My Reno Real Estate reality…

Dave Liniger, founder of RE/MAX, posted his annual RE/MAX  Top 10 Housing Predictions via YouTube.  It’s definitely worth the watch, as this man is one of the biggest movers and shakers in the real estate world and knows what he is talking about.  The bottom line is that 2012 is supposed to be better for real estate than 2011 was.  That being said, it is important to remember that all real estate is local and for those of us in Nevada the recovery is something we are still waiting for.  Our state was, and still is, one of the hardest hit in the real estate realm.  Some of the recent legislative changes in our state have seriously stalled the flow of foreclosures coming on the market and things could get interesting as demand for homes picks up and supply dwindles…at least temporarily.

One area that the demand will likely come from is the 18-30 year old crowd.  Liniger said that in a normal market about 5 million of them are living with their parents.  In our current market there are 29 million living under that arrangement.  He commented that they aren’t particularly happy about it and neither are their parents.  This made me smile in light of some of the conversations I’ve had with friends in that situation lately.  With the low prices, record low interest rates, and low down-payment programs available, buying a first home is a fairly achievable goal for a young adult.  If you know a student who has some savings or even access to a down-payment gift, there are some things they can do to position themselves to buy.  Basically, they need to be 18, and have a couple of lines of credit for 2 years and can even qualify with a part-time job if they make enough and have 2 years job history.  The opportunities will be out there for a while.

2011 was a year full of challenges for those of us who call Reno, Nevada “home”.  We made the national news way too many times this year and I’ve heard many comments on how 2012 cannot come soon enough.  However, this is a really great place to live for so many reasons.

The following You Tube video “Why I Love Reno” was passed on to me by Drew Rolley from Jet Plumbing, Heating and Air.  The video was produced by local commercial broker, Tim Ruffin of Colliers for use in drawing companies and clients to our area.  I have given a similar review of Reno to friends and clients myself and have concluded, as did Tim in the video, that the best thing about Reno (and there are a lot of “things” to choose from) are the people.

Happy New Year to all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQoCG5tN3dU

Yesterday I had my turn to speak at my business networking group, BNI Noon Networkers.  I get a chance to speak every few months and as I was preparing for this turn it came to me that I have been incredibly blessed with phenomenal people in my life.  Not just personally, but professionally.  They are really the ones who make me good at what I do.  So, instead of speaking about my own credentials I decided to talk about the team of people I work with on a regular basis.

There are others, for sure, but these are the ones who I talk to weekly, if not daily.  First is Vince Lotito who is the branch manager at Prime Lending.  I’ve worked with many lenders in my 24 years but he is the BEST.  We have a great working relationship based on trust and teamwork.  He has gone the extra mile on many occasions.

Ticor Title is top-shelf in this town for Title and Escrow.  They also have a great reputation and aren’t in the business of doing some of the more questionable practices that have surfaced in the past few years.  I’ve worked with several escrow agents there but my shout-out goes to Alice Escalante.  She’s the one I have on speed dial and she is a great “team-member” whenever I have a question about something…even if it’s not a transacation she’s working in.  She is great with clients under stressful situations and is a genious when it comes to working out the numbers and troubleshooting things like short sales.

There are a few good home inspectors in this town and I’ve worked with many of them.  Tony Nannini, owner of Armstrong Inspections, is one of my favorite people.  Not only is he a master inspector and well-respected in his association, but he is incredibly caring.  I’ve seen him exhibit a great deal of patience with people (who don’t always deserve it) and has gone over and above the call of duty on many occassions to explain issues before and after the sale.

Last, but certainly not least,  I had to mention my family and friends who encourage me everyday as I work through the ever changing Reno real estate market.  So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving,  I am grateful to you all.  You know who you are!

I recently led Grace Church’s annual women’s retreat.  One of the activities we did that weekend was a sort of team building exercise led by Coach Jane Albright.  This activity turned out to be a retreat favorite.  Partly because Jane can make just about anything fun and partly because of the way these ladies participated.

The assignment was to build and decorate a paper house with your team.  Each team divided its members into designers and builders.  The designers had to come up with plans following a specific list of criteria and the builders had to put it together and decorate it with magazine clippings.  There were a couple of catches, of course.  First, it had to be done in a limited amount of time and second, the designers could only use one hand each.  The process erupted into chaos and laughter as each team executed their project.

I’ll be the first to admit that my team came up with the most pathetic house in the room.  Pretty embarrasing for a group that included a professional faux painter and myself with 20+ years in the real estate and home building industry (not to mention some other pretty capable ladies).

Each house was presented by a representative from it’s group.  They were to be judged on a few different categories: Did they follow the required specifications?  Did the builders actually accomplish what the designers instructed?  Did it have good asthetic quality, etc… This is where the competition became very interesting to me.

The first group had incorporated a cross and a picture of Jane’s dog, etc…into their house to have an emotional appeal.  One of the other groups had come up with a beautifully constructed home.  But, the winner really went for the heart.  They created Jane’s parent’s home and a flood of childhood memories.  It won.

This demonstrated something that is very true when it comes to selling people homes.  Buyers want a certain size, a certain price, a certain location, etc… but that’s not really how they pick a home to buy.  It’s got to appeal to their emotions.  Does it “feel” like home.  Can they see their kids and their dogs living there?  Are there flowers up the driveway; a wreath on the door; cookies in the oven; friendly neighbors?   Something about the house will need to trigger emotion or the sell will not happen.  Period.

I’ve had writers block for a couple of weeks.  I’ve had lots of great material for my blog but everytime I go to write something about the real estate business it just hasn’t seemed that important in light of everything else going on around me.

Then the crash at the Reno Air Races happened on Friday which really got me to thinking about what’s important.  I’m guessing that the people impacted by this tragedy really don’t care about how much value their home has lost in the last few years.  I bet they aren’t thinking about the latest bale-out plan proposed by the government. 

I cannot pretend to know what they are going through but I suppose they have a new appreciation for how fragile and precious life is.  Every relationship they have with family, friends and God probably just took on immeasurably greater meaning for them. 

Selling homes is what I do for a living but it doesn’t really matter at the end of the road how good I am at ; that I found someone the perfect house; that I helped someone get out of an upside-down distressed situation; that I solved all of the problems so we could close, etc… What matters are the relationships that happen as a result of working with people and getting to know each other.   Like they say, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

On most Saturdays I do something that has to do with selling homes.  This past Saturday was kind of the opposite and it was amazing.  I got to hang out with homeless people in downtown Reno.  My church decided to do something a little different for our annual church picnic.  We typically have a picnic in August in the park on Robb Drive across the street from our church.  This year we took it downtown and we invited guests.  Our guests were invited from a variety of agencies who do work with homeless folks.  We all brought our own picnics and plenty of extra for all of our guests to share.

I hope our guests had a nice time.  I know they were full when they left.  I know I was full when I left but in a different way.    Several little encounters filled my heart.  Sort of like what happened to the Grinch.

When I first arrived one of our guests approached me.  He was a sort of hunched over little man with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.  As he walked up to me I stuck out my hand to shake his.  He ignored the hand and gave me a big bear hug.  I was ashamed that I wasn’t the giver of the hug.

Later I watched Jane Albright (UNR Women’s Basketball court) give a Wolf Pack t-shirt to a guy named “Wolf”.  He was moved beyond words as he stood up and removed the shirt he was wearing and replaced it with his new prized possession. 

A little boy walked to the park by himself.  He was invited as part of the Pathfinder’s group but his group wasn’t around yet.  After assuring him that lunch was free and that his friends would be there soon,  I watched him grab a balloon, get his face painted and get invited to sit and have lunch with a couple who let him sit in their lawn chair.

Another couple dressed in wedding attire wandered in and found a vacant blanket to enjoy their free lunches on and let me take their picture to celebrate the occasion.  A nearby group who were full from lunch and second lunches but were so excited when I broke out a big container of cut up watermelon to share.

Jane summed the day up best with a tweet she posted: “My friends @ river: Tum Tum, Wristband, Fright, Grapedrank, Justin, Thumper… Come on Reno. Real folks who r homeless NOT bums.  Let’s help!”

Yesterday as I rushed out for an appointment there was an owl staring at me from a low branch of a tree in my front yard.  I wanted to linger in the presence of this amazing beautiful creature but I was late.  My daughter captured the moment with her camera as I was driving away.  When I saw the pictures I somehow felt the wise old guy was mocking me for being in a hurry once again.  Summer in Reno kind of does that to a person.  So much to do…so little time…

I never understood what “cabin fever” meant until I lived here.  It’s what happens after winter.  People can’t wait to get outside and enjoy the summer with the 3 or so months that the weather is perfect.  I must admit that I’ve become one of them…packing in as much as I can during the summer.   Hiking, biking, time at the lake, Aces games, Hot August Nights, the Reno Tahoe Open, playing in the river, dining outside and all of the other things that compete for my attention.

Thankfully, I have a knack for working hard and playing hard and somehow manage to get everything done.  Last week, I shuffled things around so that I could attend a 2-day Global Leadership Summit and add a little wisdom to my summer.  The speakers were stellar and inspirational.   Ironically, Bill Hybels, who started the Leadership Summit in 1995, spoke on what is your current leadership challenge level at work.  He said that research has shown that there are 3 categories: under challenged, appropriately challenged and dangerously over challenged.  I was relieved to hear that the best place on the scale to be is just slightly into the over-challenged area.  That’s my happy place!

I’m still trying to process all of the things I heard at the summit and to make application to my real estate business and my life.  No small task with speakers the caliber of Seth Godin, Cory Booker, Michelle Rhee, Dr. Henry Cloud, Patrick Lencioni and others.  Then there was the small, still, voice reminding me of the importance of quieting things down.

Mama Maggie Gabran spoke.  She is kind of like the new Mother Theresa.  When she spoke you could have heard a pin drop.  Like the stare of the owl, her words penetrated my soul.  She said: silence your body to listen to your words; silence your tongue to listen to your thoughts; silence your thoughts to listen to your heart; silence your heart to listen to your spirit; silence your spirit to listen to God’s spirit.

An ex-sociology major, I have always been fascinated by the behavior of groups of people.  Although we are all very much individuals its curious how we tend to behave as a herd sometimes.  For example, why do people always seem to go to the check-out line at the grocery story at the same time? 

I’ve observed this in the Real Estate business for years.  Just think about the psychology that drove the real estate boom.  I was selling for a builder here in Reno at the time.  I had 100+ people on a waiting list who would show up every other week in hopes of getting one of the 3 released homesites.  This was happening in spite of an upward price spiral that could not logically be sustained.  Interest rates were just ok, prices were inflated and incomes were not changing to support the higher prices.  Large groups of people were behaving in a way that just didn’t make sense. 

The same kind of behavior is going on now but in the opposite direction.  Large groups of people in this market have become professional fence-sitters.  The prices in Reno have over-corrected and the interest rates have hit the lowest mark this week anyone in the business can remember.  They were as low as 4.125% for an FHA 30 year fixed loan at one point this week.

My people watching skills tell me that the tide may change soon.  I’ve seen some longtime fence-sitters get off the fence and make offers this week and I’m hearing the same from the lenders and title companies.  I had 2 buyers write offers this week, both ended up in multiple offer (3 and 5 respectively) situations.  It may just be another bounce in our seemingly never-ending bounce along the bottom…but maybe not.

Yesterday I celebrated one of those big milestone birthdays.  Actually, there was a party with friends, family, flowers and Mexican food a few days ago but yesterday was the actual day and so I spent it doing what I wanted.  The day at Sand Harbor – Lake Tahoe and dinner with my husband on the patio at Stone House Cafe in Reno.

We moved from Southern California to Reno 10 years ago; the day after my last big milestone birthday party. A lot has happened in that 10 years.  It’s interesting how one event can set off a chain of events in a person’s life.  I suppose there are many who can point to the 9/11 terrorist attacks as that catalyst.

That event happened very shortly after our move to Reno.  I hadn’t yet established myself in business (I didn’t even know anyone here) when that happened.  The Reno real estate market virtually came to a screeching halt for a while.  The opportunity for benefits and a regular paycheck presented itself and I decided to sell new homes for a builder for the first time in my career.  This was a whole new world for me.  The market boomed.

My new goal was towards management and so I went back to school and finished getting my business management degree.  Then in early 2005 I returned to what I really loved doing and went back into resale with RE/MAX.  The market busted but I love what I do and have had many successes throughout it all.

In hindsight, I wouldn’t trade the past 10 years for anything.  We have been blessed to live in Reno and we love this place!  My cup overflows with true friends, a great church, more hiking trails that I have yet to discover, Lake Tahoe, the river, great eats, awesome bike trails…and so much more. 

Here’s to the next milestone!

My birthday flowers

The short answer is, I don’t know. I am constantly being hit with questions from clients that I can’t answer.  What will my home be worth in two years from now?  Are prices going to be up by next year?  Are prices going to be down by next year? If I wait can I get a lower interest rate?

After over two decades of fielding these types of questions I’d like to formally announce to the world and to my clients that I do not have a crystal ball.  However, here is what I do know.  During my career there has never been a more favorable alignment of factors to support buying a home.  Specifically, it is highly unusual for home price and interest rates to be low at the same time.  It’s usually one or the other.

I just had a client close on a home in Reno with a 30-year fixed rate of under 4.4%.  His obsession with finding the lowest interest rate reminded me of someone doing the limbo.  You might get really low but at some point you just can’t go any lower.  If you are thinking of buying but need a little more convincing to get off of the fence take a look at this chart showing a 20 year history of 30-year mortgage interest rates.