The Unconditional Blog

The impartial voice of the industry

 

Archive for the ‘The lighter side’ Category

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Take a break from the turmoil of the financial markets

Posted on: September 20th, 2008 | Filed in The lighter side

The media are awash with the news that has shocked the world’s financial markets in the last 10 days. No one is prepared to call the status of this crisis and I have no intention of making any speculation – especially as some of the brightest economists in this country and overseas are taking a “one day at a time” attitude.

All media though are clear in tracing back the collapse to the US subprime debacle of a couple of years ago. The facts surrounding the structure of these financial packages created out of very high risk loans are at times confusing. I therefore thought some brevity and amusing distraction might be appropriate.

This video provides a very amusing comedy sketch from a classic British duo of John Fortune and John Bird. It was broadcast on The South Bank show last October and provides a very telling observation on the complexities of financial markets and the origins of the subprime crisis titled the “last laugh”.

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According to the Dutch – The best thing about NZ is that our housing prices are low!!

Posted on: July 10th, 2008 | Filed in The lighter side

Now that is certainly the kind of headline to capture interest!

and the fact is, that is what has been reported on a very active Dutch blogsite. The website Greenstijl which (with the valuable assistance of Google’s translation service) describes itself as “scandalous revelations and journalism research interspersed with airy and pleasant topics disturbed nonsense” posted an article last Saturday titled “Departure to New Zealand!”

To provide those non-dutch speakers amongst the readers of this blog and again with the benefits of the service of Google translator – here is a translation of the article:

Geen sentence in Canada? New Zealand were looking for immigrants. Pastoral farmers, It’ers, hbo’ers, engineers, you name it. Anyone with a little training is welcome in that great country! People who want to work in tourism. People who build boats, conveyor belt can work, understand petrochemical industry, forestry, rightly want in the film and television industry (and which is best large), like in the financial sector or so … Even officials want to be. The list is endless. Like what you’ve seen? This is a good start. Check also the vacancies, and apply! New Zealand has one of the most beautiful and diverse landscapes in the world. Nowhere else can you find fjords, gletchers, mountains, grasslands, surf beaches, dive, hobbitstedes and everything nice and cool to the earth, and hip clubs in one place. You earn tons of money there. The best housing prices are low. Yes, absolutely, make Netherlands viable, what we are concerned rot you tomorrow. That we mean very nice.

The pictures are all from Flickr, so they are real.

With appropriate apologies for the roughness of computer translation, you get a view of how the dutch see NZ – makes for an appealing perspective!

This blog site is one of the most popular in Holland and attracts an audience which makes it the 36th top site in the country (according to Alexa) with a reach on a weekly basis around a third of that of Trade Me!

With this level of visitors (some of the posts regularly get 500 to 700 comments!) – it is not surprising that the referal link to this website in the original post certainly impacted our traffic over the weekend. Normally Holland represents around 0.25% of all our traffic – an average day being around 50 visitors searching our properties, but as can be seen from the graph below over the past 5 days Holland has shot up from #14 top country to #2 – with on Sunday alone 8,400 visitors!

The best bit of it was the fact that they did more than just hit the home page, they actually went looking to see if our prices really are low! – with 767 replies posted on the blog post – some may express agreement – that is for you to translate!

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Unique properties

Posted on: June 27th, 2008 | Filed in The lighter side

It seems some people have taken literally the idea conveyed in the blog post of a week ago concerning featuring property on the home page of the website.

I was sent these suggestions of possible properties that might be worth featuring – you decide if they would be the kind of properties that you would want to buy?


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The unthinkable – what if the internet went down?

Posted on: June 16th, 2008 | Filed in The lighter side

I am I must confess an unabashed zealot of the internet. It is and has become a ubiquitous and indispensable part of my life as it has for many people, if not the vast majority of people. This situation will only continue and grow in the years to come, especially as the next generation to assume the mantle of this industry, take over the responsibility for assisting in the transaction of real estate.

It is therefore sobering for one lighthearted moment to reflect upon this scary question of what happens …. if the internet suddenly and inexplicably “went down” – from the creators of South Park, I share with you this humorous video.

I have to thank Dave Platter over at Business2 for pointing this out in his post when the web goes down. Equally as posted by Glen Barnes, as a comparable view there is also the video from Onion News Network “Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash” – the comment about blogs is wonderful tongue in cheek!

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Who’s to blame for the property market slow down? – part 2

Posted on: May 15th, 2008 | Filed in Media commmentary, The lighter side

This I promise is the last word (well for the time being on this subject) – but before we move onto other matters.

I was amused that rather in the same vein as the recent post on the synchronised collapse of property markets around the world, we also now have a synchronised “search for a scapegoat” for whom to blame for the property market collapse. This article was reported in the UK Sunday Times last weekend.

The article instead of laying blame at the feet of any one party (although it is titled “Estate Agents become scapegoats for the property market slowdown“) skilfully and with a large dose of “tongue-in-cheek” highlights that dependent upon your perspective (alluding I feel to a very English class level adjudication) you can blame:

  • What they see as the blog level – well it has to be anyone who has ever been associated in any way with a property show on television or, more bizarrely, those who have already paid off their mortgages!
  • What they see as the school gate level – this is where real estate agents get the venomous attack
  • Then at the level of dinner-party set – this is where the attack turns into what looks like envy where buy-to-let “private investor landlords” as we call them enter the firing line
  • Finally in the rarefied air of the corporate level – it is big business to blame as well as the professional services firms who support all this speculation

For me I rather like the answer provided by Andy Hamilton (one of our highly read and very well observed commentators on this blog) who so skilfully stated:

“Isn’t it odd how the press in such diverse nations as the US, Ireland, Spain, the UK and NZ all got together and decided to talk their respective markets down almost all at the SAME time; one wonders what their motives could have been? Oooooh I know the press wanted to piss off the industry that is collectively one of their biggest advertisers, surely that must be the reason”

Enough said.

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When the sub-prime hits home – this is what it looks like!

Posted on: May 8th, 2008 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, The lighter side

We have all become exposed to the expression “sub prime” in the last 9 months – it is likely to be inducted into the Oxford English Dictionary pretty soon as a new phrase, in fact it was voted word of the year for 2007 by the American Dialect Society.

However whilst we have all heard that this is driving an unprecedented level of foreclosures (mortgagee sales) in the US and devaluing property prices in parts of the country. All of this is generalistic until you see the reality of a single property – here is such a case study.

Google map of Corona CA

This 4 bedroom house is on a new development south east of Los Angeles nestled in the Corona valley.

Sanctury Drive house, Corona CAThe house was built in 2005 at the peak of the housing frenzy and sold new in May of 2006 for $1.4m, less than a year later in Feb 2007 it was flipped (by an astute person!) for $1.5m.

A year later the buyer or the bank (its is not clear whether at the time it was the subject of a foreclosure or the then owner) decided to bail – anyway it was sold in Feb 2008 for $1.1m – somebody taking a $400,000 hit!

That’s not the end of the story, because the current owner is looking down the barrel of a $430,000 loss as the property today is listed at $669,900!

I am grateful for the assistance of Zillow and their excellent forum for highlighting this listing as part of a very interesting post Who wants to play – “Guess the price of that house?” – well worth a read as there are more examples like this one!

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The solution to selling your home – just add life insurance!

Posted on: April 18th, 2008 | Filed in Buying / Selling a home, The lighter side

Real estate has always been known for colourful and flamboyant eye-catching headlines designed to entice the prospective buyer to consider this house or that apartment. This puffery has over time incurred the wrath of consumer rights advocates and regulators.

It is therefore rather fitting that the imagination of one Wisconsin real estate agent in association with a canny vendor has come up with what could be the ultimate eye-catching marketing concept.

Buy my house and have the opportunity of getting your money back! - No; not some kind of bizarre money back guarantee scheme, but a legal and innovative gamble.

How to sell you home - just add life insuranceBob Fanning and his agent Wayne Peters are offering the prospective buyer of this 5,600 square-foot $489,900 house a free term life insurance policy to the value of $500,000 – the insured life is that of the vendor Mr Fanning. The wise buyer will be morbidly hoping that Mr Fanning dies within the 10 year term of the policy for the buyer to collect.

This morbid twist of marketing has the full consent of Mr Fanning’s wife and family as it is a separate life policy established purely as a marketing tactic.

For the record Mr Fanning is 69 years old, and in case you suspect that foul play may be looming to bring a swift end to Mr Fanning’s life, the attorneys have allowed for that eventuality nullifying the policy should Mr Fanning meet an untimely or suspicious end or for him to commit suicide.

As for the odds: Fanning said he has no health problems, though he joked that he’s “too short” for his weight. Both his parents died before age 79, as did a sister. He said he’d be willing to disclose medical records to a buyer.

I must thank Steve Koerber of Barfoot & Thompson for posting this news story on his blog. Thanks Steve for adding a touch of the lighter side to this week’s news!

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The true face of real estate agents

Posted on: April 5th, 2008 | Filed in The lighter side

The real estate industry is unique in so many ways – it is entirely commission based; almost all people involved are self employed; there are very low barriers to entry and no restriction on potential earning; and of course in the ranking of most trusted people they don’t fair too well!

In a slightly lighter vein the thing that gets me about real estate agents is their flamboyancy when it comes to business cards!

The true face of real estate agents

How many other industries can you think of that put their photo on their business card?

Why is it that this industry is so driven to flash the face of the agent not only on their cards, but also for-sale-signs and magazine adverts. You don’t see your local lawyer or dentist undertaking such activities nor even the local used car salesperson or MP.

The truth of the matter is that these people smiling sweetly at you from their card are trying desperately to establish a unique and lasting impression on you. They are self employed and rely almost entirely on referrals to earn an income. Good agents can establish a recognition allowing them to switch companies, thereby demonstrating their personal brand is of greater value than the company for which they work.

Equally for a newbie to the industry it can seem a near impossible hill to climb to establish the credibility and referrals needed to build any business; they need the support and influence of the office name to give them a springboard to launch their career.

Anyway I said that this post was a touch on the lighter side and this photo caught my eye this week and prompted me to write this post – you can’t help but smile to think what really is the true face behind the flamboyant business card of your local real estate agent??

What lurks behind the business card of your local real estate agent

Credit for this photo must go to Joel Burslem who runs an excellent blog called future of real estate marketing.

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“Real estate speak” – what the agent is really saying!

Posted on: February 29th, 2008 | Filed in The lighter side

Real estate is an industry full of cliches and language all of its own, and at the same time is is well recognised for what is known as “puffery” – which is a legal term which refers to promotional statements and claims that no reasonable person would take literally! Interesting that, when put in the context of real estate with all its associated risk and commitments.

Anyway this post is on a lighter note.

I had been looking for quite a while to be able to quote the kind of true interpretation of much used “real-estate-speak”and I found this article within a specialised wiki set up by Inman Publishing – a specialised real estate publisher that hosts the twice annual Real Estate Connect conference which I attended in January and spoke of in the post on video blogs.

So if you have ever wondered the true meaning behind “bring your paintbrush”, “Motivated sellers”, “updated kitchen” or “cozy” then have a read and a smile at these – and of course if you have experienced another one or have an idea for a new one then post a comment here.

On the other hand you would like to better understand the true definition of some more specialised terms on real estate I would encourage you to have a sort through our on line glossary of over 150 terms on the realestate.co.nz website.

Additional Content

I found this today in a book I had at home “It’s not rocket science and other irritating modern cliches” – so with due reference to the authors Clive Whichelow and Hugh Murray, some amusing real estate cliches:

Bijou – Cramped

Compact – Very cramped

Convenient for local schools – Convenient for several thousand local schoolchildren passing through your front garden; their parents parking their SUV’s across your lawn and half a ton of sweet wrappers stuffed through your letterbox every morning and afternoon.

Deceptively spacious – Cramped even if you are a midget contortionist

I could see you in this place – Seeing that this is a phrase uttered by the agent while he/she is in the property showing round the potential purchasers, it doesn’t require a huge leap of immagination

If you don’t snap this up, someone else will – In other words, “Why don’t you just get your chequebook out now and let me get on with the rest of my day?”

In need of modernisation – Which means, “how this building remains standing is something of a mystery”

It’s got potential – This house is a wreck

Much sought-after – Sales agents will tell you that every house on their books is “much sought-after”. If they are all so “much sought-after”, why are agents necessary? Couldn’t you just sell your house to one of the vast hordes of people coming in each day and night seeking it?

Original features – The property benefits from many “original features”. In other words the place hasn;t had any work done on it since 1974

Popular area – Yes, of course it’s a popular area. People live there. They live there because once upon a time someone built some houses there. It is therefore a popular area!

Spectacular view – This property has a spectacular view – well, it would if you removed all the other buildings round it

This one’s going to go quickly – I am waiting for to get your chequebook out!

Up-and-coming area – If you move into this area you will be a bit like a pioneer staking your claim in a wild, lawless territory

Vibrant area – Probably vibrating with the sound of 500-watt loudspeaker systems, the rumble of riot-squad trucks and sub-machine-gun fire

(The) wow factor – All houses put up for sales these days must have a “wow factor”. This is often a nice fireplace in the front room or it could be a sacrificial altar in the guest bedroom

You could build on it – Said even when the property involved already has 36 storeys

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