Miranda Warning — Real Estate Version As required by the Miranda warning, police making an arrest must tell the person in custody, prior to interrogation, that they have the right to remain silent, and that anything they say will be used against them in court. Minus the explicit warning (and the courtroom), the same thing applies in...Read More
Telling Sellers What They Want to Hear — At First While my track record landing listings is very good — it’s not perfect. The most common reason prospective Sellers choose another Realtor? The other Realtor took the listing at a higher, unrealistic price — a practice that Realtors call “buying the listing.” Exhibit A Last June,...Read More
Wall Street Allocating Capital . . . to Itself Once upon a time, Wall Street’s reason for being (“raison d’etre,” if you want a fancy term) was to efficiently allocate capital from suppliers of capital (aka “savers”) to those who could most productively use it — typically young, promising companies. At least, that’s how I...Read More
Weighing Comp’s and “Kind-of-Comp’s” The cornerstone of establishing market value for a given property is the CMA, or “Comparative Market Analysis.” As prepared by both Realtors and Appraisers, it consists of selecting a peer group of three homes (“Comparable Sold Properties”), then going through a compare-and-contrast process sizing up each of the Comp’s relative to the “subject”...Read More
“Commission Impossible” From this week’s episode: “Commission impossible.” –What Realtors say about a particularly trying Buyer. “Commission accomplished.” –When such a Buyer actually buys. At least, that’s what Phil Dunphy, of TV’s “Modern Family” sitcom, claims Realtors say. Must be a Southern California — or Phil Dunphy — thing (personally, I’ve never heard either term). How Many Showings? Unlike...Read More
Stealth Inflation & Rising (Dog) Food Costs There are lots of indices that purport to measure inflation: “the Producer Price Index,” “the Wholesale Price Index,” “the Consumer Price Index,” etc. But the only yardstick that really matters to me is “the Kaplan Family Price Index.” By that measure, inflation is galloping right now. Overt and...Read More
