Discount Realtors

This is from the Wall Street Journel:

About 11% of home sellers last year used "alternative" brokers (ones offering flat fees or other forms of discounting), up from less than 2% in 2002, according to surveys by Real Trends, a publishing and consulting firm.

Folks need to be very careful about discounted brokerage service, because they also cut their services! They put your home up on multiple listing services that are paid for and used by traditional realtors, and they leave the rest to you. Very little help.... no follow up..... you sell your home and go to closing by yourself and take your chances!

This is very dangerous business. A real estate transaction is a complicated procedure. And unless you have a trained, experienced professional, there's more than likely some trouble ahead. One doesn't represent himself in court; one doesn't treat his own medical conditions; one doesn't insure himself; and one doesn't presume to be his own banker! And it follows irrevocably that nobody should risk his estate and his welfare by representing himself in a real estate transaction. It is still the case that a great percentage of the real estate litigation out there is due to people wanting to save money when buying or selling property. My advice is, "don't do it!" It will cost you!

NEW COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY

After Church yesterday we came home and just crashed! The rest of the afternoon (pun intended) was devoted to resting up. Got a lot of commercial activity scheduled for the coming week. We have a new commercial/industrial/office development to market; and a new commercial building as well. Plus many customers coming in from other cities and states. Oh, well! We can crash again next Sunday.

The Shires

The Shires ribbon cutting is Tuesday, June 13th! Newspapers and magazines and TV cameras will be there for the event, and we can start taking reservations for the beautiful estates sites. A plat is available for all to see; and tours are available of the property. What a glorious development this will be here in beautiful Tyler Texas....... the premier address!

South Region

Of all the regions of the country, which one would you think was the only one that increased sales of existing homes in May? The western region..... with California? The northeastern region with New York and Connecticut? Nope! None of those.

It was ours.

All the other regions of The United States decreased from 4% to 11% in sales of existing homes. But our southern region increased 1.5% from an already hot market.

The number of people hitting my web site has increased dramatically as well. I was shocked when I pulled up my statistics for yesterday, Sunday May 4th. Over 13,000 people hit my web site for one reason or another. A record by far! We don't have enough nice properties on the market to satisfy even a small percentage of that.

The point of this story is that this is still the place to come in order to buy.