Archive for the 'Bank-Owned Properties' Category
September 30th, 2007
Bank-Owned Properties, First Time Buyers, Foreclosures, Reno Real Estate
Terry
“There is nothing more difficult to to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” Nicollo Machiavelli (early 1500s)
So said this Italian political philosopher and somewhat controversial historical figure, yet this quote so mimics today’s Realtor’s dilemma. I (and many of us) read an inspiring post by George Tallabas about believing in ourselves and in a way repositioning our minds. After reflecting on his thoughts and then looking at many of my colleagues, I was struck with this Machiavelli quote that my husband often uses in his university teaching.
Our challenge today in the real estate market, whether you’re a realtor, buyer, or seller is multi-faceted: we have to think positively, act confidently, maintain our enthusiasm, be alert to even subtle market changes, stay well-positioned in the marketplace, AND BE WILLING TO TAKE ON THE INTRODUCTION OF A NEW ORDER OF THINGS!
As I peer from my sometimes foggy glasses, I see a new order of things looming, replete with new challenges and new business models. I am willing and I am challenged to forge ahead to even more treacherous territory, AND I WILL CONTINUE TO SPEAK THE TRUTH TO SELLERS: lower your asking price NOW, and say YES to SOLID, though less than expected offers, because the offers made today are from buyers ready to buy at bargain prices!
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September 6th, 2007
Bank-Owned Properties, First Time Buyers, Foreclosures, Guaranteed Sales Program, Reno Real Estate, Short Sales
Terry
I can’t seem to shake this feeling and thought process, but I wonder where we’re going with real estate articles at times. I get the “Is there more FORCE or more FARCE in the real estate articles you read” syndrome whenever I do those all so convenient quick reads of blog posts and comments.
I’m sure most persons really interested in real estate have some measure of knowledge to begin with, but do you get annoyed with too much fluff and not enough substance?
My mother is fond of saying, “I just don’t know.” I’m there stuck with her right now - I just don’t know the answer to this question: Should there be more FORCE or FARCE in real estate blog articles?
Let me know what you think. Â
FORCE articles are:
F — funny (and thus amusing and laugh generators)
OÂ — original (crafted from real or imagined experiences)
R — ridiculous (sometimes so silly that readers’ comments are all over the map)
C — casual (rarely too profoundly serious or deeply thought provoking), and
E — entertaining (must always close with a punch line or joke, and may open with either as well)
FARCE articles are:Â
F — factual (truly on point and targeted)
A — accountable (written well enough to avoid misinterpretation by readers - a.k.a. bad advice)Â
R — researched (facts and opinions are traceable and logical)
C — conceptual (the post opens with a premise or thesis, explains it, examines it, and then offers choices and optional courses of action) andÂ
E — enterprising (they are about making money, doing business better, solving problems, making headway in the raging real estate storms even when your mast has snapped)
So, really, what do you think real estate looker, investor, agent, broker, regulator?  Â
Â
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August 18th, 2007
Bank-Owned Properties, Foreclosures, Reno Real Estate
Terry
The following blog was written to Realtors, but it is certainly for the public consumer of real estate services as well!
This is a tough business at times, increasingly so when foreclosure enters a person’s life and not much else seems to be working.
“Mom,” Sarah (my daughter and real estate business partner) says pointing to the floor, “Those are the coroner’s gloves!”
I look across the room at the fluid- and blood-stained carpet and catch a glance of the scene that had played out a couple of days earlier.
The occupant of the house had lost his home to the bank, and had been moving out for several days. Most of the large items were removed, but strewn about the house were books, clothing, shoes, personal items, memorabilia, and assorted clutter. Ironically, the books were largely Christian, with a broad range of themes, but something awful had set upon the house.
Charles (a fictitious name) had days earlier decided to take his life, and following the coroner’s office, we were the first to enter the home. Charles had no one else in his life. He had hung on as long as he could to his home, but a lost job and other hardships had intervened, and he was losing everything.
My Dr. John felt Charles’ suicide was the last thing he could do that he felt he had control over. Charles it seems had indeed lost every worldly thing of value to him, and a violent suicide seemed the most expedient way to end the tragedy of his life.
Of course, I don’t know if he would have faired any better had he not lost his house to foreclosure; no one can know for sure, but his death was a stark reminder of just how emotionally vulnerable our clients can be when life closes in on them and they lose their stability.
As Realtors, Sarah and I left the scene, not in shock, but in sorrow over what had happened because it seemed so senseless, and we also left the scene wondering about our industry.
Are real estate deals and sales and purchases gone bad our fault as Realtors? No, I don’t think they are, but do we listen when we hear the cries of our clients when they are approaching dangerous territory? And, should we, or must we listen?
These are perplexing questions, even when we know the outcomes many of our clients face have nothing to do with us. Still, the outcomes can leave us with indelible memories whether we’re a part of the cause or not.
So what’s the message from These Ladies Who Mean Business? I guess it’s a pretty simple message: where there’s smoke there’s fire. When your former client reaches out to you for advice on the market, asks if it’s a good time to sell, is struggling with a divorce or family tragedy, is having obvious financial problems, and seeks your ideas…LISTEN. We all get busy…very busy, but I believe we need to listen to both the tears and words of desperation, and to that still so quiet voice within us.
We, as Realtors, are not every client’s safety net, but we are in a keen situation to often see the smoke before the flames! We may not be able to stop our clients from self-destructive behaviors, but we ought to consider the possibility that we might be able to alter the ultimate outcome. Given our specialized real estate and lending knowledge and training, maybe we can recognize the need to alert others that we suspect intervention is needed — beyond what we can do. Maybe?
Think about this….
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June 29th, 2007
Bank-Owned Properties, Foreclosures, Reno Real Estate
Terry
Lights, camera, action — then the Sheriff’s Department phoned…
How about this. It was about 9:15 p.m. when Terry received a phone call from the Sheriff’s Department:Â
“Ms. Rasner?” the caller asked.
“Yes, this is Terry Rasner.”Â
“This is the County Sheriff’s Department. Do you have a vacant house for sale at XXXXXX?”
“Ahhh, yes.”
“Well, maam, a neighbor has driven her vehicle through the garage door of your property, and the vehicle is stuck in the garage with the engine running, trapped by the broken garage door that’s fallen on it.”
“WHAT?????!!!!”
“Yes, maam, this is an emergency and you need to get over to the property immediately and secure it. We’ll secure the area and wait for you to arrive.”
That call was received two evenings ago. A quick jump into the phone booth and it was time for these ladies to mean business!
We scrambled together a team of two and armed with power tools and assorted other tools and scrap lumber we headed over to meet the Sherrif. The property was 30 minutes away and by now it was 9:45 p.m. We arrived to find the vehicle sitting in the driveway, having been extricated from the garage. The garage door was destroyed and haning there limp. A refrigerator in the garage was destroyed, it’s insulation and guts strewn about a corner of the garage.
Actually this was a good thing, as the refrigerator slowed the vehicle enough to stop it from parking in one of the bedrooms. Instead, the vehicle only smashed into a bearing wall and poked its nose through the wall and into the bedroom. Nice scene, huh????
So, here we were: the next door neighbor girl (17) came over crying to aplogize for her mishap, and thoughtfully brought her vehicle insurance information. Soon after the parents followed. An assessment of their mood and demeanor revealed a spirit of cooperation and an acceptance of fault.  We briefly counseled the girl that repairs could be made, but that the best part of the accident was that she was unhurt, albeit shaken-up emotionally.
Next it was to the business of securing the house. A thorough inspection revelaed the damage was limited to the garage door, refirgerator, a bearing wall, paneling on the inside of the bedroom, and potentially some electrical wiring and conduit (but no live wires were exposed). Fortunately the house was in a culdesac, and was not furnished. In fact, it is one of our many bank-owned properties, and per protocols, we needed an approval from the asset management company to move forward with repairs and some security actions. Unfortunately at accident’s time, the time in the land of the asset management company was 12:45 a.m.
For safety and security reasons, our locksmith was called and the one door in question was re-keyed and secured first thing the next morning. What will now follow are the oft-tedious tasks of repairs and getting it back into shape for the market. And, this is a great little property!
Is it disconcerting and annoying to have this happen?  You bet!
Is this routine? No, but it can happen at any time, and as a responsible realtor, any time means be ready for the unexpected and unanticipated. As a responsible consumer, point out these occurences to local authorities, and if you must, don’t hesitate to phone the realtor. As much as we can get caught off guard by these calls, it’s still good we have the eyes and ears of the community helping us.Â
To be sure: These Ladies Mean Business!    Â
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June 13th, 2007
Bank-Owned Properties, First Time Buyers, Reno Real Estate
Terry
Rooting Out the Rotten Tomatoes
Workers separate tomatoes at the sprawling Central de Abastos market in Mexico City on June 10
Gregory Bull / AP
So how much damage can a few rotten tomatoes really do? The tomato-linked salmonella outbreak announced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 3 has claimed 228 victims in 23 states over 58 days (and counting). It has put 25 people in the hospital and may have had a role in hastening the death of a cancer patient. And then there’s the flurry of panic as many of the tomatoes that American consumers take for granted every day suddenly disappear — from McDonald’s hamburgers; from the salsa at Chipotle Mexican Grill; from Burger King, Taco Bell and Sonic; and from the grocery shelves at Kroger, Wal-Mart and Target. Didn’t we just go through this with bagged spinach? With peanut butter? With pet food?
Because the FDA’s tomato-recall recommendation is so specific — including only three types, grown in certain regions during a certain time — and because many national chains pulled their tomato stock within days of the announcement, most of the infected samples have likely been removed. But the outbreak remains ongoing; its source has not yet been determined, and the government is investigating new cases every day. It may be a few more weeks before the delicious staple fruit is given the all-clear.
Taking tomatoes off shelves and menus may contain the outbreak, but it doesn’t explain it. On May 22, the New Mexico Health Department notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it knew of seven people recently infected with Salmonella Saintpaul, an unusual strand of the bacteria that accounted for only 400 of the 1.4 million cases of salmonella infection reported last year. And it was precisely because occurrences of the Saintpaul strand are so rare that the report caught the CDC’s attention. When Texas and a few other states reported cases of people being infected by bacteria with the same “genetic fingerprint,” a multistate search for Salmonella Saintpaul was launched. While the CDC tracked reported illnesses, the FDA interviewed victims to find out what they had eaten (and where). The common answer was tomatoes.
There have been 13 outbreaks of salmonella in tomatoes since 1990, which puts the fruit on the list of high-risk foods that are prone to infection. But unlike the bagged spinach from the 2006 E. Coli scare, the tomatoes don’t come with a traceable bar code. “When you’re dealing with tomatoes, it is much, much more complex,” explains Dr. David Acheson, the FDA’s associate commissioner for foods. The FDA’s great tomato hunt has an ever-expanding list of suspects. A salmonella victim can point to the supermarket (or restaurant) that sold the offending fruit, but that store probably sources its tomatoes from several suppliers, each of which uses several distributors — and distributors buy from any number of growers.
“Each set of questions just multiplies into a fan of information that has to be sorted through to understand where the links cross over,” says Acheson. Although the FDA has managed to rule out some regions — northern Florida is safe because its tomatoes weren’t ready for harvest at the time of the outbreak — it will be some time until the true source is found. “We’re not quite there yet,” says Acheson, “but we’re getting very close.” But Dr. Ian Williams, chief of the CDC’s OutbreakNet team, warns that the source may never be found due to the fruit’s short shelf life. “You don’t expect to find an infected tomato sitting on someone’s counter 10 days after the outbreak,” says Williams.
Still, the lag time between the initial outbreak and the government’s reaction is startling: the first Salmonella Saintpaul victim fell ill on April 16, but the FDA didn’t announce the tomato link until June 3. Williams says part of the problem identifying salmonella outbreaks is that a lot of victims don’t see the symptoms — diarrhea, fever, vomiting — as sufficiently severe to warrant a visit to the doctor, and so they go undiagnosed. “There may be a delay in reporting outbreaks because people do not have a stool specimen tested,” he says. Officials have not yet identified an infected tomato, and because of the fruit’s short shelf life, they probably never will.
The FDA unveiled a tomato-safety initiative in 2007 that sought to identify causes of salmonella infection, but Acheson admits that studying preventive techniques doesn’t help the FDA deal with outbreaks. The FDA has no plans to change the initiative in the face of the recent outbreak.
Even if the FDA can pinpoint the source of the outbreak, it’s hard for consumers to know where their tomatoes are grown. Certain imported foods are required to carry country-of-origin labels, but that doesn’t apply to domestic produce. “I’m not aware of any tomato outbreak that was not domestic,” says Acheson. There is no such thing as a mandatory state-of-origin label for food, and federal authorities have yet to create such a law. “Saying ‘product of the U.S.’ isn’t necessarily going to confer safety,” he says. So much for reassurance.
Vi ste jeben.
Continue
May 3rd, 2007
Bank-Owned Properties, First Time Buyers, Foreclosures, Reno Real Estate, Short Sales
Terry
Rooting Out the Rotten Tomatoes
Workers separate tomatoes at the sprawling Central de Abastos market in Mexico City on June 10
Gregory Bull / AP
So how much damage can a few rotten tomatoes really do? The tomato-linked salmonella outbreak announced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 3 has claimed 228 victims in 23 states over 58 days (and counting). It has put 25 people in the hospital and may have had a role in hastening the death of a cancer patient. And then there’s the flurry of panic as many of the tomatoes that American consumers take for granted every day suddenly disappear — from McDonald’s hamburgers; from the salsa at Chipotle Mexican Grill; from Burger King, Taco Bell and Sonic; and from the grocery shelves at Kroger, Wal-Mart and Target. Didn’t we just go through this with bagged spinach? With peanut butter? With pet food?
Because the FDA’s tomato-recall recommendation is so specific — including only three types, grown in certain regions during a certain time — and because many national chains pulled their tomato stock within days of the announcement, most of the infected samples have likely been removed. But the outbreak remains ongoing; its source has not yet been determined, and the government is investigating new cases every day. It may be a few more weeks before the delicious staple fruit is given the all-clear.
Taking tomatoes off shelves and menus may contain the outbreak, but it doesn’t explain it. On May 22, the New Mexico Health Department notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it knew of seven people recently infected with Salmonella Saintpaul, an unusual strand of the bacteria that accounted for only 400 of the 1.4 million cases of salmonella infection reported last year. And it was precisely because occurrences of the Saintpaul strand are so rare that the report caught the CDC’s attention. When Texas and a few other states reported cases of people being infected by bacteria with the same “genetic fingerprint,” a multistate search for Salmonella Saintpaul was launched. While the CDC tracked reported illnesses, the FDA interviewed victims to find out what they had eaten (and where). The common answer was tomatoes.
There have been 13 outbreaks of salmonella in tomatoes since 1990, which puts the fruit on the list of high-risk foods that are prone to infection. But unlike the bagged spinach from the 2006 E. Coli scare, the tomatoes don’t come with a traceable bar code. “When you’re dealing with tomatoes, it is much, much more complex,” explains Dr. David Acheson, the FDA’s associate commissioner for foods. The FDA’s great tomato hunt has an ever-expanding list of suspects. A salmonella victim can point to the supermarket (or restaurant) that sold the offending fruit, but that store probably sources its tomatoes from several suppliers, each of which uses several distributors — and distributors buy from any number of growers.
“Each set of questions just multiplies into a fan of information that has to be sorted through to understand where the links cross over,” says Acheson. Although the FDA has managed to rule out some regions — northern Florida is safe because its tomatoes weren’t ready for harvest at the time of the outbreak — it will be some time until the true source is found. “We’re not quite there yet,” says Acheson, “but we’re getting very close.” But Dr. Ian Williams, chief of the CDC’s OutbreakNet team, warns that the source may never be found due to the fruit’s short shelf life. “You don’t expect to find an infected tomato sitting on someone’s counter 10 days after the outbreak,” says Williams.
Still, the lag time between the initial outbreak and the government’s reaction is startling: the first Salmonella Saintpaul victim fell ill on April 16, but the FDA didn’t announce the tomato link until June 3. Williams says part of the problem identifying salmonella outbreaks is that a lot of victims don’t see the symptoms — diarrhea, fever, vomiting — as sufficiently severe to warrant a visit to the doctor, and so they go undiagnosed. “There may be a delay in reporting outbreaks because people do not have a stool specimen tested,” he says. Officials have not yet identified an infected tomato, and because of the fruit’s short shelf life, they probably never will.
The FDA unveiled a tomato-safety initiative in 2007 that sought to identify causes of salmonella infection, but Acheson admits that studying preventive techniques doesn’t help the FDA deal with outbreaks. The FDA has no plans to change the initiative in the face of the recent outbreak.
Even if the FDA can pinpoint the source of the outbreak, it’s hard for consumers to know where their tomatoes are grown. Certain imported foods are required to carry country-of-origin labels, but that doesn’t apply to domestic produce. “I’m not aware of any tomato outbreak that was not domestic,” says Acheson. There is no such thing as a mandatory state-of-origin label for food, and federal authorities have yet to create such a law. “Saying ‘product of the U.S.’ isn’t necessarily going to confer safety,” he says. So much for reassurance.
Vi ste jeben.
Continue
