Hawaii Randy's Real Estate Opinions: November 2008

In a recent blog post I discussed the volume of spam I receive every day: An Internet Thanksgiving Gift

When responding to a comment it hit me.  Too many folks out there do not seem to know basic etiquette when it comes to sending e-mail.

Here are some basics that everyone should know if they plan to send out messages for their business or group.  If you want to win friends and influence people, you will not do it by irritating or harming folks.

• Keep the message quick and simple.  No one wants to read the encyclopedia.
• Avoid sending attachments unless you are transmitting a document they are expecting.  Even then there are services that you can post them on the net and send them a download link.  This avoids overloading their e-mail account.
• If you are sending to multiple parts, use the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) command.  If you show the names of everyone on your list you open them up to spam from others.
• Be sure your computer is virus free at all times.  If you want make a lot of folks angry, send them a virus.
• Do not send the same people too many messages.  Daily stuff is a great way to tick them off.  If you are selling homes, know it off with the unrelated stuff like pumpkin pie recipes.  You are already filling my box with the same junk 10 other people are sending me about the market, the last thing I need is 10 more message with the latest pumpkin pie recipe.
• Before you send any message, ask yourself a simple question.  What would your reaction be if this was sent to you?
• Provide an unsubscribe button and honor it!!! 

There are several real estate agents in my area who are bombing my e-mail box with every listing and open house in their office nearly daily.  I have hit the unsubscribe button and e-mailed them to stop.  The flood just keeps coming.  Guess how bad I want to work with them in the future?

It is a matter of common sense and common decency.  Follow the golden rule.

Here is another blog article on a similar topic:  A Changing Market is No Excuse for Bad Behavior

I am thankful for the same things as most everyone else, family friends, etc.

This morning I logged on to the computer to check e-mail and found something new to be thankful for.  Instead of the usual 100-200 spam messages in the In-Box and junk-folder there were less than 12.  Even the spammers take the holiday off.  Instead of wasting 15 minutes checking my junk folder for an accidental good messages and my In-Box for spams; it took less than 30 seconds.

So they left me with more time for my family and the football games.  For that I am truly thankful.  If I had one wish, that would be for the spammers to take a 4 day weekend like the rest of the world.

PS.  About 40 of those daily spams are agents sending me their listings.  Most of them outside the areas I service.

I was speaking to a real estate agent from another state and he was venting about his experience dealing with a short sale.  After 6 months in escrow and next to action from the lender he is told that the loss mitigation guy who was working the file had 3800 files to work.  Let me say that again 3800 files!

I am not a rocket scientist, but logic tells me that if you truly want to move these properties you would bring in some warm bodies to work these files.  There is no shortage of out of work loan officers and real estate agents who are more than qualified to process paperwork.  The time they are sitting on the market is losing value at a greatly higher rate than it would cost to hire a few more employees.

So what could be their motivation for so little action?

• Could it be that they are delaying showing the losses on their books?
  • Would their bonuses be directly impacted by that?
  • Are they trying to withhold the full truth from their stock holders?
• Are they trying to break the housing market even more to get more of the bailout money?
• Are they just that incompetent?

No matter how you explain what the big banks are doing, their lack of action is causing the problem to get worse.  The amount of time these homes sit and rot on the market is causing everyone else's homes to drop in value around them.  They are making the purchase of one of these short sale, pre foreclosure or REO homes so painful that most buyers and real estate agents try to avoid them.

They are causing so much harm to others and entire communities by their actions or lack of actions; it may only be a matter of time before some legal types see a way to make a buck and go after them.

While traveling on the mainland I started to see problems having problems on my laptop computer with Microsoft Word 2007^TM.  At first I had trouble opening attachments on e-mail and then It began to freeze up.

The final phase was that I could open a document, but could not edit it in any way.  After scanning my computer for virus and running all the diagnostics, I still did not have any answers.  So I uninstalled MS Office^TM and reinstalled it.  The problem was still there.

I then called my computer Guru, Gary Cheeseman (Celeste WooHoo Sally's husband).  A few minute later Gary called back and said he was e-mailing me a link to the fix.  If any of you run into this problem with Word^TM it is a registry problem created by the program and here is the fix:  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;940791

SYMPTOMS

You install an automatic update for Microsoft Office Word 2007 on a Windows Vista-based computer. Additionally, the computer must be restarted after the automatic update is installed. However, if Word 2007 is running when you restart the computer, you may experience the following symptoms:

Hopefully this post will be helpful to a few of you.

I am 2/3s of the way to Orlando and having a great adventure.  Monday evening I flew from Honolulu, had a early morning stopover in Dallas and arrived in Springfield, MO late Tuesday morning.

My older brother Russ Prothero, a REALTOR® in Branson met me at the airport.  He had his suitcase, snacks and a case of water in his pickup truck so we hit the highway heading south.  I need to add we stopped for gasoline.  We I left Hawaii, our gas price dropped to $3.25/ gallon and we were celebrating.  It was $1.89/ gallon in Springfield. 

His GPS was set for the shortest route to Orlando.  Hmm let's see now, I have never been to this part of the country and we have an extra day or two to get there.  What to do?

I know let's go to New Orleans, I have never been there.  We can then follow the coast to Florida.  After a short 1200 mile drive we decided to stop in a motel north of New Orleans and spend the night.

After a good breakfast we drove the last stretch to New Orleans. Our plan was to get a hotel room and spend the day so we could walk down Bourbon Street in the evening.  After checking into our room, we followed up on our e-mails and checked Active Rain for messages.  I also sent New Orleans real expert Eric Bouler a contact message to let him know we were in town. 

I barely hit the send button, when my phone rang.  It was Eric.  Two hours later Eric was giving us a tour of his town.  What a truly gracious thing to do.  We did not even tell him we were coming (we didn't know either) and he was showing us around town.  He showed us the French Quarter, and a few other parts of town including the areas that were hit by the flood.  After driving us around town we got out and walked all around the French Quarter.

I truly enjoyed hearing about how he does business and gained some real good advice on improving my internet presence.  Eric has built a great niche' with upscale condos and has set himself up as a market expert for the areas he is working.

Mahalo (Thank you in Hawaiian), to Eric for his wonderful showing of hospitality.  I look forward to the day when he visits Hawaii and I can return the favor.