judyo's Blog: In The Trenches

I hate lugging things around.  I used to carry a tiny little purse that looked more like a wallet with a cord on it.  I shopped around for the lightest briefcase I could find (made out of some kind of microfiber).  And I was so excited when I got my 12" screen Toshiba laptop.

Compared to my Dell Inspiron it felt so light and seemed so compact.  I thought it would be the perfect travel laptop.  That is, until I carried it in my laptop backpack on a flight.  OK, there were some magazines and other stuff in the backpack, but suddenly that little laptop didn't feel so little anymore.

So I went on a quest to find a tiny laptop that was less than $2,000.  To make a long story short, I am now the proud owner of the first couple hundred (if that many) MSI Winds…

The sad story of ePerks suing Vlad Zablotskyy of Go-Beyond-MLS.com is growing throughout the Internet.  Vlad, a real estate blogger, was one of ePerks many paid reviewers.  Vlad gave them a positive review but his blog started receiving negative comments from real estate agents that felt they were burned by ePerks. 

After reading these comments and doing a little research, Vlad posted another review asking if "ePerks was a gem or a scam?" More comments came his way, many from the same ip.  Seemed like those were positive messages and it is assumed that these posts were from ePerks employees.

To make a long story short, ePerks sent Vlad a cease and desist letter and requested that he remove all negative comments.  In fact, they also asked him to remove…

I finally found a home for a pair of first-time buyers that took their time (they lost two homes they liked by waiting too long to make their offer - I wrote another post about this) until they finally purchased real estate in Tinley Park.  It was a very nice single family residence and in my opinion the nicest house they saw. 

We had the home inspection and I was very happy with the inspector we had.  He explained things very clearly and did not scare my buyer.  He explained maintenance and kept repeating what a nice house it was.  He did find two problems that the buyer asked the seller to repair.  I just found out today that the seller agreed to the repairs and everything is going forward.

However, during a phone conversation with my buyer after the…

In all the years I've been a REALTOR I don't remember having such a difficult time finding comparable listings when preparing a Comparative Market Analysis or CMA.  I've always used the same parameters such as area, style of home, bedrooms, baths, etc. and have gone back six months, which is how appraisers prepare their appraisals.

There has been so little activity in most areas of the Chicago suburbs that I'm having to go back 12 months and sometimes even longer to find comparable sold and closed listings.  Yet this information is not very accurate as prices continue to drop in most suburbs of Chicago.  No wonder we're still seeing overpriced properties in today's Seller's Market.

It makes it difficult to offer a good market value for today's sellers…

There is an older post on REW Forums that keeps getting added to in the Laid Back Chat section titled "What kind of car do you drive?"  One poster mentioned a word I had never heard of before, hypermiling.  It was mentioned in a post written by Larry Jensen who is known as NY RE Broker on the forums.  He actually used the term hype-miling so I had to look it up on the Internet.

What a new world I was introduced to!  This is a new sub-culture that I can only imagine is going to continue growing.  I wrote an entire piece about my experiences with it (and my studies) so you can read all about hypermiling on my main blog.

I am really trying to make this my "way of driving" now

As I mentioned on my other blog post, you need to keep practicing.  I'm getting…

I always cringe when I see a listing where I have to set the appointment through the listing agent.  I am prepared to have to leave a voice mail and wonder if the agent will get to setting the appointment.  It makes it difficult when you're trying to set up multiple showings and preparing a route to take.  So many times by the time the agent calls back it's a day or two after we wanted to show the property.

I called an office early yesterday to set an appointment for today.  This particular office was closed on Sunday.  OK, some offices are not open on Sunday so I wasn't surprised.

I called again at 9:00 this morning and had to leave another message.  I showed the other 3 homes I had set for this morning and when I got in my car I noticed I had a voice…

A few months ago I received a listing referral from another REW member, Ken Smith.  He sells in the northwest Chicago suburbs and I sell in the southwest area.  Sometimes our websites attract each other’s area so we trade prospects whenever we can.

The sellers sounded very nice over the phone and I was excited to actually work what at first sounded like a good referral.  These sellers were selling a home in Palos Heights, which is a very sought after southwest suburb of Chicago.  They were still listed with another brokerage.

My excitement waned as I was preparing the Comparative Market Analysis (CMA).  The house had already been on the market for over 200 days.  The original asking price was $349,900 and after several price reductions they were…

I got an interesting call the other day.  It was from a woman who didn't sound too friendly asking me to take her off my mailing list.  So I asked her what her e-mail address was wondering why she didn't choose the opt-out feature vs. making a phone call.  She said it wasn't an e-mail.  Then she said in a somewhat exasperated voice, "I keep getting stuff from you in the mail."

I almost laughed.  In fact I think I did chuckle as I told her, in a nice way, that she was the first person to ever call me about sending snail mail.  She was either an expired or fsbo that I send a series of postcards and my newsletters to.  I didn't even have time to do it last year but have been successful in the past so decided to start it up again since it's been a slower…