Xplode This!

The Xplode Conference in Austin, Texas yesterday was a blast. I was able to meet many people I’ve known through social media channels and blogging for years, learn from some of the best and brightest in real estate, have fun, spend some time in Austin (which I always love), and give my presentation, “Punk Rock and the New Agent” to a packed crowd of Texas Realtors®. I have to say, I was rather nervous about my presentation as this was my first time in this capacity, but it’s something I really looked forward to doing. Special thanks to Xplode mastermind, Matt Fagioli, Austin broker extraordinaire, Krisstina Wise, and the ball of non-stop energy, Amy Smythe Harris for pushing me to join the presenters and give me the opportunity to be a part of this excellent real estate conference.

Punk Rock and the New Agent

My presentation was about my experiences within the music industry and growing up listening to punk rock and bringing some of the lessons I learned there into the world of real estate. It was great fun to share my thoughts with so many Texas Realtors® and although I was a bit nervous and learned a few lessons on what I need to do better in a presentation situation, I think it went quite well. Some of the comments on Twitter were great and I thank everyone who participated or gave me feedback.

I will be posting a bit more about my presentation and covering the slides and my thoughts a bit more in depth over the next week or so. I hope you’ll enjoy them and comment, question, and suggest. If Xplode heads to your city, I would definitely recommend checking it out. The attendees had a great time and were exposed to a full day of some incredible ideas, thoughts, and opinions.

slide images courtesy of Xplode and Dina Gunderson of Creative Thunder Design

Equal Opportunity Housing

Karen Fiddler, a Mission Veijo real estate agent, recently wrote on her ActiveRain blog about an experience with a client that wound up forcing her to make a decision to drop the client based on discrimination and fair housing laws. Typically, when you hear the words discrimination or fair housing laws it is about an agent making a comment that is deemed discriminatory or in violation of the fair housing laws. This case, however, might help shed some light on why we, as Realtors®, sometimes can’t answer your questions.

Texas Real Estate Forms

Section 18.A. of the Buyer Representation Agreement states:

Broker’s services are provided without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability or familial status.

Section 21.B. of the Residential Real Estate Listing Agreement Exclusive Right to Sell states:

Fair housing laws require the Property to be shown and made available to all persons without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or familial status. Local ordinances may provide for additional protected classes (for example, creed, status as a student, marital status, sexual orientation, or age).

Personal thoughts

When I get to either of these two sections when signing a buyer or seller to an agency agreement, I do the same thing every time. I read the statement (they are located at the end of the documents with several other important notices) to the client and add a note about my personal feelings on discrimination. Although I am only required to satisfy the law, I simply don’t discriminate. End of story. There’s no need for it in my business practice and I don’t have any reason to discriminate. It’s a shame these laws are even needed.

Fair housing laws were designed at a time when they were very necessary and they were a great idea – pushing us towards a more democratic, egalitarian society. If you experience discrimination in housing, you have rights and you should know them. The Department of Housing and Urban Development provides an excellent fair housing fact sheet and information on how to file a complaint if you feel you’ve experienced discrimination in housing.

In Karen’s case, she was being asked to help her clients find an area for them which matched their ethnicity. Although it has been argued before that this is not discrimination, for real estate agents, it is a dangerous question which could lead to a lawsuit. Unfortunately, as with all laws, the pendulum has swung further to one side than the original law (in my opinion) probably meant to. Realtors® should not steer their clients to particular areas of town based on race, religion, etc., but if a client specifically wants to live somewhere that fits that specific demographic, they should be allowed to and (again, in my opinion), their agent should be allowed to talk to them without fear of a lawsuit. Of course, the problem then is that the agent is acknowledging that there is some sort of separation between different areas (ie. that’s the Jewish part of town or that’s the area where all the Italians live) – and in the eyes of the law, that could be negatively viewed as discrimination.

The trouble with it is that if we didn’t need discrimination laws in the first place, we could probably talk more openly on the subject. I’ve always felt that part of the reason that discrimination still exists is because we spend so much focusing on pigeon-holing everyone. The Census wants to know your racial background. Demographic information for neighborhoods is often broken down along racial lines. By continuing to break everything down by these classes (race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability or familial status) we create our focus on the distinctions between them and allow the “differences” between us to be marked, tagged, and flagged – which can easily lead to discrimination.

I encourage everyone to be equal opportunity people and as far as my business practice goes, everyone is welcome.

As usual, I must disclose the fact that I am not a lawyer and therefore can’t give legal advice. The opinions I express about discrimination are in regards to my personal beliefs and although they follow the law, they are not necessarily one and the same as the law.

If you’re interested in reading about fair housing laws, check out this post by Patricia Kennedy, a real estate agent in Washington, DC, which opens up the question of whether the fair housing laws are unconstitutional.

photo courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives

More resources for Texas Home Owners.

Yet another site introduced recently by the Texas Association of Realtors®, TxHomePrograms.com, aims to help home buyers find and take advantage of the many affordable housing programs available in Texas. A continuously updated database, Texas Home Programs, was created in part with the National Association of Realtors® in order to help consumers find the programs relevant to them. The site also offers home buying advice, a real estate glossary, information about the process of buying a home, and resources about predatory lending, credit, and health and safety issues in the home.

The push to help consumers have more information at their fingertips when considering their real estate purchases and sales is a welcome one. The Texas Association of Realtors® in particular is being very proactive when it comes to educating home buyers and sellers, which makes me proud to be a Texas Realtor®. The more knowledge consumers enter the market with, the better their choices and decisions about real estate.

photo courtesy of woodleywonderworks

Worried about losing your Texas home?

Although Texas escaped the mass foreclosure problem that states like California, Florida, and Arizona were plagued by, we do have them and they are a fact of life. While no one wants to lose their home, owners are often scared, confused, and frustrated. As they get behind on their mortgage payments, many people freeze up, bound by their fears and a lack of good resources to turn to. Google “foreclosure” and you’re more likely to find someone ready to fleece you of your money than give you solid advice and help in your time of need. It’s a sad reality that there are always vultures out there waiting to prey on those in situations like these.

Enter, KeepMyTexasHome.org, a new site brought to you by the Texas Association of Realtors® and the National Association of Realtors®. Full of information about foreclosure, what to do if you’re behind on your mortgage, how the Texas foreclosure process works, terms you’ll hear in real estate (we have a terrible habit of abbreviating real estate terms), and solid advice of “what to do” when you find yourself facing these situations, this new site aims to keep more Texans in their homes and keeping their homes from foreclosure.

photo courtesy of TheTruthAbout…

Social Media And Real Estate Agents.

Yesterday morning, I received a link to an article in the North Bay Business Journal from a few friend of mine on Twitter. I had spoken to the author of the post, Jenna V. Loceff, last week as she asked me about my thought as a real estate agent utilizing social media as part of my business plan. In particular, she wanted to discuss Flickr with me as she had read my stories about what happened between me and the photo site.

Our conversation covered a lot of ground in a short span of time and some of what I said made it into Monday’s article. I was shocked to see the numbers for real estate agents’ use of social media as reported by the California Association Of Realtors® considering how California is home to some of the world’s tech giants and also an incubator for many of the technologies we use on a daily basis in real estate.

Read the full article on the North Bay Business Journal website (it appears they don’t archive older articles so the article no longer exists on the site)and please take a moment to leave your thoughts and comments.

photo courtesy of Gastev

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Thoughts on how we deal with the question, “Is now a good time to buy?”

In some ways, it might seem like career suicide to dare suggest that we as Realtors® might sometimes be too “sunshine and roses” when it comes to talking about the market, but the fact is, I often wonder how to present good news to consumers without coming off as just painting a rosy picture to suit my needs as an agent. I could go on and on how I’m not that guy, but in reality sometimes that just seems to make it seem worse.

In a recent email from the National Association of Realtors®, this exact topic was brought up and I wanted to see what the readers of my site thought of this. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I think we need a balance…if we run around shouting “everything’s fine, it’s a great time to buy!,” eventually no one will believe us and think we’re just saying that to generate business. We all remember Chicken Little, don’t we? Well it works both ways. I think the key to the “balance” I seek, is honesty with a dose of sensitivity. Realtors® do need to get the word out that there are some great reasons to buy right now, but we also need to be sensitive to people’s reactions to the economy, the housing market’s problems, the job losses, and everything else that has been doom and gloom on the news lately. The media loves a sad story, no doubt, but there are reasons that not everything should be looked at with such a negative view.

Here’s the quote from the email that sparked my attention:

It is critical for NAR to be both realistic and optimistic concerning the current state of the real estate market. As you can imagine, that can be a difficult balance to strike, especially with market conditions changing on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes, NAR is viewed as a “cheerleader” for the real estate industry. That’s not inappropriate, considering we are “The Voice for Real Estate”. The vast majority of our membership feels strongly that we must do more to counter the overwhelming attention that the news media give to negative national housing market trends and help bring consumers back into the market. That is, in fact, what our ongoing messages and Public Awareness Campaign are designed to do.

So what do you think?

Do Realtors® and the National Association of Realtors® need to tone it down? Do we need to be less “cheerleader” and more support system? Or do we need to spread the message and shout it from the mountain tops in order to improve the housing market in the coming year? If you ran the National Association Of Realtors®, what would you be telling the public in order to show them that there is opportunity out there for buyers, but without making it sound like you’re just shouting “Real Estate, Real Estate, RAH-RAH-RAH!”

I’d appreciate your comments below or you can email them direct to me. I welcome both consumers and other agents thoughts.

photo courtesy of aznviolaguy

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I’m especially excited to take the class, How “Green” Is Affecting Affordability, as it is one of my major interests.  While I find the recent turn towards “green” living very exciting, I do fear that its cost often forces many people away from it.  As it becomes more and more pervasive in this country, I do think the associated costs will come down, whether its the new homes by builders like Imagine Homes or the replacement of older air conditioner units with more energy efficient ones or the use of solar panels to provide electricity (we have so much sunshine here in San Antonio, we should take advantage of it).