for "Cooking Show" combined with "Woodly Woods" and "Stoney Stone". If that sounds like your place, call me. It could be their Dream House.

And there is a better system. That would be keeping a copy of the listings I've shown with notes in an accordion file or loose-leaf binder. Each time I start to work with new clients, I resolve to do this for them. And somehow, we always seem to go to the easier but less reliable system of house naming.

There is no more serious showing mishap than letting the seller's cat out of the house you are showing.  Or is there?

Anyone with an indoor cat knows that the little guy spends a lot of his life sitting in the window sill coveting the birds and squirrels on the other side of the glass pane.  And given the opportunity, most of them would scoot outside in a heartbeat to explore the world. And I think that most agents are very careful, especially when they see a sign on the front door or in the MLS description.

But here's a twist!

I was previewing a big, really pretty house.  It had been staged down to the clothes hanging in the closet.  If anyone lived there, they were total compulsives - the types who channel Martha Stewart.  

As I opened the front door to leave, I felt something brush against my leg.  No I hadn't let the cat out.  I let the cat IN!

Yikes! 

So were these anal retentive neat freaks cat people?  I don't think so. 

There was no tell tale litter box, certainly not that I'd noticed.  There were no cat hairs on the upholstery.  I didn't see a bag of cat chow or a food or water dish.   So, I went back inside, checked again for signs that the cat might live there and found none.  So I wound up chasing the little beast up and down three flights of stairs and finally grabbing it and carrying it outside, squirming and scratching the whole way.

Now, I've had a few listings that came with neighbors' cats who lurked around the front porch.  It never occurred to me to post a sign on the front door that reads "Don't let the cat in!" But I think I'm going to start!

If you've outgrown your house, you have a couple of choices.

You can try to change the house with a renovation or addition.

Or, you change your location - move!

My house, which I love in many ways, wasn't working.  I chose renovation.  The next time, I will just move.

Move is a 4-letter word.  I get that.  But, so is renovation!  Actually, it's a bunch of 4-letter words:

• DUST
• MESS
• LEAD
• FUNK
• WORK 

There are a bunch of other adjectives that have more than four letters, like disruptive, expensive, disconcerting, upsetting, uncomfortable, inconvenient, daunting and I could go on.  I know, because I am experiencing it all first hand!

I'm sitting at my I-Mac wearing a mask to minimize the amount of lead paint that I inhale.  My contractors gave it to me.  That would be uncomfortable.

My formal dining room is packed with crates containing toilets, faucets, a giant Jacuzzi, and about 20 boxes of books I had to remove from bookcases that need to be moved.  That would be unsettling.

The living room, which had been the last bastion of Martha Stewart until yesterday, is full of aluminum duct work and copper tubing.  Try upsetting?

Everything in the entire house (except the basement, where I'm camping out) is covered with a thick layer of fine dust, even though the contractor vacuums up at the end of each day - a little disruptive.

This experience is certainly influencing the advice I give my clients, whether they are buyers considering a fixxer-upper or sellers trying to decide whether to renovate or move to a new place.  For years, I've been watching neighbors, friends and clients take on projects.

So, if you live in the DC area and are trying to decide which way to go, I invite you to drop by to see what a renovation really looks like.  It will make you run screaming to the nearest telephone to call your favorite agent to help you MOVE!

Early in my real estate career, back in the days before lead paint disclosures, I sold a house built in the 1800's to a couple who did a bunch of renovations.  They moved walls, they plastered and sanded and repainted, and I got a call from the wife a few months later. 

They had two cats in the home during the renovation.  Cats, of course, lick their fur.  One of the poor things died, and the other was left a little loopy from brain damage caused by lead poisoning.

While my old house is being torn apart for new bathrooms and central air, I can say with some certainty that the air is pretty thick with lead dust. 

This is just a little reminder to any of you who sell old houses.

Right now, Mr. Snowball (to the right) is pretty ticked offl  I shut him in the basement with his mother.  Willy, the hyper active Labradoodle, joins them when he isn't in the back yard, and the cats really hate that, although the dog thinks being in a small space with two cats is fabulous.

If you or your clients are pulling apart "This Old House", be extra careful to keep children, women of child-bearing age and pets away from the mess!  

Jeez, why can't they just say that on the federal lead paint disclosures? 

Once upon a time, in Washington, DC, a woman I'll call "Jill" (not her real name) answered her phone.  It was a telemarketer calling from one of Washington's top producing real estate teams telling her it was a perfect time to sell her house.  She thought about it.  The place was a little small, and putting it on the market seemed like a good idea at the time.

So, Mr. Top Producer sold the place for $229,000.  That was her asking price, and while he did a good job getting it sold, she decided she wanted to use a different agent for her purchase.

So, I met her at a party in my neighborhood, which was where she wanted to live.  We chatted, and there were a couple of houses that could work for her.  She made an offer on one of them.  But it was well below the asking price, there were multiple offers, and the place sold well above asking.

Then, I found a perfect place with everything she needed – great neighborhood, walk-out basement with room to hold seminars, and for less than the $350,000 she wanted to spend.  And the owner blabbed about being desperate!  So let’s go!

It was too big.

Too big?  Too Big?  How can a house be too big? 

Sure, it had one extra bedroom.  So, just close the door!  That one slipped away from us.

That was 1998.  She said she was just certain that the market was going to tank any minute.

It didn’t.  Well, maybe a little this year, though not really a tank. 

A tiny little house on her old block just sold in this “bad” market in the low $600’s.  The perfect place she passed up is now worth about about $900,000.

Jill is still renting a little apartment waiting for the market to really tank.

I hope the agent I referred her to in 1998 doesn’t hate me

Over the past week, I've posted a couple of "HELP!!!" messages about blogging on Active Rain on a Mac.  And I've gotten some great responses, some from people who are thinking about switching.

I switched to a Mac for my home office a couple of years ago.  

First, the MacStore must have been set up with some serious "Buy Me" feng shui.  The machine itself is beautiful, simple, and takes up little space on my messy desk.  I could feel my credit card dancing around my purse!

Then, I got it home. 

They say Mac is easy and intuitive.  It wasn't.  It might be if I had never laid eyes on a computer before or if I were about 60 years younger, but it was so different from my PC that at times I was ready to hurl it out the window.

Ahhh, but their tech support!  It was fabulous.  You could call early and often, and the Mac techies could solve whatever it was quickly and nicely.  And they not only really know their Macs, but they possess superior communication skills.

Then there were the manuals.  There were none.  But Mac for Dummies was a help a few times I felt as if I might have worn out my welcome with tech support.  

Now, I absolutely love my Mac!

First, you don't have to go nuts worrying about viruses.  Those little cyber-terrorists go for PCs but seem to leave Macs alone.  Without all of the virus blockers working overtime, the speed on Macs is just awesome.

Second, it was totally compatible with our local MLS and almost everything else I used.  

Third, our office techie set it up so I could log onto the office network from home, and the fact that the office is PC and I'm Mac made no difference.  This means I can use Outlook or the Mac version (Address Book and I-Calendar) to keep my life straight.  I can also access Microsoft Office files stored in my office's system at home on my Mac (I did purchase Office for Mac).

Fourth, With a little tinkering, I was able to sync everything to my Blackberry. 

Finally, they have an amazing, easy-to-use photo editing program.  While I also have Photoshop for Mac, I use I-Photo most of the time.   

And for those of you who are musicians, the Mac version of Finale  is also very easy to use.  I have a chamber group (I play the flute) and I'm using it to arrange everything from Joplin rags to wedding music.  And if I can do it ...

There are times when I have to download something to make an application work on Mac.  Zipform Online, for example, needed a nudge. 

On Active Rain, it works better if I do not use Safari , the browser that comes on Macs.  On Firefox, another browser that I downloaded, it works like a charm.

For a while, I kept my old Viao laptop as a security blanket for those times when something I used was totally unfriendly to Macs.  Visual Tours didn't work, so I posted my tours with my laptop.  And I couldn't find a decent mapping program for Mac, so I used the Viao for Microsoft Streets.

Please understand that I am pretty technologically impaired. I think a lot of people would have a far easier time making the transition.  And now that I've made it, I wouldn't go back.  And when my Viao died a few months ago, I replaced it with a Mac Book.  I canceled my subscription to Visual Tours let our office photographer make it happen for me.  I'm still looking for a great mapping program.