Our listing at 4032 Birchgrove Way in Sacramento has just had a huge price reduction to $295,000, and will be held open on Wednesday, September 12, 2006 from 3PM to 6PM. Here’s the map, so stop by and say hello.

I’ll be there holding it open along with an excellent lender, Linda Spafford. She’ll be on-hand to meet with first time buyers who want to learn how to get pre-approved for one of the many outstanding loan programs she has available. Learn about low-down payment and no-down-payment financing options that can help you stop paying rent and move in to a home of your own.

Last week I complained about another blogger who hadn’t provided a link back for some info he got from my site, and I’m very happy to report that the person involved has corrected this oversight and been a real gentleman about the whole thing.

It’s always encouraging to me when folks can work through their differences, and I appreciate this other blogger’s efforts to make things right.

Recently a local blogger — for the sake of argument let’s just call him “Mr. Z” for now “found” some good results:

Some August Results

I found some early August results for Sacramento County. According to MLS the median price paid was $404,062 which is down 3.9 percent form last August median of $380,000. The volume of sales declined dramatically, down 52.5 percent to 1,130 homes sold. In August the per square foot sold price was down 2.8 percent. Of note is the rapid increase in the number of expired listings. This August 1,085 listing expired compared to 346 last year and almost equaled the number of homes sold.

Well, isn’t that interesting. I don’t see a courtesy link to where he might have miraculously happened to have “found” such results. Could it have possibly been from this unlikely source, published by me five days earlier?

Well, let’s see, we have this year’s median misreported as $404,062, just as in my original article. I mistakenly copied out the average cell of my Excel spreadsheet, instead of the median, leaving the curious result of a number being “down” from a LOWER number.

Remember that kid who copied off you in high school, including your wrong answers? See, high school is “closer to the core of the American Experience than anything else I can think of.” That’s Kurt Vonnegut, as quoted by Ralph Keyes. Can you say attribution, boys and girls? Sure, I knew you could.

(Fred Rogers).

Meantime, sports fans, the correct value for this year’s median appears to be $362,400, and it’s actually down 4.6% from $380,000 — hey look, I made two mistakes, and they’re both in Mr. Z’s article. $365,000 is the median list price, and that’s what gave the “3.8%” value I quoted.

I notice this character has no trouble linking to the Bee, but doesn’t link back to me. Presumably he figures that since I’m a competitor of his wife, all’s fair.

This incident is disappointing at best. I don’t like getting my numbers wrong. And I SURE don’t like it when my competition steals them and passes them off as their own, especially when it happens a day after a really kind and friendly email from me.

What a business.

John Lockwood Associates is keenly interested in talking to productive agents with one or more years of real estate experience.

(We already have our John Lockwood, but now we need associates!)

Four years ago, I developed several top-performing Real Estate web sites that were number one for many important keywords. I am now looking to expand that success even further, but I need help to do it.

I’m offering:

• Competitive commisison splits with a cap.
• Round-robin, “floor style” access to Internet leads
• An agent web site with professionally managed pay-per-click advertising sponsored by your broker to bring you even more business.

If you’re interested, let’s discuss the possiblities: (800) 767-1975.

As reported in the San Jose Mercury News today, Intel plans to cut some 10,500 jobs by next year. It’s hard to imagine their Folsom headquarters not being affected, though I haven’t seen any numbers on that.

Well, if you’re one of those affected, please accept my heartfelt sympathies. I had a bit of a run-in with high-tech job insecurity lately myself. It’s not much fun.

Congratulations to Hawaii’s #1 Real Estate Blogger on the birth of the cutest little baby on the Internet, Maia Kawaguchi.

Cheers, Tony. Get some sleep, man.

I’ve been writing some new ads for the discount broker program today, and tweaking my log files so I can understand which of these ads are performing best.

I’ve got the logs where I want them, but the ads still have a long way to go. To date, for example, all the teaser ads are still going through the Savings Calculator, so maybe a better approach would be to simply say, “To get your home listed for a 1.5% listing fee by my favorite broker, call (800) 767-1975″.

No, that strikes me as too easy. Where would the wheel be if it had never been re-invented? We never would have discovered inner tubes! Or then tubeless tires!

Anyway, if you want to see two versions of the ad, here’s one and two. (Reminds me of an optometrist visit — now which ad is clearer… One… or Two… One? or Two…).

It’s important to get good performance on your ads if you’re going to be discounting, of course, since the whole point of discounting is that you can spend more time servicing the customer instead of chasing sales (that’s what’s in it for the client, other than the savings). What’s in it for the Broker of course is that you make it up in volume.

Hopefully this story doesn’t end up being about me, but meantime I’ll tell it because I like it:

Two discount brokers get fed up with the real estate business and decide to sell apples instead. So they go up to Apple Hill in Camino and buy apples for 25 cents each, then drive their truck down to Rancho Cordova and sell them, at two for 50 cents. After about a month, one ex-discount-broker says to the other, “You know, we’re not making any money.” And the other one says, “You’re right. We need a bigger truck.”

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been thinking for some time about offering discounted listing services, and I’ve finished the first draft of some of the literature about this service offering.

The best part of this to-date (I think — you tell me) is the Savings Calculator, which shows just how much you’ll save with my discount rate structure compared to a standard, full-commission broker.

I’m very excited about being able to save local sellers thousands of dollars when they list their home. We’ve published a lot of information about how the market is slowing somewhat, so in a way it’s a crazy time to be doing this (listings are taking longer to sell and requiring more work — so one would think I should charge more, not less). But if I look at this from a homeowner’s perspective (not my own), then the slowing market means you’re already losing enough equity to price reductions — you don’t need to be spending more on full commission listings.

Anyway, check out the savings calculator and the Sacramento Discount Broker – Frequently Asked Questions. It’s pretty newly minted, so please let me know if you have questions or problems.

I have been giving some serious thought to providing discount listing services for some time now. When I was at my earlier company, our advertising policy prevented us from advertising low commission rates. Now that I’m an independent broker, that issue is no longer a concern. However, I do need to spend some time spelling out exactly what services will be provided at each commission level.

I do think that actually spelling out a fee structure fits in well with what I’d like to see on an Internet site for a Broker that I’d call to list my house with. Let’s face it, the sort of open source, open information, open everything that one finds here doesn’t lend itself well to the sort of vagueness we usually encounter when we talk about commissions.

So — among other projects — I’m off to work on that, but if you can’t wait for the fully developed material because you need to now, give me a call and let’s discuss it.

Meantime perhaps a few words from one of my inspirations in this regard are in order, from one of my link partners, Fraser Beach at the Toronto Real Estate Guide

…So, after years of working with the big names in the business Fraser decided to establish an alternative brokerage service. He would provide a full range of professional services but reduce much of the overhead expenses which burden the established firms. He could then offer the same services at a very attractive price.

Fraser reasoned that if he didn’t have to spend time chasing after listings and could focus on the productive activity of marketing listed properties, he could afford to offer effective service at a much lower fee. And there would be equal incentive for all of the other Realtors to sell the company’s listings because they would get the customary “co-operating” selling fee for their effort.

Well, here it is, Fabulous Friday already.

Call me easily amused, but the most fun I’ve had in a month up here was the Denio’s post.

I’ve been thinking of a lot of things. One of them was that I didn’t want to admit that I had gone briefly back into the software business, for fear one of my nemeses would pop out of the ground and say, “See, market’s awful, told you so.”

Sic semper nemeses. (Did I just mix up two languages? Dang).

Actually, I’m getting lots of business off my site — the question for me always is do I want to grow more such opportunities and behave as a broker with other folks doing a large portion of the heavy lifting, or do I want to get 100% of the pie for doing all the baking all weekend.

Lately the other things that have been going on are that I’ve been writing an email contact autoresponder and drip marketing system in .NET 2.0 and SQL server. Talk about mixing your software business interests with your real estate business interests. So that’s been a bit of fun, and getting something just about up and running will probably fit into the estimate I had made for myself.

According to the Bee, the median price of a home in Sacramento County is down some 5% from last year. I wonder how the average and average cost per square foot are doing. Yeah, I should write something.

“See, the market’s awful, told you so. You don’t even want to admit it any more.”

Yeah, whatever. Actually what I don’t want to do is be bored. The market in the aggegate gets old after awhile. Hey look, it’s up 3%. Hey look, it’s down 5%.

We’ll get to that presently. For now, welcome to Fabulous Friday. Anyone have donuts?

I recently had the following question posted as a comment to an earlier entry. I thought I’d put answer it here since it’s of general interest:

Hi, I had a question actually, I recently graduated and I am moving out with seven other roomates, we are buying a big house, its price is $800,000, I was wondering if you would do me the favor of taking the time and leting me know about how much the payments per month would be if we put it to pay it in 30yrs, among 8 people, just to be informed and be sure that my roomates nor myself are having to pay too much to the two roomates who are signing for the house, I would really appreciate it, thank your for your time…

If you’re buying a house with seven other people, you should have a written agreement drafted up by an attorney, if you’re not already signing paperwork created by the real estate agent, the loan company, and the title company.

Finding out the loan payment is simple — get a copies of the loan paperwork and the settlement statement from the two people who are signing. Or if you need to ballpark it, a good estimate to use for a payment (Principle Interest Tax and Insurance) on a thirty year fixed is $6.50 per month per $1,000 borrowed. But that doesn’t mean you’ve protected your interests.

You should be concerned by the idea that eight people are buying the house, and six aren’t signing. It sounds to me like there are two people buying the house, and six tenants who think they are. You need a written agreement, and if there’s ownership involved, there should be a deed recorded with the county.

Well, a scant two short years after the demise of the once celebrated Sacramento Things To Do blog, I finally realized my adulthood dream of going to Denio’s Farmer’s Market (And Swapmeet).

What a hoot!

I love a good flea market. Denio’s has table after table of junk one might buy, or not. Like dentist tools, in case you want to be your own dentist — two bucks or so. (Disclaimer: Do not be your own dentist). Or swords. Magnifying glasses. Kitchen items. Toys. Ugly couches.

You name it.

There’s even a Farmer’s Market there. Go figure. Named after “Denio’s Farmers Market”.

We bought two dollars worth of teaspoons, which works out to be about eight of them, and $50.00 worth of seven foot tall plastic decorative plants, which works out to be one of them. It’s surprising when you’re carrying it how much a plastic seven foot tall plant acts as a sail, even if it’s not yet unfurled.

Part of the fun was bugging the wife on the way up with my rendition of the Denio’s Farmer’s Market and Swapmeet song, which one author claims is the work of Tracy Walton of Mumbo Gumbo. Well, I dont’ know, I went over to the Mumbo Gumbo site and wasn’t able to find a copy. You’d think with a hit like that on their hands they’d put it right up front on the home page or something.

I love that tune.

Here are the lyrics:

What’s new at Denio’s Farmer’s Market and Swapmeet
What’s new at Denios this week…

Sorry, that’s all I remember, but if anyone is pals with Tracy maybe she can be talked into sending us a wav file for the benefit of our readership.

I was going to have at the usual go-look-something-up in Metrolist and put it in Excel, then turn that into an article, when I suddenly became embarrassed.

There are so many excellent blogs out there, and often in comparison my little Metrolist to Excel to English formula makes me feel like just a hack among Hemingways. Just clicking on a couple of the folks linking to me was enough to begin the “You’re OK I’m Not” wheels turning.

Sacramento Landing, for example, has all kinds of different market statistics and analyses going, info on what builders are doing, etc. Really good stuff. And Kris Berg over at San Diego Home Blog has a really interesting article about how we as professionals are supposed to get along with a wide range of people. Well of course, “duh”, etc., but it’s surprising how often I hear agents talking about wanting to pick their clients. And I suppose in an industry where one can easily burn one’s gas and one’s Saturday on someone who turns out to be just looking, there’s no big surprise there.

Anyway, my hat’s off to those intrepid bloggers who manage to not just look up their blog in their local MLS every day. And with that, let me get ready for tomorrow’s post. Sorry, gotta go open MLS…

I am very pleased to announce the formation of a brand new California Corporation, John Lockwood Associates, named after me, Melvin Q. Associates.

No wait, that should read, named after me, John Lockwood.

I hate these identity crises.

As an independent broker, I’m planning to continue to work with a select group of buyers myself, to the extent I have time with the recent success of my other business, John Lockwood Asscociates, the software company. (Actually one might quip that that business is doing less well, inasmuch as over there I’m having to work W2 — but ask me about cash flow in January if you have any doubts).

More importantly, I still have the same great referral network of agents both right in the heart of Sacramento and in surrounding areas, and they’re doing a terrific job of helping me to help the clients who email in for information or who are ready to make a purchase or list their home now. The neat thing is that all of them are so committed to getting back to folks right away with answers to their questions. I’m hoping to have some software to improve that even further in the future, but that effort has to share time with blogging, site updates, etc.

San Diego Broker Associate Kris Berg was good enough to give me one of the fifteen minutes of fame that Andy Warhol says I get. Kris and her husband are leading the charge on the San Diego Home Blog, and were kind enough to come over here and read some of my analysis of the expired listings in this market. Kris also took the analysis a step further to look at cancelled listings — I’ll have to try that back here sometime.

Kris, thanks for stopping by and the link! Cheers.

In response to our Buyer’s Market Tale, one reader had the following question, posted with permission:

Can you explain how a first time buyer can afford such a large mortgage? – John A Buyers Market Tale Original starting price of home three months ago: $565,000. List price after buyer reduced price: $489,500. Offered price: $474,000.

As I mentioned in the article, I changed the numbers for the sake of confidentiality. The actual numbers are lower. Plus, he has a good job, and did 95% financing. By the way, up to 100% is available — there are lots of new programs out there you might be interested in like a new CalHFA product and others.

Other first time buyers focus on something more readily affordable than the real numbers in this case, to be sure. I have a listing coming up in Rosemont for about $320,000 that will be ideal for such a buyer — or there are many condos available in decent areas for under $200,000.