I did a series of posts on questions that I get on a regular basis (or interesting enough that they make an impression by getting asked just once).  This isn’t one of those.  This is the question that most consumers don’t know to ask… and it comes in two parts.

Can’t we push the price up some for a little negotiating room?

You can try.  But that doesn’t mean it is going to work.  So far this year there have been about 4 homes come on the market for each home that has sold.  That means that the competition for the sale is fierce.  To boil it down to the base, homes that have “a little negotiating room” aren’t getting shown… and so they don’t get offers to negotiate.  There are more than 10,000 Single Family Residences on the market right now.  In almost every price range, location and criteria set, there are a pile of homes for buyers to choose from.  When they are parring the list, the over-priced homes get cut.

That doesn’t mean it is hunky-dory…

And I will be hitting that tomorrow.  Buyers also need to be realistic when it comes to offer time.

For God’s sake, don’t let common sense creep into the picture.

Is this what we signed up for?  Is this the type of leadership we want?  Let’s not actually get anything accomplished or address real issues.  Instead, let’s make a bunch of noise and avoid long-term and/or practical thinking.

Remember, going from bad to worse is a change.

The Drag Racing world lost a hero yesterday. Scott Kalitta was killed while qualifying his car.  The Kalitta family is well known and respected in the Drag Racing community.

Scott was 46 years old and is survived by his wife, Kathy, and sons Colin and Corey.

Kind of a downer for Video Sunday, but it is also a reminder that the folks that entertain us on Sundays put their lives on the line.  And while it might be safer in the dragster or Cup car than on the flight to the track, or than it is for the fans driving to the event, it is no less tragic when something like this happens.

To the Kalitta family, just know that Scott has touched the lives of thousands.

Auto restoration, real estate, diet… whatever.

It’s all about building the system, examining the system, testing the system…

and doing it all over again…

and again… and again.

I am building a Jeepster/Commando from the ground up.  Currently I am building a frame.  I know that in order to get it right, I will put it all together, and then I will take it back apart… several times.

I do the same thing with real estate.  Is that an admission of imperfection?  Absolutely.  But, I do it more often than most.  Most sellers (or buyers) only go through the process a few times in their lives.  And they are spread out.  So, the conditions that they operate in are often not comparable.  Testing and getting a meaningful result isn’t practical.  In effect, when people choose to buy or sell without representation, they are re-inventing the wheel.

As a professional, I do it a bunch of times each year.  So, I can build a system to sell property.  I can test the system.  I can rebuilding it for the next time. And it will be tested again.

If someone tells you they have a perfect system… think about that for a few minutes.  Perfect?  Really?  There is always a way to make it a little better…

A friend of mine is quite involved in a big fight right now.  Along with his neighbors and friends, he is fighting a river.  And while this is going on, he has taken time out to assemble some incredible blog posts with some inspiring photography.  He has another blog, but the one that is the most complete is his blog on Active|Rain.

So, without further ado, here are a couple of links to his posts.  They are loaded with pics, as well as videos, and truthfully, I think that the accompanying text is worth the price of admission.

Grab your boots and lend a hand: A week in the Wisconsin flood

Voices from the flood: Wendell and Michelle

You really owe is to yourself to check these out.  Steve has done a better job humanizing the stories there than a lot of reporters.

I don’t think so…

It was an incredibly beautiful day today, and I don’t think I could have hoped for a nicer one.

Sorry this isn’t about real estate or cars… but it was just so nice.

If you aren’t in Atlanta… sorry.

;^ )

Yep…  I will be mailing the eNewsletter today.  I have found a solution and am bypassing the system that I was using before…

If you are curious…

I had been using a WordPress Plug-in called ShiftThis…  and it was neat in that I could highlight a few posts, and in about three minutes have a newsletter ready to mail.  It also collected the addresses as people signed up.  It was an elegant solution… if not pretty.  But, when I installed WP2.5, it broke.  The developer said he had it covered… and despite installing and re-installing the upgrade, I wasn’t finding a way to make it work.

So, I chucked it.  I have signed up with Constant Contact, and while it isn’t quite as simple, I have a prettier and more effective end product.

Feel free to sign up for the newsletter…

Don’t worry about getting spammed.  I won’t sell, give away or trade your email address.  I also won’t overload your email inbox.  I currently only plan on doing one eNewsletter a month, but may go to two, or send out an update… so, never more than one mail a week, and likely only one or two a month.

Enjoy.

Not real estate related, except on the farthest periphery…

Could the price of oil be in a bubble right now?  Of course, the industry experts are convinced that oil price escalation is different that real estate price escalation was… or internet stocks… or oil back in the 1970s…  Of course, real estate was different than all of the other bubbles, as was the internet stock price increase.

I’m no industry expert, and there are a lot of people that study oil prices more than me… but if the run up in prices is because of speculation, then it will only take the right news to pop the bubble and introduce fear.

That could be the US figuring out that we could pull 5 million barrels a day from ANWR and the outer continental shelf and the new finds in ND and MT.  If that were followed up by the President announcing that we WOULD be finding a way to extract oil from oil shale, and that some unused military bases would be converted to oil refineries… there would be fear about future price increases.

It would be fun to see some of the speculators get nailed with the shorts down…

I hate to toot my own horn, but if I don’t, I doubt that my competition will…  So, here it goes.

When the AJC needed perspective on Gwinnett real estate…

Their reporter called me.  Apparently, I was inescapable…  I do write monthly market reports, and I don’t pump sunshine…  I tell it like it is.  If it is good, I will say so.  If it isn’t, I will say so.  I do subscribe to the NAR position that all real estate is local, but I don’t try to use that to camouflage a weak market.

Have a link…

Here is a link to the AJC Gwinnett real estate wrap up.  The story is well written, and balanced.  The market here isn’t all sunshine, and the numbers bear that out.  It also isn’t bloodshed… and the numbers bear that out.

Every month I study the numbers.  I look at the news and the trends all of the time and try to glean where the market is heading.  But, more importantly, I try to make sure that I can back up what I am saying.  I hear a lot of people preaching doom and gloom… or preaching that it’s peachy… and they don’t have anything to back it up.

Have another link…

Here is my April/May 2008 market report on my blog.  Here is the report on my website.  Of course, if you are reading this later in the year, you can always find my most recent report on the front page of my website at GarageHomesUSA.  It is usually on a content rotator near the top of the page.  If you don’t see it right away… it should be there in a minute.

Thanks for tuning in.

So much racing is done primarily in two dimensions… even if the tracks have elevation changes, it isn’t like the racers are having to account for terrain.

Not so with off-road racing. Rally, desert racing, stadium and short course off-road racing. These each have a lot of terrain that needs to be accounted for in the design of the suspension. None more than desert racing. It might be whoops that are two feet deep, or it might be jumps that send the vehicle 20 feet in the air and 100 feet downrange.

Trophy Trucks and Truggies are amazing, with suspension travel at each corner that is about the same as an entire field of F1 cars. These things might allow as much as 24″ of controlled wheel travel on the race course. They will drive through washboard at 100mph and barely jostle the drivers… and fly with ease… and land with ease.

Thanks for watching.