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Author Archives: Lane Bailey

Real Estate and beer…

I’m not actually a beer drinker, but my best friend has a passion for micro-brews.  Being a good friend, as I traveled around the country, I often picked up brews for him.  He liked them more than a trinket, and there was always a cold Coke at his house for me whenever we were wrenching on Jeeps or whatever.

Back to the beer.

Obviously, I was not buying enough micro-brews for him to ALWAYS have a stash, and the ones that were good he kept around as a treat, so he also drank more “normal” beers.

Beer is divided into several types…Pat smoking some ribs

Cheap Beers – You know the brands.  They’re cheap.  That is how they sell their service beer.  It isn’t about performance quality.  It’s just about the price.

Average Beers – Again… you know which ones they are.  Massive marketing.  I can’t tell you that they are better or worse than other services beers… but they are quite effectively marketed… everywhere.  You know their logos mascots and spokespeople.

Premium Beers – They actually deliver pretty good service quality.  They don’t market as much because they are advertised by their clients fans.

Micro-Brews – Many have almost NO marketing budget.  But, the ones that are good have a dedicated fanbase.  They will go out of their way to work with their favorite agent pick up their favorite brew.

And you know… real estate companies are a lot like beer.  There are discount brands, average brands, premium brands and local brokerages.  But there is a major difference.

Every bottle in the six pack is the same…

And no two agents are alike.  Brand R in Kalamzoo (home of Third Coast Beer) will likely deliver a completely different experience than Brand R in Lilburn, GA.  Better or worse, but unlikely to be the same.  Even though there is a similar access to technology and techniques… they just aren’t delivered the same way.

And the other problem is that the local brews agents might be great… or might not be.  And it takes an inside track to know which ones are likely to deliver a great experience.  But, with beer a bad transaction will leave a bad taste in your mouth for a few minutes… with real estate it can be a lifetime.

Look for exciting news next week…  I’m moving from being a fun micro-brew from well known brand to being part of a premium brand…

Declare YOUR Independence!

And this will be a little different than one might expect.

The Declaration of Independence of these United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Source: The Pennsylvania Packet, July 8, 1776

I hope you enjoyed.

And, as a final thought here is a link to Snopes about the fates of the signers.

Embrace Change!

Embrace change…

I was looking for the clip in Wayne’s World where Rob Lowe’s character asks Garth (Dana Carvey) what he thinks of the changes to Wayne’s World as it goes corporate.

In the clip, Garth replies to Rob Lowe, “Change?  We fear change.”

I see that as all too true.  But, change is here to stay.  It is a constant.

Don’t fear the change.  Embrace the change.

Buyer’s Agency – Revisited

It has been quite a while since I wrote about Buyer’s Agency… or having a Buyer/Broker Agreement (BBA) with the agent that helps you find a home.  So, it’s time…

What is a Buyer/Broker Agreement?

Simply put, it is a contract between a buyer and their agent to clarify for whom the agent works for.  Don’t let the contract part scare you off immediately.  Truthfully, Seller’s Listing contracts are much scarier.

But, here is what you need to know.  In the absence of a BBA, the agent that has driven you around and bought you lunch and made friends with you… doesn’t work for you or in your best interests.  They want to… but they don’t. They are working for the seller.  Trust me, your agent doesn’t want to work for the seller.  They probably don’t even know the seller.  But, agency law holds that they “owe loyalty” to the seller unless there is a BBA in place.

Now, in GA, like in many other states, the laws have been changing, and aren’t as clear as they used to be.  But, the fact remains that the only way to insure that the agent you have been working with when you buy a house is working FOR you is to have it in writing.  Trust me, your agent WANTS a BBA.  But, many are scared to broach the subject.  That is a whole different post…

Should I be worried about anything?

Frankly, yes.  There are a couple of things that you do want to keep in mind.  Don’t step into it blindly just because they bought you lunch or drove you around in their spiffy car.

  • Is there an exit clause?

That may be the biggest thing.  What if this agent turns out to be a dud?  You need to make sure that there is a way out of the contract.  This isn’t a marriage (for life), it is a business arrangement.  Please note, as an agent, I want to give you service that keeps you as a client for life. but, I want you to come back for your next transaction because you want to.

You should be able to leave the relationship by giving the agent notice.  And you shouldn’t have to pay them anything to do that.  There is one reasonable exception, and that is that if you buy a property that the agent found for you, they should be paid for it… they did their job.

  • Compensation…

I’ll admit, this is what scares most buyers (and agents) looking at a BBA, but it actually isn’t that scary.  Here in GA, the VAST majority of the time, the buyer’s agent is paid by the seller at closing. So, it just shouldn’t be a huge concern.  There is still a danger zone, though.  And that revolves around how much.  As an agent, I have to tread carefully around this for a blog post because of anti-trust laws.  I can’t collude with other agents for a particular rate… so I will not quote rates.  Signing your life away....

When wandering through the MLSs, as agent we can see what the seller is offering for a buyer’s agent.  The vast majority are offering X%.  There are a few that are higher, and a few that are lower.  I know that when I write a BBA, I use the most popular commission rate.  If a particular home offers a lower rate, I have a conversation with my client about that property.  Often, the rate in the BBA can be negotiated into the deal.  If it can’t then we have another conversation to determine what we are going to do.

The bottom line is that I would not want that to get in the way of a buyer getting the property that they want.  And it hasn’t yet.  I think that most agents feel the same way.

The bottom line…

If you are buying property, you NEED a buyers agent, and you need a BBA.  You need to talk with your agent about the language in their BBA to make sure that you aren’t stuck if you get a dud.  And you need to talk with your agent about how and how much they are getting paid.  Laws and customs may vary by area… so talking to your agent is always a good idea.
Creative Commons License photo credit: Ruth L

Cha-cha-changes

There is a big change coming to GarageHomesUSA and LaneBailey.com.  We’ve been working on this a little while and we’re almost ready to go public.

What I can say right now is that I will be adding another blog (I guess the three aren’t enough) that will be focused on one area in Gwinnett County.  GarageHomesUSA will start to broaden its focus over the next few months to cover issues in more areas of the country.

I’m really looking forward to these cool new changes.

I’m expecting to take listing blogs to a whole new level as well…

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