My concept of marriage is a male and a female for the perpetuation of the species, for children to be born and identify the bloodline and the heritage.But I’m pretty sure, as things are moving along, that that will probably change. (Source)

So, if we take him at his word that means he opposes marriage for anyone who can’t bear a child. So, if you’re a woman over 45 Burris wants to take away your right to marry. Pretty much all marriage for the elderly is out. If you have fertility problems he feels you shouldn’t be allowed to marry.

Thing is, I’m pretty sure he’d be shocked at what I just said. Apparently he’s not bright enough to understand that from a reproductive standpoint (which is the point he’s arguing) there’s no difference between an elderly straight couple and a gay couple. Actually, the gay couple is more likely to adopt an abandoned child - but of course there’s no place for that in his ideology either - if it doesn’t pop out of your uterus it’s not your ‘bloodline’, ergo not worthy of granting you marriage.

Of course this is ridiculous. Even Burris understands things are changing - too bad he can’t figure out it’s only logical that they’re changing. A bloodline argument for marriage hasn’t made sense for hundreds of years (if it made sense back then).

All I can say is thank god views like his aren’t prevalent among young people - there’s hope for the future!

For starters she hoola hoops through the whole thing and several times pretends she’s about to drop the hoop, but then recovers… Singing and hoola hooping can’t be easy…

But then there’s the outfit - a corset and a gstring, gloves and a mask. Gotta say, she looks incredible - especially for her age (61).

Just wish there were more people like her… Love her energy…

It all started when my roommate for the summer, Nial Gaffney, an astrony major, said to me that when he looked into the stars he saw the handiwork of a god that was bigger than the god of the bible. It took me a little while to digest that, but I knew it was true. The bible puts god in a box and makes god in the image of man. The truth of the matter is that our creator is so far above us that it’s impossible to understand him/her/it. We are no more significant to our creator than grains of sand are to us.

That lead me to being a Deist. There’s actually a great deal of Deist history in the US - many of our founding fathers were Deists - Thomas Jefferson being the most notable. But that was just an accident of history since our country was founded at a time that was Deism’s zenith and that was simply because society was moving from a culture where non-believers were killed to one where they were tolerated and Deism was simply the step before atheism. When our country was founded you could be respectable and be a Deist, but you could lose everything (including your life) if you were an Atheist, so the Atheists of their day called themselves Deists.

Other changes in my belief system happened pretty quickly. If the bible wasn’t absolute truth then everything was up for reconsideration. At my heart I knew I was gay and so a year after rejecting Christiantity, I accepted myself and came out.

The process had actually started earlier - when I was in high school. The school I went to in Baltimore (Arlington Baptist School) had whole chapel services about the evils of rock music - including listening to it backwards and hearing things that praised Satan (lol). When I was in Lynchburg (at Jerry Falwell’s high school, Lynchburg Christian Academy) I had to drive with these guys from school to get to driver’s ed. They used to play Chaka Khan on the way almost every day. I got to love “I’m Every Woman” and it struck me - how could something so happy and joyous be evil? Listen to it and you’ll see what I mean…

Like almost no other song that one just puts a huge smile on your face and makes you feel like you’re having a great day. And that was supposed to be evil… Right… At that point I decided to make up my own mind as to what was good and bad, and Chaka Khan was not bad - not in the least.

So deciding that god was bigger than the god of the bible wasn’t really that hard. Deciding that my being gay wasn’t evil wasn’t all that hard either.

The question became what do I do with the conservative elements in my family? For years after I came out to my parents I hoped they’d accept me. But that never happened. When my lover died of AIDS in January of ‘95 Mom made a comment about how her mother had been there for her when her first husband died in World War II and I thought she got it, but that was quickly dispelled in our next conversation.

The bottom line was that it was bad for me to weigh myself down with my parents. It’s not good to be around people that tell you there’s something wrong with you - especially when they’re your parents (who are supposed to love you unconditionally) and they can’t just ignore the issue and interact with you without it getting brought up. Their lives revolved around Jerry Falwell’s church and that meant that their lives revolved around fighting liberalism including gay rights. I was the enemy and there was no way for me to be comfortable in their world.

At a point I just had to tell myself that they died and I needed to move on, which is what I did. There’s a song/video out lately, “Fuck You Very Much”…

In a way it resounds with my decision to separate from my parents, but it also trivializes the decision. It’s easy to say “fuck you very much, we hate what you stand for, please don’t stay in touch” to a stranger. It’s a more complicated process when it’s your parents.

When I was growing up our parents were sort of the glue that held our family together. I remember big phone bills calling all my sisters every week. That doesn’t happen any more. I didn’t really get those phone calls even before I had issues with them - not sure why. And now that I’m not really wanting to have much to do with them it’s a bit of a wedge in an already weak relationship with some of my sisters. It’s unfortunate really, but it is what it is…

Of course lately the issue is marriage. Let me put this bluntly - separate but equal is always separate, but never equal. Civil unions will not work - nothing but marriage will work, because only marriage has the full rights. Only with marriage can I finally give Dan citizenship…

But of course the fundamentalists, like my parents, want to tell gay folk like me what marriage means. Somehow they’ve forgotten that there’s a marriage contract involved that requires going down to your local government office. They equate marriage with the wedding ceremony - forgetting that Atheists get married all the time without any religious ceremony. So since I’m on a YouTube kick, let’s remind ourselves what “traditional, biblical marriage” really means…

Yes, biblical marriage really is that messy, and the fact that Christians think it’s some solid, honorable standard is laughable. For a moment let’s consider what it would be like if “traditional marriage” were actually enforced…

That’s right - no divorce, no blacks marrying whites, no women who weren’t virgins on their wedding night… Funny how Christians forget all those bits about “traditional marriage”…

The bottom line is Chaka Khan isn’t evil and neither are gay men and lesbians. Take a deep breath, sit down, and just accept it…

When I hear “political correctness” used to silence people it’s sadly used by gay people. It baffles me that a gay man would want an end to homophobia, they’d like marriage, not being fired from jobs, etc., but they’ll do things like tolerate racism in their midst. This happened at IML this year (the International Mr. Leather Contest in Chicago - a huge event that’s Chicago’s 4th largest conference). One of the presenters - a real veteran in the leather community made racist (anti-Asian) comments. Then later in the program the entertainer made stupid comments about East Indians. Yet those same people expect others to give them rights and treat them as equals. When I complained one person told me I was just being “politically correct”.

Well, it doesn’t work that way. If you want respect you have to start by respecting others. If you want others to be politically correct, perhaps you should be politically correct too. This is a clear two way street. I don’t care how much someone has contributed to a community - no one earns the right to be racist.

I should stop and say that intolerance of intolerance is not the same as other forms of intolerance. Think about math - the word “of” is used in cases like 2 of 3 - it stands for division - 2 of 3 = 2/3rds. So “intolerance of intolerance” is similar to saying -2 of -2, which equals a positive number, not a negative.

When you hear someone use the word poltical correctness to shut someone up - stop them. Explain how they probably want someone else to accept and value them - how can they ask that of others if they don’t demonstrate it themselves.

According to CNN the more someone goes to church the more likely they are go support torture. Joe.My.God. put it bluntly by asking “Who would Jesus waterboard?” Then answer is NOONE - Jesus was a pasivist. Let me put this bluntly - If you support torture, if you start wars, if you can’t stand to be in the same room as a gay guy, a lesbian or a transsexual - then you’re not Christ-like.

The one time Jesus was somewhat violent was when he threw the money changers out of the temple. Those of you who are Christ-like Christians have a responsibility to throw the modern money changers “out of the temple”. It’s time you stood up and strongly and forcefully renonuce people who are ruining your religion. Get on CNN and tell them point blank that they are not welcome to call themselves Christians - that they need to change their ways or “get out of the temple”.

This is one area where I have a big problem with John Kerry. In the debates he let George W. Bush take the moral high ground. If Kerry had been a real Christian he would have looked Bush straight in the face and said “Jesus would never have started an offensive war in Iraq” and then he would have read the beatitudes to Bush and constrasted the teachings of Christ with Bush’s actions.

I no longer consider myself a Christian - I’m a Diest, but after so many years of religious training I understand what Christ stood for and 9 out of 10 Christians I see on the news are not Christ-like. Would the real Christians PLEASE stand up? Please?

To be fair the upside to the property is that it’s a decent width and on a great block - Hamilton Terrace. It also has some incredible original details in it - mostly the fireplaces and baseboards on the ground floor. But there’s so much wrong with the place it’s not even funny - at least when you consider they’re asking a million dollars for it.

The big issue is that it’s falling down. Literally. The extension in the rear where the kitchen used to be is just walls - the floor in the extension has fallen into the floor below. The rest of the building is falling down as well. When we went through it was raining inside the building because snow was melting on the roof. If you know anything about buildings you know the building goes downhill very quickly if the roof is no good. I was literally scared to walk through the building. They have plywood down in some areas ’cause they’re worried people will fall through those parts of the floor. Personally I don’t think it’s safe to go inside that building. If anyone gets hurt I’ll feel really guilty ’cause I was tempted to call 311 and report it as unsafe (but I didn’t).

It’s not the first Harlem townhouse that’s fallen down and it won’t be the last. But right now, in this market, you just don’t pay a million dollars for something that’s falling down.

• 48 Hamilton Terrace a few doors down needs some work, but it’s completely livable and mortgageable and it’s going for $1.25M.
• There’s a place on Stiver’s Row (236 W 139th) that apparently sold for around $425K a few months ago and now they’re trying to flip and asking $699K. Someone started a renovation and didn’t finish, but it’s completely solid and it’s on Striver’s Row.
• Then there’s 506 West 142nd Street, which is a fully renovated, income producing property in move-in condition and it’s asking the same price as 42 Hamilton - $995K. Mind you, the renovation is soulless, the back yard is dark and small, and the block isn’t nearly as good, but compared to one that’s about to fall down on a better block it’s price to sell and 42 Hamilton clearly isn’t.
• And 470 West 148th was just reduced to $999K - it’s perfectly nice 12′ wide townhouse that’s move-in ready, but will need renovation in the not-too-distant future.

Personally I think 42 Hamilton should have a price drop of about a third - to $699K. With a $500K renovation that would put the total cost around $1.2M and it would be in better condition than 48 Hamilton which would compensate the buyer for the hassle of the renovation.

The other townhouse where people seem like they’re stuck two years back in a time warp is 532 West 148th Street. The pictures are amazing, but when you go through the house you realize how little substantive renovation has been done. It’s “shabby chic” in the ’80s sense of the word (before the term referred to a store) when people didn’t have money for renovations so they just make things that were falling apart look pretty. The floors aren’t redone - they’re just whitewashed and varnished. The ceilings aren’t redone - they’re ripped out and there’s exposed beams. Same with the walls - ripped out. What you have left is a shabby chic 3 story loft that’s one big open space plus a work space in the basement - a total bachelor pad. There are almost no walls, no privacy - some of the bathrooms are literally in the middle of the floor with no walls around them. It would have been hot 20 years ago, but now people are looking for genuine renovations - skim coated walls, recessed lighting, floors that are in good condition. The other thing about that property is that it’s 1/2 block off Broadway - not on a prime block.

All of that would be fine if they weren’t asking nearly $2M for the place ($1.895M to be precise). I think the comp for it is 48 Hamilton Terrace @ $1.25M - so they need to drop the price by a third to be in line with their competition. Both 48 Hamilton and 532 W 148 are in similar condition in terms of infrastructure. 48 Hamilton is on a MUCH better block and is landmarked. 532 W 148 has better interior design, but you’re buying the building, not the furnishings. Plus 48 Hamilton has walls and rooms, which most townhouse buyers want, so it’s more desirable.

I did like going through the place though - it showed how much you can do to a townhouse at a reasonable price. If you really don’t want to do expensive structural changes, you can still have a place that’s stylish (though to me shabby chic is pretty dated).

The Harlem real estate market has always been pretty speculative, but luckily much of the market is pretty realistic about how prices are dropping. There are some incredible bargains out there and a lot of people are quite flexible. We saw one property where the broker (whom we really liked) told us they were about to drop another 17% - and that’s after a price reduction not all that long ago.

But some people are afraid to be realistic. There are a few that are dropping the prices too far ’cause they’re desperate to sell in a bad market. But the problem is that when you drop really low people start thinking that’s what all the prices should be and then prices  really tumble. Hell, we’re sorta playing that game - hoping we can sell our place before that mentality takes hold in our neighborhood and after it takes hold in Harlem.

I’m not saying that most of the places that are livable and mortgageable should drop that much further, but the reality is construction loans are hard to get these days and people who buy places that need construction loans (like 42 Hamilton) should get rock bottom prices to compensate them for doing something that’s pretty risky in a falling market… At least we’re hoping a seller will see it that way when we go to buy a place. I’ve got my eye on a place and as far as I can tell it’s practically a shell. It also needs a one-third price reduction… Hopefully we’ll be able to sell our place and hopefully the seller will be flexible by then… We’ll see. First step is to sell our place…

In defense of the people who’ve over-priced is the fact that the market is rapidly changing and there’s not a lot of data to make informed decisions on. Things were dropping before the stock market went down in September, then only 2 townhouses had deals in Q4 of 2008. That didn’t give people a good idea of what they should be doing. In Q1 they say 10 townhouses have closed, but even that data isn’t all in yet. But the issue is how far do you have to drop in order to be “priced to sell” when almost nothing is selling?

Here’s a video that refutes the major claims made by the religious right about gay marriage… The bottom line is that their claims are just fears - nothing more. The sky isn’t falling…

I’m sure eventually there will be some bad consequence of gay marriage to someone, somewhere. But there’s obviously many bad consequences now for millions of gay Americans. When the time comes and a heterosexual is harmed in some way, it can be remedied in the courts and, if necessary, the legislature just as we’re trying to remedy our problems now.

Senegal’s court of appeal has overturned the jail sentences of nine homosexuals arrested in December, according to a statement released by UNAIDS on Monday.The nine men had been sentenced to eight-year prison terms in January for “acts against nature and the creation of an association of criminals”

The decision was taken on Monday but it was not clear when the men would be freed. Senegal’s ministry of justice was not immediately available for comment about the case.

Homosexuality is illegal and taboo in the former French colony, where 94 percent of the population is Muslim.

(Source: Reuters)

That’s probably not exactly what you were expecting, but honestly what’s the difference between that court decision and one here in the US about adoption or marriage or workplace discrimination?

The religous right often says progressive liberals are the ones redefining what’s “traditional”, but in truth their the ones redefining a number of things…

• In their world “equal protection” is an oxymoron - it’s not really equal at all and it only protects the people they want it to protect.
• In their world marriage is a religious sacrament but they ignore all the thousands of marriages between athiests that don’t seem to bother them at all.
• They now say that the only point of marriage is procreation, yet they’re fine with post-menopausal women getting married (to men).
• They often say they’re “strict constructionists” but one of the guiding concepts in the US Constitution is that a contract that’s valid in one state is valid in all states and will be recognized by the federal government. But now they’ve redefined things so marriage contracts that are valid in some states aren’t valid in many other states and aren’t recognized by the federal government.

The social conservatives often forget that the role of the courts is to interpret the law. They like to brand judges who are just doing their job as “activists”. That’s hardly the case and part of what’s great about our system is that it affords a healthy debate and a balance of power.

Thankfully, things are slowly starting to shift towards equality for all people and the religious right is starting to lose…

Case and point someone in our neighborhood listed their place with a downtown broker for $799K last July. It’s 1.5 bathrooms and two small bedrooms. Simply put that apartment was never worth that, but the downtown broker didn’t have the experience in our neighborhood to know that. As a result the apartment didn’t sell. Had it been priced right and sold quickly it could have been in contract before the financial disaster on Wall St, but that huge opportunity was lost. The owner (and agent) now appear desperate to sell and it’s priced at $399K - half the price of the original listing price! The problem is the property became stale because it was on the market too long at the wrong price. To me the whole thing shows gross incompetence on the part of the agent. Unfortunately, in this market, if you don’t pick the right agent a similar situation can happen to you and it can be a very expensive mistake.

To avoid financial disaster selling your apartment I’d recommend using the following criteria to pick your real estate agent:

• Pick a agent that lives or works very close to your property. You want to make sure showing your place it’s difficult. If it is, they may not show it as often. I was on the subway the other day and a real estate agent was telling friends how he just came from showing an apartment and the buyer’s probably won’t buy, but it took 2 hours out of his day to show with all the travel time.
• Pick the agent that’s going to work the hardest. Some agents are just “hungrier” for listings than others. Give all the agents a list of things you want to hear in their proposals and see how hard each one works to answer those questions. If they can’t work to get your listing, they’re not going to work hard once they have it.
• Pick the one with the best marketing plan - both comprehensive and targeted marketing. These days it’s all about getting your property exposure and having it stand out. But it’s also about getting the right people to see it, so look for a marketing plan that’s specifically targeted to the features of your property.
• Don’t give any weight to “personality” brokers that are marketing themselves, not your property. We had some agents who talked about how much they were in the press, but it was unclear whether that meant any real exposure for our apartment.
• Pick the agent that understands your neighborhood the best. There’s nothing quite like local knowledge. Don’t pick someone who isn’t intimately familiar with the neighborhood.
• Pick the agent that understands your property the best. If your property is pretty average this isn’t such a big deal. But if you have unique renovations make sure the agent inherently understands them and knows how to talk about them to buyers.
• Pick an agent who’s a home owner. Definitely give credit to whether the person owns their home or not. If they own a home in your neighborhood or building that’s a big plus.
• Don’t give extra weight to friends and family. While you may want to give the listing to a friend or family member it’s often not the right choice. If they are the best agent they’ll stand out in all the points above. At most a friend or family member should just win a tie if there are two best agents and you can’t figure out which to go with.

Even with a great broker it’s not always easy to sell in this market. Be careful with your choice!

Over the last seven days…..

Missouri: Pastor Robert M. Black busted in internet underage sex sting.
California: Sunday school teacher Melissa Huckaby arrested for murdering 8 year-old girl.
Texas: Pastor Robert Baker charged with murdering wife.
Virginia: Pastor Ana Paula Almeida charged with rape of 14 year-old.
Tennessee: Church youth volunteer Matthew Jernigan charged with two counts of child rape.
Georgia: Pastor Otis Ray Hope charged in $1.75M bank fraud.
California: Pastor John Bonine pleads guilty 16 counts of child molestation. He was charged with 107 counts.
New York: Pastor Merton Parks charged with possessing child pornography.
North Carolina: Pastor Richard Dent confesses to swindling elderly sisters of $60,000.
Texas: Father Thomas Teczar convicted of molesting 11 year-old boy.
New York: Staten Island Episcopal Rev. William Blasingame charged with embezzling $85,000 from his parish. He used the money for Botox injections, plastic surgery, prescription drugs, and designer clothes.

…And they say we’re the problem. Ironic.

[Source: Joe.My.God.]

We’re lucky to have bought into a building that’s now considered “stable”. The prime apartments in our building (of which ours is one) have gone down about 10% from the peak, which is pretty good considering the market. Meanwhile what we want to move up to - a townhouse in Harlem - has done done about 50%. So if we’re ever going to do it, now is the time to get off the crest of our wave onto the trough of the bigger townhouse wave.

Harlem townhouses have been particularly hard hit in the downturn because they were always rather speculative. I remember years ago looking at them and realizing that it was the same price for a run down, but habitable townhouse as it was for a façade where everything had falled down inside. They peaked about 2 years ago and have gone down about 50% since then -at least at the lower end, which is where we’d be looking.

On top of that nothing is selling. We haven’t confirmed it, but one broker told us only 2 Harlem townhouses have closed since the stock market went down in late September. People who need to sell are getting desperate and there’s one townhouse that sold for $1.5M in July of 2007 that’s now asking $350K in a short sale. That’s 75% off, and the purchase price will probably be even lower. [That property does have "issues" in that it's a fully occupied SRO with a stop work order issued against it, just to name a couple of its problems.]

The problem is everything in our price range needs $500K in renovation. Nearly all the townhouses in Harlem were built around the turn of the century. Electricity was a new thing back then, so they’ve got crappy 100+ year old plumbing and electrical all of which needs to be replaced. Completely replacing all the plumbing and electrical means ripping out a lot of walls, ceilings and possibly floors. On top of that many of the ones in our price range became SRO’s (rooming houses) which mean heavy use. It’s actually amazing how many of the details survived, but to bring things up to “upper middle class” standards requires pretty much a full gut renovation, which is why everything needs $500K in renovation.

While everything needs a $500K renovation you pretty much can’t get a construction loan to do the renovations given the crisis in the banking industry. But we still have a few options…

Buy something all cash

A while back I didn’t think buying something all cash was even an option, but recently the townhouse you see to the right went on the market asking $350K in a short sale. We’d actually be able to buy that all cash and have enough left over to do basic fix ups, though not a proper renovation.

The thing is, properties like that come with a lot of strings. This is the one I was referring to earlier that is a fully occupied SRO (4 SRO units, 2 regular apartments), and has a stop work order on the building, and a ton of building code violations. Given the number of building code violations it would seem the tenants are mad and making life miserable for the owner by calling the City and reporting problems with the building. That’s not a great situation to get ourselves into.

It also comes with a pile of legal issues since we can’t just cancel people’s leases. SRO tenants are pretty well protected in New York since they tend to be the poorest of the poor. So we’d have to work with a lawyer and pay people to leave the building. But at $300K it may be worth the trouble.

If we bought something all cash it means we’d have to fix it up over time. That’s easier said than done since we go back to the fact that they all seem to need new electrical and plumbing and that rips the building apart when it’s done.

Have the current owner hold a mortgage

To get a mortgage on a building it has to be “mortgageable” which means no building code violations, working kitchen(s), working bathroom(s), etc. Quite a few of the place we see listed have been partly demo’d and then the owners ran out of funds and didn’t complete the renovations. We can’t touch buildings like that because there’s no way to finance them.

Since we’ll need a construction loan for many of these places, but can’t get one, one option is to go with a place where the current owner will hold the mortgage. This option is sorta win-win for us and the seller since it gets the seller out of a money losing proposition, they sell at a price that’s not the bottom of the market, and they get regular income. The townhouse to the right is one of the townhouses where this is an option, though it’s probably just out of our price range at the moment.

The way it would work is we’d put down 20% ($150K+) and then we’d have enough cash left over for a very minimal renovation. Some things just wouldn’t get finished. We might rough in bathrooms and then leave them essentially as closets until we have the money to finish them since we won’t have a full $500K left over once we’ve done a down payment.

If I had to guess I’d guess this is the route we’ll take. But for a lot of townhouses it’s not an option since the current owner often has a rather substantial mortgage on the building.

Buy one that doesn’t need immediate renovation

The problem with buying one that doesn’t need renovation is that they’re currently a bit above our price range. We can go up a little over $1M, maybe $1.1M. The one to the right is a good example - it needs some work, but much of it can be deferred and it’s going for $1.25M. I think it’s safe to assume prices will go down this fall, so this is still an option for us since we don’t want to buy until fall or winter…

Still, the one to the right is a good example of how everything really needs a $500K renovation. That one has had some of the plumbing issues resolved and the electrical was “upgraded” by running conduits on the outside of the walls, which is hardly aesthetically pleasing. The owner put in new windows, but they’re cheap pine windows that won’t last all that long. The rear exterior of the building looks like a mess and probably needs a lot of work. The floors have a thin parquet veneer on them that will be destroyed the next time they’re sanded which means it needs new floors in many places as well. And the renovations that have been done were done cheaply - and that’s just what I can see with a naked eye.

The bottom line is that if we can get one like that one it still needs a big renovation. Sure it’s mortgageable, but the long-term cost of the place is really high.

Wrap Up

There’s a lot more I could say about all this, but I’ll leave it for another post… By putting our place on the market we’re sorta taking a leap of faith and hoping that there will be something we like that we can afford when it comes time to buy. Our back up plan is to look at other parts of Harlem (we’re only looking in Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill right now since we want to be near the 145th Street stop on the ABCD trains), and then there’s always Brooklyn. A couple months ago we went and saw open houses in Brooklyn and saw enough to know we can always find something there that will suit our needs and be in our price range. But we’d really prefer to be in Manhattan…

I owe Terry a lot - she provided guidance and a job at a really critical time in my life when my parents were cutting me off and rejecting me and I was conflicted about my sexuality (though I don’t think we ever discussed my being gay). In many ways she was a bit like a mother to me for 2 years and a stable, sane force in my life.

Anyway, her husband is Douglas Laycock - a law professor who’s argued in front of the Supreme Court. He made a comment about gay marriage and Jon Stewart found his name funny and said “…there’s still room to giggle inappropriately at an experts name…” He wondered what it would be like if ABC News had two experts on gay marriage - Dr. Laycock and “Sodomy J. Balltickle”… Start at time code 2:00 to see what I’m talking about…

As Jon Stewart said, the comments are inappropriate. Personally I think Doug Laycock should try to get on The Daily Show - it’s a bit of a status thing these days, even if you’re made fun of in the process…

Another big selling point for us was that they were aggressive in what they planned to do, but not to the point of being tacky or inappropriate. Simply put, they were “hungry” for the listing. We had some other brokers give impressive presentations, but Francisco and Maria’s presentation beat them all - mostly through sheer hard work and preparation. Furthermore they were more creative in having marketing strategies that were particularly well targeted for our apartment. We figured if they worked that hard to get the listing they’d work equally hard to sell the the place once they had the listing. Some other agencies just wanted another listing to add to the long list of apartments they were selling - it wasn’t clear we’d get much special attention.

One agent from another firm even referred to Barak as “cockroaches”, but the comment backfired on them since what is better able to adapt after a disaster than a cockroach? Selling real estate in this market after the financial disasters of last year is much like a cockroach scrounging for food. It takes someone who thinks like a cockroach to really prosper in an environment like this.

Their first step was to have photographs, floorplans and virtual tours done by Digit-Tec. Here are the pics they took (click on the pics to see a larger version)…

The pictures are good. The camera distorts things a bit since it had a fish eye lens, but that’s typical for real estate photos. The colors are a bit distorted in some of the pics - they made things lighter and brighter than they are, but again that’s typical for the industry. All in all good photos…

They also did virtual tours which are a bit freaky to watch since there’s so much distortion, but that’s true of all virtual tours. Personally I don’t like virtual tours, but other people like them…

But the real question is whether their efforts and plans are getting results. We had the first open house this past weekend and 21 people signed the signin sheet! That’s actually incredible - it was so far over expectations they ran out of listing sheets for people to take with them. They said about 5 were curious neighbors, but 3 seemed like real prospective buyers which is good as well. On top of that they’ve got a private showing set up for Thursday evening with one of their buyers, and another one late Friday afternoon with a client from another agency. Private showings are good since they tend to be more serious buyers.

A lot of brokers are taking this weekend off since it’s Passover and Easter. Instead Maria and Francisco are dedicated to doing open houses every weekend until there’s an accepted offer and this weekend they’re timing it so maybe they can get people coming from church (there’s one across the street from our building).

It’s been on the market less than a week, but we’re feeling if Maria and Francisco can’t sell it, no one can… They really are giving it their all… Hopefully we’ll get a good offer soon!